625: From 0 to 22,000 followers in less than a year on Threads w/Joshua Lindsey.

Speaker A: Hey, it's Leah, host of the Managing Made simple podcast. I started working with Adam because I had a new podcast and I wanted to grow my show. So I looked on the podcast app under. Under Podcast Growth or something like that. I found his show, I started listening and was instantly hooked. I loved the episode where he does the audit with folks. He gives so much value. And so I said, you know, I gotta work with this guy. And, um, I reached out, we started the program, and immediately it became transformational and really making clear offers that connect my audience, that, that really give people exactly what they need as they go on that listener journey. And basically by listening to his show and becoming a client, I saw, wow, his method works and he is so fun to work with. So awesome. Thank you, Adam, so much. I've just loved working with you pod pals.

Speaker B: If you want some of my best podcasting tips, make sure you subscribe to my free Podcasting Business School newsletter. Every Thursday, I sit down and write a fresh newsletter in real time without the use of any AI. And here's the best part. My newsletter topic is completely different from my podcasting topic each week. So if you want to join the 4,000 plus podcasters that are reading my Podcasting Business School newsletter each week, head on over to www.podcastingbusiness.school or just hit the link in the show notes. What's up, pod pals? It's your buddy Adam, and you are listening to Podcasting Business School. It's a show where I teach podcasters simple strategies to help you grow your audience and turn your podcast content into new clients. And today we have got one of my favorite content creators coming on the show, and this is his first ever podcast interview. So I'm very excited, uh, to, um, welcome him to the world of podcasting. We're bringing Joshua Lindsay on the show to talk about threads, thread strategies, how to get clients and customers and sell things on threads, how to grow it and grow your audience. Uh, I'm very excited. So, Joshua, welcome to the show, man.

Speaker C: Adam, how you doing? It's great to see you. Great to see you. I think, uh, you're taking my podcast virginity.

Speaker B: I love, I love that for you, man. Uh, I will be, uh, uh, easy on me. Yeah, I'll be like a very courteous guide into the world of podcasting here. It'll be a gentle experience.

Speaker C: No, uh, but thanks for having me. It's great.

Speaker B: Well, I've been following you on threads for quite a while now, and you are kind of what I would call a an influencer on that platform. You're growing really fast. You're helping a lot of people. Your, uh, story resonates with, you know, like normal people, which I love. Like, that's what I shoot for too. I'm like, I'm not trying to be Alex Hormozy and wear a breathe right nasal strip and a mullet and a flannel shirt and do, and sell a million dollars in one second and all these things. Like, I'm a regular dad person. And I feel like you, uh, have a kind, uh, of a common interest in helping normal people do cool things and kind of reclaim control over their life. So I want to start the conversation.

Speaker C: That's it. That's freedom.

Speaker B: Yes, exactly.

Speaker C: Yeah, I want to give people freedom, right? Because I've just Left corporate after 14 years, right. Working for communications agencies, working in the public sector, working in the political spaces. And I've been selling other People's stories for 14 years and I suddenly realized I'm just not selling my own. I burn out. Like, uh, a lot of us have from the kind of modern workplace. We've just sort of realized that this isn't service us anymore. And we can't kind of keep going into the Office and having KPIs and circling back and then coming back and doing bedtime. And we're just not there for our family. So, you know, by contrast, today I was posting, doing my engagement with my seven, uh, month old daughter snoring in my lap.

Speaker B: And I saw the picture as well on threads. Uh, it was great.

Speaker C: It was great. I had to like, make sure Face wasn't in it because I don't want it. Training their AI models on, on her.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that's a good call. So, um, you kind of, you know, started to allude to this, but I want to know like, the origin story of you getting serious about threads. Uh, and like you got on the platform, obviously we all kind of test some things out, but it seems like things started to click early on and you were like, okay, I need to take this. Yeah, you could say push.

Speaker C: You could say that. So, um, it was March 26, 2025, and I was on the way to my uh, corporate job at a public sector job in a government organization. Um, and I was on my way to work and I, and I, and I just discovered that my wife was pregnant. Right. So that was with our, uh, with our now seven month old daughter. And we were, we'd had a terrible time the first time around and, and uh, you know, and she really needed me to be there. And I was like, how can I justify going to this job where I'm doing these tasks, where it does not feel like I am making a meaningful contribution? And I think this is why people empathize with my story. Because so much of what people are doing in their modern work these days is either not giving anything to the wider kind of society or community or. And is not giving them time for their families. So I was walking to the station March 26, and, um, uh, honestly, my feet just started to take me home. And I said to my wife, what am I going to do? I, I cannot keep doing this anymore. And she said, well, you have to, you have to go to work because everybody has to go to work. And I said, is that really the case? I started to look at, um, influencers and what other people were doing on the, on the Internet, talking about kind of corporate burnout and that sort of thing. And, you know, there's people who are 10 steps ahead of you, you know, as you say, Alex Hormasi and stuff like that. And I was like, nobody can attain those heights. So what is the smallest possible thing that I can do to reclaim some of my identity, some of my creativity? And I always loved writing when I was, ah, when I was younger, I, um, and I studied politics and philosophy. I talk about that a little bit. Right. And I, and I, um, um. So I always had this kind of creative spark in me that was just getting squashed in that corporate environment. So I started posting online. I kind of started posting jokes and just stuff that was happening in my life. And Threads was the thing that took off. I, I tried a couple of other things. I can talk about that if you're interested. But like, I tried a bunch and Threads was the thing that took off. And as you say, by, uh, December time, so I started fully in June, and then by December time, I had 10, uh, thousand followers. By February, I had 20,000 followers and built this community of like, kind of millennials who are all trying to make their corporate exit together.

Speaker B: Yeah, less than a year to 20,000 followers. I mean, that's super impressive. And to me, I think about social media, Threads, um, is the first platform, and I've been doing this for 11 years. Like, threads is the first platform where I realized, like, oh, wow, my content is better because I actually enjoy this platform. Like, there's that chicken and the egg scenario of I feel like every, all these, like Instagram and LinkedIn. Oh, like, I think you and I share a little bit of distaste for LinkedIn. Like, I throw up in my. I use the puke emoji a lot when I'm describing LinkedIn. Uh, but like threads, I actually enjoy being there, therefore my content is better. Wow, who, who would have thought? So, like, what did make threads kind of stand out for you as you. You know, I always encourage people to experiment on different platforms. I'm not like you have to do threads if you're a podcaster. But, um, like, what made it stand out for you personally when you're like, oh, wow, this is kind of easy, maybe a little bit lucrative and it's a lot of fun.

Speaker C: I think fun is the key, right? And I was listening to a podcast about Joy Maxing earlier and I think we will need to be thinking about what we want from life rather than living each day like it's another one gone. We have to start thinking more in the present. And that's my kind of hundred mile high thing. But let's talk about threads. So I started. So I was like an old fashioned, um, uh, WordPress guy, right? At university I was like building WordPress sites and editing the student newspaper and stuff like that. Old technology. So when I started to think, oh, maybe I want to start to make an online presence, uh, I started to go like, I thought I had to make a landing page, I thought I had to make a website, I thought I had to um, get my SEO sorted. It was going to be like a five year thing. I didn't really honestly take social media particularly seriously and um, I kind of took it as fun and when I started posting on LinkedIn. So I always say that if you are a corporate refugee or soon to be corporate refugee, threads is the best place to grow. Because what threads does is it's the best place to get organic growth on the Internet. Because the um, algorithm is quite new, it is not throttled in the same way that LinkedIn or X is. And um, you can train the algorithm and train your audience to uh,

Speaker B: really

Speaker C: kind of understand what it is you're about if you use some quite straightforward tactics. You just have to know about emotive language and talking to your customer and that sort of thing. That's all stuff I learned afterwards. But really it was just because it was fun, it was engaging, it was building um, that network. And um, as I said, I didn't know what I was doing. I knew that I needed to build an online presence because I felt that having a personal brand will be useful. But, uh, I didn't think particularly years Ahead. I just thought, I'm going to start posting and start making maybe some entertaining content, maybe some educational content. I was posting a lot about the workplace and what it's like to work in 2026 in an office, and that seemed to resonate with people. So I kind of just double down on that stuff. And, you know, you start to then bring people along with you who sort of share the same interests as you, and then you. You go, okay, so we've. We're all kind of in this, um, building something outside of the corporate environment together. Let's see how, uh, how much we can niche further. Okay, so now we're. We're talking to, like, in particular, dads who are building outside the corporate environment. You start to layer that into your story and into your content. And I think what I see a lot is people who start and they try and be perfect, and they try and be, uh, they try and be. They, uh, sound a bit. I. And we can talk about AI. I have a lot to say on that topic. But imperfection thrives on threads. You know, I say to my clients, it is like you're in the biggest millennial group chat in the world, and you want to be firing off your heart finished thoughts and your, um, you know, inside jokes and the things that you're enjoying about your day. Um, I wouldn't worry too much at the start about going viral or building a massive audience. What I would do is, is start getting the repetitions in because you want to be showing up each day, um, posting something, at least something, preferably more things. Um, we can talk about that optimization if you want. I know a lot of people are interested in sort of when to post and that sort of thing. Um, but. But I think right at the start, going from 0 to 1 on online is so important. Right. I remember. I'll let you speak in a minute, but I remember, um, saying to my wife, like, there's people who post on LinkedIn every day. What are they doing? And then when it came to threads, I was like, oh, actually, that. That isn't so hard because it's 500 characters and you can kind of post thoughts and you can kind of be a bit more informal.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I love it because it's text. I struggled so much with all the video. I was like, man, I spent 45 minutes recording this Instagram reel, and I'm dancing around like an idiot. And I bought like a. A 1970s blue powder blue jumpsuit. And I'm just trying to, like, see if I can get Some attention. And no one likes it except my dad because he likes all my videos, you know, and then,

Speaker C: I mean, shout out to your dad. And that's, that takes a level of psychological safety that I don't have. I, uh, I had to block all my friends when I started.

Speaker B: Oh, that's. Now that's interesting. That's interesting. Okay, so I want to know, uh, uh, kind of just a real high level core strategy of Joshua going from 0 to 20k and just things like, okay, how many times a day did you try to post, what types of posts were you trying to like? Shorter, snappy. I know, like, I've done some of your trainings with like, with hooks and everything. That's, it's absolutely phenomenal. But just how many days, what types of posts and what not to do. So I think there's a lot of people that go, oh, I'm just going to share. Hit that little button on Instagram that says share to Threads. And I'm like, all those videos and all those pictures, guess what? They're not doing so well. Uh, so kind of a core strategy from 0 to 20k. What, what really seemed to help you cadence wise and content wise.

Speaker C: Okay, so I think the first thing, if you were starting from zero, uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be talking to, um, assuming you're, you're still in a job or looking to grow on threads. And Maybe you've got 10, 15 years experience in something, but you, uh, have very much experience posting online or you post on other platforms and you're just new to threads. I think the first thing that I would say is talk to your younger self. So you want to be guiding and sharing your experience, your knowledge, the scars that you have, the things that you've overcome, and sharing them to your younger self. I always say someone who is six months to two years but behind where you are. Because so much of what we do is being a leader of a little community or a business. So much of it is serving people. And the best person to serve is yourself, um, a little while back. So that's the first thing in terms of, uh, what to post. Um, I kind of break it down into broadly kind of three types of posts for my clients. I say you want to have some posts which are designed, designed to grab attention. You want to have stuff which is, uh, entertaining or, uh, contrarian. You have to look at your industry and think, what is everybody saying that I disagree with? Um, you have to think what is your brand and what are the I, I call Them heroes and villains. Okay, so when I go through it with a, with a client, I say what are the heroes of your brand, what are the things that you will stand for and what are the things that you stand against? So pick three things that you. So for me that is like freedom, family and time in nature and things that you stand against. Right. That's why I dislike AI writing. I wouldn't even call it writing. I think that it is synthetic. I think it's the average of all output of human creativity. And um, so uh, things that you stand against, I stand against those kind of corporate power structures where you have to do what you're told because I think in my heart I'm a creative. Um, so think about where you want to position yourself and what you're for and against. Um, and then that will form your kind of content pillars, your beliefs, your experience, that will form another content pillar. Um, so you have your kind of attention grabbing content and that can be quite short form. When you're scrolling through the threads feed, notice what you're stopping on, what you want to comment on, what you're liking and notice what's getting like five, six, seven times more likes than other things and have a look at it, see why it's working. Never steal, but put it in your own words and um, experiment. So those attention things, you can create a tremendous amount of volume on threads you can post. Uh, you know, I think if you're starting try post once a day. But my highest ever post, high, highest day of posting was, I kid you not, 67 times. So my 2 year old would be proud because he's running around the house saying 6667. 67.

Speaker A: Yeah,

Speaker C: but there are people who are posting more than that and the algorithm is at the start in particular, the algorithm is um, customer focused enough that it won't show your crummy work to people who to, to people. It just suppresses it. So don't worry about posting stuff that's bad, that, that isn't, that isn't maybe embarrassing or cringe because you have to, you have to get through that bit. And the only way you get through that is by posting a lot, writing a lot. Um, so yeah, so post a lot of volume. Post a lot of those entertaining posts. A lot of those attention grabbing posts make a lot of noise and then when you, once people are following you and you've got the attention, then you need to ground them, right? So you've grabbed them, then you need to ground them. You need to ground them. With authority. Okay, so there is something that you are an expert in that you have skills in that you've built a career around. And that is what you want to teach people that you know and you want to teach them in frameworks. Frameworks work very well on threads. Um, so you can, you know, grab people with a hook. Hook is the first few words of the post. Um, people love to see things like numbers, they love to see explicit dates. That's why I talk about March 26, 2025. I burn out for the third time. They love to see, they love to talk about, um, cash and how much, you know, creators are making. Um, but they also like that contrarian take that works quite well in the, in the hook. Um, something which will, which will get attention, make them want to read the post. You're then, uh, making an authority threaded post. I call them multiple threaded posts. Teaching your system, teaching your frameworks. And at the end you are saying, if you want more, save this post and uh, follow me. And here's my lead magnet. We can talk about lead magnets and product stack if you want and how that works on threads. Um, but uh, yeah, it's a similar format to, to Instagram or LinkedIn, I suppose. But you always want to have a purpose to every post. So is this an attention post? Is this an authority building post or the last one? It's just a straight up ask. Sometimes when you've built your audience, they trust you enough that if you say, guys, I run a newsletter, you're going to like it. They'll jump on.

Speaker B: Now, uh, it's like you're uh, just reading my, my greatest hits of ideas that I've, I've borrowed from you. Like what? I, I mean, here's a great tip for everybody that's listening. You need to follow Joshua's account, look at what he is doing and look at the hooks he's using especially. And go like he said earlier, what's my version of that? Like, uh, like what is my niche version of what he just said? Put it in my own words. It is funny. Uh, the other day I had someone, uh, for the first time ever, just straight up copy and paste and re and posted one like my content as their own. And here's, here's my response. I just put like the little winky emoji and I was like, I also love sharing these tips.

Speaker A: Awesome.

Speaker B: And they unfollowed me.

Speaker C: Quite funny because I've got this lead magnet, right? I've got this, this, this free guide. If you download my Free guide. You go onto my newsletter, you get weekly tips on threads and growth and business. And increasingly I'm talking about business and product and revenue and all those things because I'm sort of scaling upwards as well at the moment. But um, in my free guide there are 11 viral templates which took me to 10,000 followers. So I see the little ping on my phone and then I see people try out my hooks and see what's working and that's you know, incredible. And I just want to plug Simon who just started uh, uh, on the February, uh, we started working together. He had 170 followers today. I checked, he has 98,000 followers. It is phenomenal. So that's what I mean by organic reach.

Speaker B: Yes, it's incredible. And that resource is how I started uh, my journey with uh, you as well. So it's awesome. And I'm gonna make sure I have a full show notes full of all the important links to dive into Joshua's stuff. So you guys can uh, just kind of count on that. Now we've talked a little bit about leveraging threads to grow your, your email list. I feel like this is a natural progression. It's, I mean it's a, the thing I like about threads is it's a text primary platform and I always try if I'm going to give a call to action. I like kind of an apples to apples transition. So if people are on threads text based platform they'll probably also like reading newsletters and things like that. So I'm always plugging my newsletter and uh, it converts over nicely. So what's worked for you as far as posting uh, and having people make that leap from threads into your email list?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So I've tried a couple of different things. So um, the first thing I had was just like a landing page because I was copying the big shots, Justin Welsh creators, that sort of thing. Right. Massive influence on me. And um, I was like, okay, Justin Welsh has just got a landing page for his newsletter so I'll do that. And it was kind of converting, I got to like 50, 60 people. Um, but I was using the kit landing pages. So you know, if you've, if you've got a newsletter you're probably using Beehive or Kit or substack. I chose Kit. Um, so the kit landing page it was kind of working. Um, but the real unlock for me was moving to Stan, which then allowed me to have that mobile first uh, form which then fills. You can people just put their email address in? Right. And the, the thing that converts. The most that I see is when I talk about how much I make as a creator or how many followers I have. Because you want to be using language, which it's called egomorphing in copywriting. You're putting the audience, you're showing the audience something that they want. Yeah. So you're kind of using this emotive language, but also this like, oh, how do I get where that person is language. And that's not to be manipulative, that's just to be like, I've kind of gone through this. I've kind of have the scars, I kind of made all the mistakes. Don't worry about doing the kit landing page. Don't worry about, you know, using Gumroad, uh, for your product. You know, just, just do this method, um, which, you know, and just going back to LinkedIn, my favorite topic, you know, don't post on LinkedIn because it's not psychologically safe because your boss is there. Post on threads because it's a lot of fun and you can grow quickly, you know. So, um, that's what I always say. Um, in terms of link, in terms of emails. Uh, yeah. Did you, did you want me to keep going on that one?

Speaker B: I mean, uh, I think one of the questions that I had where again, I follow your stuff pretty closely because I can see that it's working and it seems like, uh, if you do what I would call like a super thread, like a multi threaded post, so it's like main topic and then replies with extra tips and things. True or false. Do you wait a little bit before you post something with a link in it? Like is it a little bit of a delay? And I see other people doing this as well. And that seemed like if you just post something for people that aren't on threads, if you post something with a link in the first post, it just gets suppressed and nobody sees it for the most part. Uh, so is there like a delay strategy where you, where, where you do link a little bit later on or what are your thoughts?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, it's a good question. So my, um, the algorithm does suppress things. I have not, I do not have scientific data on this. But my vibe is that if you use things like link in bio in your copy and um, you put the, put the link straight into your first post. Like on most platforms now if you put the link into your first post, it's going to suppress it. So um, shout out here, uh, I have a link for them. But the black twist guys, right? So these guys built A, ah, Twitter scheduling tool, engagement tool, and then transferred it over to threads when things got nasty on Twitter. Great guys from Italy and I use their um, platform which uh, allows you to schedule a follow up pinned comment. Getting a bit technical now, but a follow up pinned comment with a link in it after certain criteria. So after 10 likes or after 45 minutes, I kind of experiment with um, that version of likes versus minutes. Um, if you're just starting out, you know, probably two or three likes is a good trigger to have that pinned post. Come on. Um, or the workflow that I did for the longest time. Excuse me. Or the workflow that I did for the longest time was to at the end of the day copy and paste the pinned post with my link in it and just go through my best performing threads of that day and pin

Speaker B: it to those ah, uh, I like that. That's simple that that's something that again at the end of the day go and look at and again setting some sort of a standard of any post that gets 100 views or 500 views or 10 likes or whatever. And you can kind of do that your, and gauge the uh, impact there.

Speaker C: You want to work out what good performance looks like for you, right? So high engagement and high reposts are uh, the kind of key thing. You know, if you're just starting out, one or two is absolutely fine. Um, and then the other just on that workflow I got into the habit at the end of every day I would scroll back through my own timeline, 60 days and find stuff that I had said which performed well and repost that. So you kind of get into this cycle of growth. Repost, growth, repost. Because your audience at the start, when the, when the algorithm figures out who your audience is, you're growing so fast that they won't even see you. You won't even see 60 days behind you or they certainly might not remember it.

Speaker B: Now on that repost strategy you just mentioned, that is resharing the original post as opposed to uh, copying and pasting the text and posting it again as a new post.

Speaker C: No, straight up posting again.

Speaker B: Okay, just posting again.

Speaker C: Okay. Yeah, copy and paste.

Speaker B: Okay, okay, okay. I like that even better. Um, I mean I do a lot of that. That's something that has served me well. I have a massive, I show my clients this. I have a massive Google sheet with, or ah, Google Doc with multiple tabs where I have hundreds of pages of all my threads posts categorized like different, different topics, different, you know, content pillars. When I last posted, then how many Views, and I just copy and paste and I try to go. I have like, my winners tab. I'm like, okay, I have to post three or four winners every single week. And, and uh, and to kind of allude to what you said, uh, a little bit ago about creating content for that version of you, that's a few steps behind my number one all time super thread. Ah, the hook is like 10 lessons. I wish I somebody had told me when I started 10 years ago. And I m mean, it always rips and I get dozens of new followers, and every single time I post it, it works. And sometimes people are nervous about that on social media and people who didn't see it didn't see it.

Speaker C: So, yeah, yeah, repost your greatest hits. Just don't report them every day. Um, excuse me. I have two children, so I'm constantly fighting, uh, off coughs and flu. Um, the, the. What was I gonna say? Yeah, I throw myself off.

Speaker B: Well, I'm sure, I'm sure it'll come up again because we're on a hot streak here now. Something I've noticed with your journey is monetization, uh, uh, shifts. Uh, it feels like you've kind of gone through a Nash natural, uh, progression of scaling up from selling a digital product, like a lower ticket digital product, into more coaching, consulting. Uh, thoughts on those two avenues? Because for a while, I kind of became obsessed on threads. I see all these people that are like, these sub$100 digital products, and then they post the thing. It's like, I sold 70 of these today, and I'm like, oh, my God. And I buy the course. I'm like, this. I think this lady is an AI lady, and I don't think it's a real person.

Speaker C: I think that course tells me how to resell that course.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that just happened. Uh, so thoughts on people that, like, you feel like that's a valid strategy still to sell?

Speaker C: Like, I don't want to. I don't want to shit on anyone who's making money online because we're all supporting our families and stuff. So if it's working for you, crack on. But, like, it's not my vibe. And I'll tell you why. Because I think that there is a tremendous amount of talent out there locked up inside the workplace, which is not being utilized. And I think if we cut out the middleman of the employer and sell our talents directly over the Internet, we can, um, a help more people make more money and have more time to spend with our loved ones. So my strategy is Always to work with my clients to get them in five sessions by the way, I only do five sessions with my clients. I want to lock them in to, to an 80 day exit, that's what we call it. So we go from I don't know what to post to I have validated a product and I am taking on high ticket clients as a result of that. Okay, so the first few sessions we get your origin story right, we get your uh, content strategy right, we talk about what works on threads because it is so personal, because it is so um, emotive because people are there to escape somewhat. Right? So we talk about what works there and then we, and then we, then we talk about how you are unique, what makes you stand out and then we go on to. Okay, and now you need to talk about the things that you've overcome and talk about the things that you know and talk about the lessons that you've learned in a way which makes people want to follow you. And then once you've got the followers, then you need to uh, turn those followers are into email subscribers because as you know, having had your account uh, banned, um, you need to build your email list. Congratulations on getting back that, that back. Um, one thing that everybody listening here needs to do today is get threads verified, get meta verified. Um, because that is like, it doesn't, it doesn't solve all your problems. But there is so much AI on the platform, there is so much um, suppression of AI that sometimes their meta's algorithm sometimes a little heavy handed. Um, yeah. So, uh, so, so you want to, you want to be talking to your younger self, you want to be building your email list. Then once you kind of have a direction of what your, where you think your content is going, you probably honestly you have to do something which is as equally cringe as starting to post online. Because starting to post online is cringe. Let's, let's not be, um, let's not, let's not be too precious about it. Starting to post online is cringe. The next cringe thing is talking to strangers and you have to go into their DMs and say, hey, I've noticed you're commenting on these posts and thinking about building this product based on my 10, 15 years experience. Um, what would you be up for a 15 minute chat? Um, jump on a call with them, talk about what they're struggling with, talk about what's working for them, what's not working for them. You're not trying to sell at this point, you're trying to um, Understand the challenges that they're going through and you as the expert in that field can then build a product which solves those challenges. Then do not go and build a all singing, all dancing course or um, or program or community. Start with like a very low ticket digital product, um, which is somewhere between 1999, I'm British, so it's 1999 pounds or 90, uh, nine pounds, but preferably on the lower end. Start with a guide, a PDF, a customized GPT, something which people can pick up quite quickly and see the value in. And then you validated it, you can then start to. Once you've started to make those sales, you're not. It is very difficult to scale a business on digital products alone. So you're going to be making consistent sales with your low ticket offer. But the low ticket offer does not exist to fund your lifestyle. The low ticket offer exists to qualify your audience. So you then, once you, once, once you start making sales, the people who are buying the product you get to know, you jump into their DMs, you talk to them and you say, I'm going to put together a founders rate cohort. Okay. So the cohort is a group of people. Do uh, two to four people, really small group of people you sell it for, for uh, $99 or pounds. Um, you are not, again, you're not there to make money, you're there to get testimonials. Okay, so you want to uh, get the testament. You want to take people through a transformation. It's quite hard to talk about this because I'm talking in like abstract, I'm trying to talk about everybody's um, different topics. But let's talk about Mark, who's one of my clients. He works in the kind of men's productivity organization space. Okay. He's um, wanted to, he uh, wanted to create this, this big kind of course and do everything in productivity. And he'd created this awesome like personal operating system. Um, and we had to kind of fully scale it back and say no, no, no, no, no. Take three or four people from your mailing list who bought your um, digital products who trust you. Take them through a one hour to 90 minute workshop which has a specific transformation. That workshop then exists to uh, show the further value of your work, get testimonials and convert people onto your coaching or consulting service.

Speaker B: I mean this is an exact process that I've talked about before just with the podcasting medium. It's so interesting, like just looking at content creation from different platforms and different angles. But there's a lot of through lines. You know, it's really interesting where I'm always talking about how we have to build relationships with our, our podcast listeners. Like these people we have to get out of their earbuds and into their DMs and, and emails and, and that's why I love having these other connection points like threads, like my newsletter, because that seems to, to, um, lend towards those actual, uh, communications a little more. I send an email, people can reply back to the email, we can have an actual conversation. Same, uh, thing on threads.

Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love, I love email as well. Uh, my next course is going to be on email, but I, I have a kind of community organizing, political background, so I'm not a traditional, like, business guy. So for me it was always about, like, how do I show people away, bring people with me, serve people and provide for my family, you know, And I, I posted today, you know, I think that the best business people generally want good in the world and want to serve people. We're not, you know, we're not, um, try not to get in too much trouble by, uh, slagging off the billionaires.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: I don't want to suppress your algorithm.

Speaker B: Yeah, we don't, we don't worry about the, uh, Mr. Go rhythm on our, our, ah, one year at Halloween, I dressed up as Mr. Al Gorithm. That was, okay, very evil character. Um, but no, like, I think that, um, I just love the way that you're doing things on threads. And it's cool because I think I've been following you since maybe 12,000 followers and I've seen you kind of make that jump to another 10k. I've seen you sell those digital products. I see you building the email list. I see you doing the consulting now and like, packaging different things together. I'm like, I'm just, I'm so into being able to sit back and just kind of watch it all happen and now get to like, ask you real life questions about it. What, um, if somebody's trying to get clients via threads, what is just one thing that you definitely want them to do and one thing you definitely want them to avoid doing? So I want to get clients on Threads, Definitely do this and definitely avoid this other thing.

Speaker C: Okay. Definitely do be super clear about who you're selling to, who your client is. Right. My client isn't like dads who are, uh, in London who are, uh, burnt out, who want to leave their jobs, although they are, you know, they all can get something from my, from my from my. My content. My client is my friend Alex. He's just had a kid, just got married, works as a product designer. If I'm not identifying him, um, you know, I literally was like, okay, what is all of the things that this person needs? Because he was the closest avatar that I knew, I literally put a name to it. You know, a location, a job, a, um, age. And that works because that. The algorithm wants to help you. The algorithm wants to keep you and your audience on the platform by serving your audience content, which. Which resonates with them. So if you can help the algorithm be very clear about who it is that you're serving, um, you. You get farmed out to those people, you get pushed out to those people, um, in a. In a. In a relatively consistent way. So if you're just starting on threads, uh, get really clear about this formula. You go, I help X. That's your client Persona. Do y. That's the thing that your client wants, the transformation that they want. So I help Alex, uh, or I help burnout dads, um, leave their corporate jobs through. And then ABC is your method. So through writing online and starting a business in order to create freedom. And you can keep adding qualifiers to the end. So, like, in order to create freedom in 80 days is kind of what I'm going with now. But, um, yeah, so. So I help X do Y through ABC method.

Speaker B: Now, in that ABC method, are you name dropping your actual thing that you're selling, like the. The threads OS or like whatever that. Or is it more of a descriptive term?

Speaker C: More of a descriptive term.

Speaker B: Okay, yeah.

Speaker C: Ah, yeah, yeah. I help. I help Ben out. That's grown threads.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: So.

Speaker C: But you. But you're. You're like. My audience has a lot of dads in it because I talk about dads a lot. My audience has a lot of business people, business people, and solopreneurs in it because I talk about solopreneurship a lot. My audience also has a lot of parents in it because I talk about parenting a lot. So I think you want to talk about that intersection of your interests, but you always want to come back to it through your. Through your methodology. I say my entire kind of thesis is that the AI slop and the LinkedIn perfection and the Hustle bros. And the Crypto bros, and now the AI Prompt bros, uh, um, are, uh, insincere, inauthentic, insecure. I'm sorry if this is your audience.

Speaker B: No, no, not at all.

Speaker C: But, uh, there is a wave of talent waiting to, uh, join the, uh, people building businesses on the Internet, and that wave of talent is millennials who are our age who are seeking to use their talents to build a business and share their, um, knowledge directly, either through a side hustle or turning it into a full hustle.

Speaker B: I love it, man. So one of my, uh, threads replies when people are talking about Claude, my favorite thing to reply is, I keep asking this Claude fellow to be on my podcast, and no response. I'm from the Midwest, and people just assume I'm not. I'm not that smart. I'm not claiming to be that smart, but I'm like, I keep asking this Claude fellow to be on my show. No response.

Speaker C: Well, that was my thing. You asked me what the. What the one thing I would say don't do.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And don't use AI to write your content. Yeah, I use AI every day. Day, uh, in, day out. I'm talking to Claude. I'm ideating my. My first, um, kind of. Could I. Could I do this? Could I not? Those conversations, they all came from these long walks that I would take early in the morning before the kids woke up with the dog. I would take these long walks and I would talk to a voice note just about what I was going through and what I was experiencing and what it felt like working in this organization that was not, uh, serving me longer. And. And I would feed them into Claude, and then I'd have that Claude exploratory mode. Just feed it back to me and say, okay, I'm hearing this, I'm hearing that. And that was an incredible process to go through. Um, and that. So that was, like, one use case. And then I would ask Claude to kind of cut it up and turn it into content. And that was another use case. But I was, I was. I notice increasingly that, that people are wise to AI rightly so whatever prompt you give it, however much of your transcripts are your conversations, uh, or your beliefs you give it, it still creates output, which is. Which feels uncanny. It feels too perfect. And I think that that's what people can experience. Um, it's like the horror movie where the little girl doll starts moving, Right? And we know that dolls shouldn't move, so it feels super uncanny. Uh, and we can't quite put our finger on why it feels so weird. So I think that there is this. This wave of imperfection happening. And, uh, and Adam Mozeri, um, I hope I didn't butcher his name. Um, he is the head of Instagram, and he said that more photos are shared in the DMS of Instagram now than on the main feed because people know that if it's a dm, it's probably going to be real, it's probably not going to be AI slop. They're not really using the main feed so much for sharing photos with their friends. They're using it in, in the DMs. So, you know, people really want this, uh, texture to their content, this rawness, this imperfection. So, you know, if you're looking to, to just start, um, the best advice that I can give you is write like you speak. And the worst advice is use AI. Like, do not, please do not use AI. Please do not put your stuff through AI. Please do not tell AI to tighten it up or make it clearer or anything like that, because it's too perfect

Speaker B: and fun fact, I know my audience knows this, but you don't know this. Uh, I describe myself as like 2026 version of, uh, Amish. Do you know what Amish is? Like the people.

Speaker C: Yeah, okay.

Speaker B: You know. Yeah, exactly. They turn the butter. I, I am, uh, 2026Amish. I've never used chat GPT Claude ever. I don't even know how to log onto it. Um, um, and it always surprises people by reason is I, I, I fully realized that my number one strength is my creativity. And I'm so afraid that if I weaken that muscle by letting something else do a little bit of the lifting, it really makes me nervous. And um, so, yeah, that's the reason why I'm not anti AI. I'm definitely anti, saying, hey, go write on my content for me. This is a post that I put on threads yesterday. Didn't do as well as I thought it would. It's a shame. Uh, I said part of the job description of being a content creator is actually creating content. And uh, so that's a part of the muscle that we have to strengthen and develop. So that's. I, uh, mean, and again, I love creating content. Content creation to me is recess, not detention. It is, it is what I want to be doing.

Speaker C: So, and as you said at the start, if it's not fun, don't do it. Like, maybe this isn't for you, you know, or maybe you need to try Tick Tock or, or Instagram or God forbid, LinkedIn. Um, not LinkedIn.

Speaker B: Do not do that.

Speaker C: If anybody wants to, I, I might start just posting like I talk on threads on LinkedIn. Uh, maybe we'll start revolution over there.

Speaker B: Yeah. Or just go on M. LinkedIn and just post puke emojis mainly and just see what happens. Maybe the algorithm will pick it up.

Speaker C: But as you said, it's part of the, part of the, um, it's part of the job description. And if Alex Hormozi can write his own threads. And by the way, I noticed Alex Hormozi is taking a lot more serious, taking threads a lot more seriously. He's posting a lot more on that platform now. I don't know if he's switched from primarily doing X to threads, which is his top of kind of content creation, but he's posting a lot more. Then if he can write his own threads, then anybody should.

Speaker B: One of my other favorite things to do on threads is get jump into Alex Hormozi's comments and I try to always bring up his breathe right nasal strip thing. You know, where's that?

Speaker C: I'm m. Like, yeah, yeah, another one. Yeah.

Speaker B: Like, if he's having like a bad day, I'm like, that's what happens when your breathe right nasal strip is too tight. It blocks the blood flow to your brain. Like, I always try to bring it up and I doubt he reads it or it, you know, it's not noticed at all. But I think it's funny. Um, okay.

Speaker C: Actually, there's an interesting branding point on that, right? Because you see people like trying to copy these, like, big creators, and these big creators are like 5, 10, 100 times higher than where you are. So you don't be copying them. You want to be like, following people who are a few steps ahead of you and learning from them and, you know, going on their first podcast and uh, learning to do short form video, which is like the next thing that I'm learning to do because they're the ones who are doing it imperfectly and showing you the way rather than people who've got a team. And you know, I don't know how much he invested in, in his, in his content creation, but it was in the millions and millions, wasn't it?

Speaker B: I mean, you just buy. It's a lot. I mean, millions of breathe right nasal strips. I mean, just imagine the budget for that. Having to swap one of those out every single day. My God. See, it comes naturally.

Speaker C: Like, I grew up with the, uh, nose and stuff. You know, classic ginger problem. I think, um, maybe I should try one.

Speaker B: Just don't wear it in your videos. Because nothing makes me want to punch somebody more than where. Than wearing a breathe right nasal strip in their, in their video. I'm like, I'm going to punch you in the face. Um, anyway, so I want to leave on a. I'm going to give you some homework, Joshua, because you're a threads influencer. You are a person that's, that's connected to uh, people that are doing things on threads, uh, in podcasting and like, you know, you look at different platforms, Instagram, uh, YouTube, people have figured out that, that content collaboration like in podcasting, it's called an interview swap. Hey, you have a podcast, I have a podcast. I'll be on your show, you be on my show, YouTube, same thing. Cross channel promotion, Instagram. Let's do a live stream together and promote each other's account. I can't figure out threads version of that. I've experimented. I've had guests on the show that are on threads. I go, hey, let's do a Q and A where I'll ask you some questions and you answer them in my feed and then we share it to both and flop.

Speaker C: It didn't work at all but.

Speaker B: Or like is it just sharing each other's stuff? Like so anyway, uh, I would love for you just to think about that. Like what is the, that content collaboration version, uh, on threads. I mean, any thoughts pop into your head at all on that?

Speaker C: I mean a couple of things. So like threads you were talking about, um, you know, what's the. Like you want to keep people in the, in the, in the same speed so you move people to email lists. So if you're using threads to grow your email list then uh, a great way to like continue to grow your email list is to collaborate on Beehive and Kit and uh, substack. You can, you know, recommend other people's email lists. So that's kind of one way it's not directly threads. Um, the other, the other thing is threads. I think this is, I think this is breaking news. I think it happened like today or yesterday. Uh, they've introduced 100 person group chats. So you can now create little mini communities in threads of like minded people, um, little mastermind groups, uh, and, and start sharing ideas and, and building a little community there. Uh, and then finally like events, you know, I, I met one of my clients, Mark, in, in person in London. And um, you know, I, I do think that one of the results of this AI perfection era that we're going through or you know, slop era is that we're going to want more human connection. I think, you know, as Gary Vee says, human connection is about to get very sexy.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: Um, and I'm down for that.

Speaker B: Yes, yes. That's I mean, that's what people are hungry for. You know, after we all went through the 2020 era and everybody stayed at home and. And it was funny. I had all these people, like, I stay at home all day, and I'm on Zoom. I'm like, uh, I've been doing this for eight years as a podcaster. That's what I do every day anyway, so. But the, uh. I think that real human content, real human connection, that's a way for normal people like you and I to stand out, and we, uh, can outperform some of these larger accounts that are trying to scale, delegate, and AI slop everything out there and be everywhere all the time. Um, you know, human connectivity isn't scalable. That's.

Speaker C: Threads is the best place to grow. It's the best place to meet people. It's the best place to build a community. It's got such a powerful algorithm behind it that if, you know, whatever niche you're in, and I'll just. I'll leave you with this final thought. My first, I started Threads when Instagram, like, introduced it, and then I didn't post for ages, but at the time, I was running a Dungeons and Dragons game, so I was posting about Dungeons and Dragons. And so there is this, like, remnant on my feed of, like, people who are interested in Dungeons and Dragons, and I sometimes see them if I scroll too far. Um, but. But. But what I'm saying is, like, just post about what you're interested in. The algorithm will figure it out, It'll find your people, and it will bring them towards you. Um, and, uh.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker C: And have fun.

Speaker B: Yeah, well said. That's a great point to finish on, Joshua. Um, shout out where you want people to come into your world and connect with you. I'll make sure all the links are in the show notes, but I highly recommend it.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yep.

Speaker C: Find me on Threads. I'm, uh, Joshua T. Lindsay on Threads. Uh, if you want to see my face and this, uh, little home office that I'm working in, then you can see me on Instagram as well, where I've just started. But Threads is my main platform.

Speaker B: All right, Josh, I really appreciate you coming on. I think you crushed your first podcast interview. And, dude, it's great to meet you. If you guys want to reach out to Josh, uh, Josh, make sure that you hit him up in the DMS and, uh, invite him onto your show and we can have a conversation, like, today. So, uh, everybody go and go, uh, to the show notes and get a hold of our pod pal, our new pod pal, Joshua T. Lindsay. Uh, and with that, everybody, I'm going to send you out into the world. Wishing you health, happiness, and many downloads. I will see you on the next episode.

Speaker C: Hi, this is Dwight Spencer from For the Love of Creatives podcast. One of my favorite episodes of Podcasting business school is 585, because Adam walks through all the details of running any coaching business in a way anyone can continently follow.