Category: InterviewCategory: Interview

Scott Perry (who I met via Seth Godin’s Akimbo workshops years ago) and I love talking about escaping social media, something he’s achieved after my incessant nagging over the last few years during his Creative On Purpose membership calls! Hah!

Escaping social media requries leaveing behind the idea of trying to reach everyone. It’s not about volume, it’s about the right people coming into your orbit.

Before we worry about marketing or growth, Scott says we need to ask, “who are you, what are you good at, where do you belong?”

Do we belong on crowded apps, mashing our creative round pegs into algorithmic controlled square holes for the likes?

Or do we belong in places more suitable for the work we’re trying to make?

Tweaking headlines, re-writing copy, adding testimonials, changing the color the button – you’ve done all these things, but you’re still not making the sale.

Two things – maybe your offering isn’t something that people need, or maybe there’s not enough trust yet.

I got talking about this in my conversation with Deanna Seymour, about sales pages. Well, long sales pages. You’ve seen them; two miles longs, 9000 words, and they don’t say anything.

Like Deanna says during this conversation, by the time she’s on a sales page, she already knows she wants the thing, to which I replied:

“I think it’s a trust thing. The trust that (is) built. Like, there are people that we both know, they could send a Google Doc with a PayPal button on it. Yes, I’m signing up because we built that trust. We trust them now. I don’t know that an 18-page sales page builds trust. I think the trust comes way before someone clicks on your sales page.”

You don’t fix trust with more copy. You fix trust by, well, building trust.

You build trust by showing up and doing what you say you’re going to do. By fixing the things you say you fix, and showing how you do it. Every step of the way, you’re reinforcing the belief that you’re the right person for the job.

I’ve seen a bunch of coaching websites with the “click here to book an intro call,” but not a single video showing their face, their tone, their vibes.

How do you build trust with a “book now” button?

Why would any woman hop on a call with a man in 2026 without seeing some videos?

Why would anyone sign up for a virtual yoga class without hearing your voice, or seeing how you manage an online session?

These things aren’t fixed with 5,000 word sales pages, or reading testimonials from people we don’t know. Trust is built brick by brick, by showing up as your full human self, and sometimes that includes seeing your face and hearing your voice.

Listen to “Building a Business Without Social Media with Seth Werkheiser” on Deanna Seymour’s Big Fun, Small Business podcast here.

I recently did a Substack live with Elin Petronella, an independent artist based in Paris who’s been building a creative business on her own terms for the last ten years.

She’s got half a million followers across Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest, and she’ll be the first to tell you that’s not even the point, as she recently walked away from monetizing on Substack, dropped her bestseller badge, and has been focusing on something more sustainable ever since.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t retain ownership this whole time. All the links are always going back to my own site,” Elin Petronella

All those followers across all those social media platforms is great and all, but if you’re not pointing them to something that’s more permanent, or if you’re not giving curious fans something to explore, you’re leaving money on the table.

As Elin explains, she has 200K followers on Instagram, and a single post might still only get 3,000 views. But if you can get just 1% of 3,000 click to your website, that’s still 30 people.

“How are you doing it before you had the idea that you wanted to monetize it? What are you already doing when people are not watching? What is your natural way of creating before you start thinking about eyes watching it or monetizing it? Double down on that,” Elin Petronella

When we start paying attention to how other people are doing things and assuming that that’s the way to do it, that’s where we can get in trouble. Trust your gut. Get back to the things that you enjoyed when you started making the work that you’re making.

This my third conversation with Max Pete, and we talk about the difference between having an audience and building an actual community, the slow grind of consistent output versus going viral, and why honest and real beats polished on social right now – and actually how the most best thing you can do on any platform isn’t broadcast, but connect people to each other.

“One of the coolest things about having an audience is bridging the gap between so-and-so and someone else. Being like, oh, someone’s looking for someone — I know that person. I can connect them together. That is the coolest thing.”

If you’re looking for help with building a regular outreach habit or just need a pep talk about charging what you’re worth, this is a good one to watch.

I spoke with Cody Cook-Parrott ahead of the release of their new book, The Practice of Attention. We also talked about the messy and imperfect journey we’re all trying to figure out, too. Buckle up.

Cody deleted Instagram, and they also left Substack for Buttondown, returned briefly, then left again and lost their paid subscribers in the process.

“I felt a little flippant, almost. Like, oh, I can just build it back. And it’s like, it took me four years to build that many paid subscribers. It wasn’t like it just happened one day. And so I’ve been really thinking about how precious it is to have — I would like to think I would never delete my email list as a whole. I see people making quick decisions without really realizing how it might affect their self-employment landscape.”

We talked about social media, of course, but arrived in a new place.

(more…)