Newsletter & Email Growth: Growth In Reverse

AUDIO - CEX Recap v2 Descript
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Dylan Redekop: [00:00:00] So Chenell, you just got back from CEX in Cleveland. Why don't you tell people a little bit about that experience? 'cause I think you had a good time, you spoke there. What is CEX and , how did it change your life?

Chenell Basilio: It was a really good conference. CEX stands for Content Entrepreneur Expo. It used to be the Creator Economy Expo.

And then they changed the phrasing because a publishing company called Lulu bought it, which helps. Uh, creators self-publish their books. Mm-hmm. So that's like their main, , conference now, which is awesome. Still the same content similar vibes, amazing people putting it on. But yeah, it was in Cleveland earlier this week.

I can't believe. I just got back yesterday, like, what day is it?

Dylan Redekop: And you drove right. .

Chenell Basilio: I did. Yeah. Yeah. The flights were like insanely expensive, like $900 to Cleveland, Ohio, and I was like, from Philadelphia, I was like, this is off. That's, I could go to like France for that. That's dumb money. Yeah. So I was like, I'm gonna drive.

It was only six hours. So yeah, the drive was nice. It was good to have [00:01:00] time to like, , gather my thoughts on the way home. Mm-hmm. So,

Dylan Redekop: I think the goal of this chat is to kind of glean the biggest takeaways that you found from CEX and maybe some lessons we can share with, uh, listeners that who weren't able to make it.

Things you saw, things you heard what's interesting, what's in the, what's new in the zeitgeist of newsletters and, and the creator, uh, economy.

Chenell Basilio: The one thing that keeps standing out to me is I ended up going Joe Pulizzi opened the conference. He did like a quick, he started this conference.

He did. Yeah, he has been in the marketing space for like decades, so he is very well known in this space. , I was super, super grateful for him to reach out and ask me to speak. , I felt super amounts of imposter syndrome there because the other speakers were like, really on their game and I'm like, who am I over here?

But it was fun. He actually, he spoke for like 20 or 30 minutes and then I. I pretty much opened it after that. Wow. And I was like, okay, this is crazy. So I was super nervous about that because opening a conference is a little nerve wracking. But it went [00:02:00] su it went really well. I am happy with how it turned out.

Got a lot of great feedback. I was super nervous because Jay Acunzo was there. Mm-hmm. And he is like. Professional speaker guy, and he was sitting like second row and I was like, come on Jay, I was hoping you like, slept in or something. So that was nerveracking

Dylan Redekop: or at least sat in the back maybe.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: His intimidating presence sitting there judging every word you say.

Chenell Basilio: Totally. But he's awesome and he, he gave me great feedback at the end which was nice to hear, he actually opened the second day, and I am so glad I didn't have to speak after him because he essentially run down, ran down a list of all the things you shouldn't do as a speaker, and I was like, oh man.

Um, Amanda Northcut got the, uh. The spot right after him and I felt very bad for her. Oh man, she did a great job. But like there's no help. You can't help, like you've been putting together this presentation and then Jay Acunzo comes up and he's like, here are seven things not to do. And it's like, yep, I have a slide for that.

I have a slide for that. Okay, great.

Dylan Redekop: Did Amanda acknowledge like, Hey, so I'm gonna do about six of the seven things [00:03:00] that he told me not to. Yeah, that's good. She did. That's good.

Chenell Basilio: She's like, you know, I never realized it was a dream of mine to get on stage after a professional speaker, but here we are.

Dylan Redekop: I was like, oh, that's good.

Chenell Basilio: Good on you. It was funny. That's funny. But no, it was awesome. I'm glad I went first. It really alleviated some, uh, pressure and nerves. Got a ton of great feedback and I think, um, the biggest takeaway just from speaking at this event was like, you never know who's. Reading your content online in the room listening.

Mm-hmm. Um, I had some people come up to me afterwards that I was like, if I knew you were here, I would've been so much more nervous. Like Mark Schafer, Robert Rose, there's some big names in the content marketing space, so they might not ring bells for everybody listening, but if you've been in this space for a while, you probably know who those folks are.

Dylan Redekop: Yep.

Chenell Basilio: And they gave some great feedback and I was like, whoa, that's really cool. But I think, yeah, the takeaway is just like you, you never know who's reading your content. You never know who stumbled across that LinkedIn post you just shared yesterday or, but maybe they didn't comment [00:04:00] and you'll hear about it in like a year.

So I think it's just a good reminder too. Not focus too much on like the outside metrics of things that you see online and focus really on just like putting out the best work you can and stuff that you enjoy. And eventually you'll get some feedback.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. You mentioned Mark Schafer. Did he tell you that you should stop publishing a newsletter and just write a blog instead?

Chenell Basilio: He did not actually. But he told me that the concept of insanely valuable content was like right. Up there. Okay. With like what he appreciates about marketing and stuff. So Nice. Yeah. Nice. No, he was talking about all kinds of, uh. TikTok ads and all all kinds of stuff. That's interesting. Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: I, I only ask because, and I know we're talking about CEX, but uh, this, since you brought this up or his name up, I wrote a post for Tilt Publishing back like three years ago saying blogs are dead.

Started newsletter instead essentially was like. The gist of it, and this was before, like those two were a little bit more synonymous with [00:05:00] each other. And he like had this rebuttal blog post where he just kind of like tore a strip out of my, I guess my com, my concept saying why would you start a newsletter when just you and your, you and your mom and your grandma who are.

Subscribe to it and, um, blog traffic gets all this stuff and, and, uh, it, it was fun. He messaged me after saying, Hey, just, I thought that this would be a fun thing to reply to. Don't take it personally. Um, and yeah, so it was all good. He is like, genuinely we should like sit down and have a drink sometime but it was funny.

He like publicly eviscerated me.

Chenell Basilio: That's great. Yeah, that's, you should put that in like your LinkedIn bio.

Dylan Redekop: Got,

yeah,

Chenell Basilio: got torn to shreds by Mark Sheefer. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's funny. It was good. Um, no, his talk and a bunch of others he went at the end of the first day, but his talk and a bunch of mothers were talking mostly about like, how do you stand out in a world of ai?

And it was just interesting to hear some of his takes on [00:06:00] that and that kind of thing.

Dylan Redekop: Mm.

Chenell Basilio: Um, but he was sharing just like. Case studies of companies and like Liquid Death who are doing something completely different, not just like iterating on something, they're just like completely changing the game.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: In terms, sorry? In terms of

Dylan Redekop: content or? In terms of product.

Chenell Basilio: Content.

Dylan Redekop: Okay.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Like, yeah. So like marketing content? Yeah. Not just like newsletter type stuff, but his book is called Audacious and it's all about like. Human, how humans win in an AI marketing world.

Dylan Redekop: Don't use m dashes synopsis.

Yeah. I'm just kidding. That's cool. Uh, okay.

Chenell Basilio: I'm gonna start using more M dashes, I think. Yeah, I think I decided that over this past week. Good. I was like, you know what? Yeah. I'm gonna use more of them just so I can, I don't know. I'm just so sick of hearing that. Like I know it's ai if you have M dashes or if you use certain words, and I'm like, okay.

So that was interesting. I didn't really know a whole ton about their backgrounds before I actually, the craziest part of this conference, I think was Jay [00:07:00] Acunzo invited me to a small speaker dinner. It was like me, Jay Clouse, Justin Moore Anne Handley. Oh yeah. Ann Amy Landino, Mark Schafer and Robert Rose.

Dylan Redekop: Sorry, who did you say after Ann Handley?

Chenell Basilio: Amy Landino. She Oh yeah. Used to do like sch Metastic was her thing.

Dylan Redekop: Recognize the name, but I don't handle, don't know if I know her stuff.

Chenell Basilio: She's been on YouTube for like decades.

Dylan Redekop: Okay, nice.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, so that was pretty crazy because I felt very out of place at that one.

But it was, it was great. I had a great conversation with the two older, older men, and I'm realizing about myself. I love. Talking to like dad and grandfather figures. Like I always have good conversations with those people. I don't know why this is like personal life. Every time I go to a party, I'm like talking to the old guy in the corner.

I'm like, this is hilarious.

Dylan Redekop: Mark and Robert, you guys are very young though. You're very young. Very young. You're not dads and grandpas.

Chenell Basilio: Totally. That's

Dylan Redekop: cool though. So that

Chenell Basilio: was fun. Yeah, [00:08:00] just like

Dylan Redekop: The wise voices in the room.

Chenell Basilio: Yes, exactly.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: And they've just seen more things and they've slowed down in their life of like only focusing on what real actually matters.

Yeah. And so it's nice to have that perspective, right. Those insights. Mm-hmm.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. That's cool.

Chenell Basilio: So Jay Klau gave a talk about discovery platforms versus relationship platforms. And that was good. I, he did something similar at the Newsletter Marketing Summit, so I had already heard that one. Okay. But it's always a good reminder of like, Hey, you should probably focus on like one discovery platform.

One relationship platform, which is like, I was gonna say, give us examples. Uh, email, newsletter, podcast. Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: Okay. So just, so

Chenell Basilio: discovery is, so like social me, discovery platforms are like social media Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and then relationship platforms are like email marketing podcasts. And then he had, YouTube was like in the middle because there are some like, relationship building aspects of it, but it's also a discovery platform.

Mm-hmm. Um, so he, he always. Recommends to like start with one discovery platform, whether that's LinkedIn or [00:09:00] Twitter,

And then drive people to your relationship platform so that you can kind of, you know, you, you more, you don't own that audience, but you are able to better talk to that audience. Yeah.

So,

Dylan Redekop: yeah, and I think when you're driving people to, whether it be a newsletter or a podcast or YouTube, even, uh, YouTube channel, it's just more personal, personal. Intent, I guess, if you will, like people who are going to those places have far more intent on engaging with you and hearing what you have to say , and then you'll build more trust with them and yeah, it's, it sounds obvious, but it's, it just makes a lot of sense.

My question would be like, if you're driving people to your podcast, you also sort of have to drive people away from your podcast. If you have, unless you're strictly going for like the podcast media. Play where you're just making money on ads and stuff, like, you probably wanna also drive them to a newsletter or to.

Something else. You know what I mean?

Chenell Basilio: [00:10:00] Yeah. Unless podcast is your thing. Exactly, yeah. Which has worked. I would still recommend like having a newsletter, but mm-hmm. Yeah. It doesn't have to be your main focus. Yeah. But there are a lot of people who like, have separate businesses outside of the content space and like, they're using content as lead gen, for lack of a better term.

Mm-hmm. But then there are also the people who are like professional podcasters. Yeah. And that's all they do. So that's, that's probably the difference there. But I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah. You wanna have something outside of that.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Cool. Yeah, I like it.

Chenell Basilio: I think one of the biggest takeaways and one of the biggest conversation points that spanned through a lot of the talks was really about this whole idea of not using AI for content. And so the reasoning being is that.

Everyone's using AI for content, it's all going to end up sounding the same. And you can already start to see this. Like AI doesn't really push back on your ideas. It just like gives you more of what it knows about, but it's not turning around and being like, well, you said this, but actually have you [00:11:00] thought about it this way?

Mm-hmm. And so I think that's really where the human angle comes in of like slowing down, having context. Pattern recognition between different outlets and things that you've experienced in your life. So I think that was a big point of this, of like, use AI for tasks instead of building out content and don't just like give away your humanness to ai. Even in terms of like. Taking a transcript of something and like turning it into a blog post.

And I'm like, I see that because I pull out so many different things than when I, I go to Claude and I'm like, gimme a blog post from this transcript. And it never actually pulls out what I would've pulled out. Mm-hmm. Or it skips like some of the big pieces that actually it can't really hear inflection in a transcript.

Yeah. And so, it's just such a good reminder to like, don't. Delegate, like the content and the humanness out of yourself and your work.

Dylan Redekop: That makes sense. I think that what I found too with, with AI is I I used deep [00:12:00] research with chat GPT to try to put together ideas for an article, not even ideas, like a, a rough draft for something I was, I was wanting to write about.

And it put together a pretty robust, it did a decent amount of research, put together a pretty robust draft. But I read through it and I'm just like. This doesn't sound or feel like me. And I am bored reading this. And so I'm still like working through that draft. And like the bones of it are good, like the way it's laid out.

And I find that helpful with ai, but like I need to go in there and just like kind of almost every single sentence or paragraph just go in and restructure, either delete it completely 'cause it's either redundant or it's already been said or um. Which is actually redundant 'cause that's what that means.

And so I have to go in there and basically put my own stamp on it. And so I think with taking a transcript what I think the best use for AI in my, what I found is it's so good at summarizing and outlining and creating bullet points that you can build on. And it might pull out things that you may not have [00:13:00] otherwise noticed.

But yes, sometimes it can certainly miss things that were like, no, this was like very clearly the thing, but you didn't even realize that was the thing.

Chenell Basilio: And sometimes it actually takes you longer when you use ai. If you just would've sat down and been like, okay, here are the 10 things I took away from this.

Yeah. Let me just build on them. Yeah. Instead of like, Hey, ai, like gimme this thing. And then you're sitting there and you're like, wait, is that really what I was gonna say? No. Or did, is this what, what I was gonna say? No, you took it outta context over here. Yeah. And it's just like,

Dylan Redekop: or did they really actually say that's.

Are you hallucinating?

Chenell Basilio: Right. And then it, and then you ask it and it's like, oh, they didn't say that. Yeah. And I'm like, this is, it's taking longer.

Dylan Redekop: Come on, bro. Yeah, you had one job.

Chenell Basilio: So I think, I think I'm just getting very, like, I don't know. Down on AI in some senses of like, I don't know, it's just, I think we all thought it was amazing at first and you're like realizing now that it's like, well actually maybe it's just making you sound like everyone else and you should just create your own stupid stuff.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, I think, I think it's to that whole thing where it's like it [00:14:00] was new technology and it, we couldn't do what we were doing with it before and now three-ish, four years into it we're like. Okay. Yeah, it's, it's still like, it's still, it's amazing in some ways, but it's like our expectations have now met up with that amazing, and it's not amazing anymore, and now it needs to be another level, and it's just taking time to get to that next level.

Chenell Basilio: Or it's not going to get there in terms of content creation.

Dylan Redekop: That's also true. That's also true. Yeah. Not until you can, I don't, I'm not sure. Hook it up to your brain.

Chenell Basilio: Um, yeah. But even then, like I feel like we're just giving away the thinking and so a lot of people kept talking about like, slowing down, just like wrestle with ideas in your head, come up with different takes on things and it's just, I don't know.

Yeah. I'm just feeling very inspired by that and excited to go back and not try and use some of this stuff. Hmm. Force myself. Not force myself to try and use it. 'cause I feel like I'm, you're gonna fall behind if you don't use ai. And it's like, well, probably not. Not right now. At least not in terms of some like the [00:15:00] content side of things.

Yes. With business tasks and like, I don't know, if I wanted to go build a website, I could just go to Lovable or something and be like, Hey, build me this thing. Yeah. And I think that works pretty well. But yeah, in terms of like mental work, I think it's still or may never get there.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. I think it just. I think it's a nothing but a benefit to do the hard work and not outsource the thinking.

Yeah, and

I say that as somebody who, who definitely uses AI quite a bit to like formulate ideas or get first drafts out so that I can kind of like figure out how maybe a LinkedIn post from a podcast, transcripts should look, that sort of thing. Um. That being said, it's to actually, if you have the time and the ability and the brain power to sit down and actually do what we did five years ago and wrote our own content, wrote our own posts, wrote our own show notes, wrote our newsletters then I think it's probably in your best interest to do that.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. And I mean a [00:16:00] lot of people were saying don't even use it for a first draft because you completely take away the humanness of it. Yeah. They're saying use it for a second draft or put in, Hey, I have this piece.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: What am I missing?

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: You know, all this about me. What am I missing? What, what should I have?

Let it be your editor that I didn't. Yeah. Totally.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. I like that. Um,

Chenell Basilio: so I'm just excited to get back to like. I don't know, letting myself wrestle with ideas instead of just being like, Hey, ai, what is, what are the 10 top things that, blah, blah, blah, you know? Mm-hmm. It's just interesting to think about that because I do feel, I do feel that muscle weakening a little bit if I do use AI for like

Dylan Redekop: Yep.

Chenell Basilio: Putting together a first draft of like a show notes type blog post or whatnot, so,

Dylan Redekop: yeah. Yeah. That's fair. I don't doubt it. We get kind of lazy to some degree. We just like,

yes, we

can, we can just like outsource our thinking, right? And if we have the time and the capacity and the ability to do it, we should probably go like, almost like AI free [00:17:00] weeks or something like that.

Like make it a theme like, Hey, this week I'm not using any AI on my content or in any of my processes. Maybe. I mean, there's some stuff that it makes sense for sure, um, that you maybe be foolish not to but. I kind of like that idea of just being like, I'm going sober, AI sober this week.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. And just see what happens.

Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Um, some is a big, big theme. No kidding. Uh, moving through the. Like so many people's talks were just like, yeah. Uh, Anne Handley's next book coming out is called As Slow as Possible, ASAP, but As Slow As Possible. Oh, that, and she's kind of talking about the same, same concept of, take your time, let your brain think and work and wrestle with these ideas.

Stop trying to speed up. And Robert Rose had something in his talk. He wrote a book called, uh, intentional Friction or. Something like that.

Dylan Redekop: Okay.

Chenell Basilio: Uh, it's about friction and he was saying that everybody wanted to move super fast and they're like, just move fast and break stuff. Yeah. And he is like, now we all look back and we're like, why is everything broken?[00:18:00]

I was like, yes. That's so good.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. That is good. I like that one. That is good. That was good. I get the sentiment behind move fast and break stuff and I think there's a time and a place for that for sure. But it's also like. But you also need to fix the broken stuff. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. You, you shouldn't just keep moving, like go back and fix it once you

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Shipped your thing

Dylan Redekop: or figure out why it broke and don't just build on the broken thing anyway. Okay. Cool. So AI was a big theme. Um, were there any other big themes that, that you saw? Uh, is there anything, like, any newsletter, relevant takeaways that, that came out of it?

Chenell Basilio: It was more just content relevant takeaways.

Okay. 'cause it was a content marketing Sure. Focused conference. And even like in my talk, I was talking more about newsletter stuff and it felt a little out of place. Mm-hmm. But I was also like, this is what I know and you asked me to speak, so here we are.

Dylan Redekop: No, I think, but I think it's like super relevant because content is such a, it is such a broad umbrella term 'cause it can mean so many things.

So I like that you actually drilled down into like one specific. [00:19:00] Type of content and within newsletters, newsletter content, that still can mean a ton of different things too. So

Chenell Basilio: yeah,

Dylan Redekop: I think I probably, if I was there, I probably would've appreciated the nuance there.

Chenell Basilio: So that was really fun. I had a bunch of good conversations.

Uh, my friend doc was there and we always go down these super deep rabbit holes. So me, him and Paul were talking, but Doc is always, he's the kind of guy that you, you go up to him and you're like, Hey Doc, what's up? And he's like, you. So what's doc up? Duck? Carrot. Chew carrot. What's up, duck as well.

I know. I really should. How did I not put that together? Oh my God. I'm gonna say that next time. He just always has these crazy things that he will teach you. He'll be like, Hey, have you ever found the YouTube channel X, Y, Z or whatever it's called. I'm like, no. He's like, yo, they're making like $3 million, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, what? Where there was this app called what? Whatnot. Have you heard of this?

Dylan Redekop: Oh, that sounds very familiar.

Chenell Basilio: Okay, so this app, these people get on, it's like eBay, but live like TikTok. So these people come on and they're just like holding up a watch and you [00:20:00] have 30 seconds to buy this thing or not by Yes, I've

Dylan Redekop: heard of this.

Yes. For plants. And I was like.

Chenell Basilio: This is crazy. So people have 30 seconds, you start the stream. Yeah. It counts down to 30 seconds. How, like, how do you even get across why this thing is so cool in 30 seconds

Dylan Redekop: and people bid on it like the live auction. Like this is

Chenell Basilio: wild. Yes.

Dylan Redekop: Dang.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: That's crazy.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I wanna see if we can pull up like a revenue number.

'cause this is crazy

Dylan Redekop: and so I, I assume the app takes a percentage of the sale of the item.

Chenell Basilio: 8% commission. Wow.

Dylan Redekop: 8%. Okay.

Chenell Basilio: Some. Oh, okay. So this website estimated that what not hit $359 million in revenue in 2024.

Dylan Redekop: Okay. Three 59 million in revenue. Three. Four. That's nuts. Wild. It's like, what is that, 120, no, sorry, 12 million.

No, I'm not gonna do public math. I'm not gonna do it.

Chenell Basilio: The app was founded in 2019, so it's a 5-year-old app, 6-year-old app, [00:21:00] and they're making crazy money off of 8% commissions. Okay.

Dylan Redekop: Okay. Wow. Okay. That is neat. Sorry.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, so anyway, so Doc is always just coming up with these crazy things, so I'm convincing him.

I tried to convince him to start a newsletter about this. 'cause I was like, I will be your first and your second and your third subscriber. Mm-hmm. We'll sign up with three different emails to make sure I don't miss it. But I think he actually was talking about going like the physical newsletters direction, so we'll see.

Okay. But, uh,

Dylan Redekop: physical newsletters, yeah, that's gonna be a thing soon. It's, I like that. Yeah. So you said, you mentioned Paul as well. Who's Paul? You said Doc and Paul.

Chenell Basilio: Oh, Paul runs powwows.com. It's about like a Native American, uh, website. Okay. But he's got this large newsletter and Facebook group and everything.

Dylan Redekop: Got it.

Chenell Basilio: And he was wearing a Disney shirt and he was telling me that people buy and sell the Disney shirts for like a thousand dollars. Like some of 'em have different prints. It's like a sneaker situation where like, you know, this certain [00:22:00] Nike has like a different color or a different theme to it, so they go for more money.

Mm-hmm. It was. It was crazy. My mind just blown. I'm like, what?

Dylan Redekop: Like a Disney print shirt that sells for Yeah. Hundreds of dollars.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. This one company I forget what they're called, but now they're, I'm getting like ads on Instagram for 'em. Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: Of course you're,

Chenell Basilio: but he was, he was wearing this shirt and I was like, oh, that's a Disney shirt.

And he's like, yeah, I have. Like a lot of these. And I was like, oh, okay, what's the story behind that? And he's like, they're like very collectible in the space. And I was like, oh. And then he was saying that they go for like 500, or one of 'em is like a thousand dollars.

Dylan Redekop: So are these physical NFTs?

Chenell Basilio: Pretty much, yeah.

Yeah. Well it's like a Rolex or like a, any of those. So yeah. But they were like, are they one offs though? I don't know if they're one-offs. Okay. I don't know, maybe they have like 10 or 20 or whatever.

Dylan Redekop: That's wild.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, so this is not newsletter related, but I was very, my mind was blown at the random businesses and opportunities there are out there.

Dylan Redekop: No kidding. And I think you could probably. Put, weave [00:23:00] some of these interesting businesses into how this could apply for newsletters or how you could build a newsletter from that concept or something like that. We will not get into, go down those rabbit holes today, but yeah, this could get your mind racing as a little bit more.

I just, the, the fact that you mentioned Doc was wanting to do a physical newsletter, just like, yeah, that's. That's like probably gonna be more and more popular as people get oversaturated with digital things and online things. It's like, let's go back to like analog physical slow as slow as possible.

Like there's gonna be this pushback on everything being super fast and automated and AI and, and digital to like, hey. People are real and we can go and talk to them and, Yeah. Send them mail.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. That was a, another big piece of this, um, uh, Darrell Vesterfelt was there from the Mighty team

Dylan Redekop: who you just were, like on his podcast.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Which you can watch. It was like one of the last two episodes or so.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah,

Chenell Basilio: two episodes ago. Yeah. But he put on [00:24:00] like a pre-event mastermind type thing, so there were probably 16, 20 people there.

Dylan Redekop: Okay.

Chenell Basilio: Uh, and we were all in like little small groups at tables and just like talking about like challenges and like that kind of thing.

It was similar to the thing we did at Craft and Commerce. Yeah, sounds like it. Um, just a different crew. Yeah. So it was fun. Nice. Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: Very fun.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, it was fun. That's always nice. But then Darryl did give a talk about how community is like more important than ever just because everyone's going to get so sick of AI and you can pump out a thousand articles a day if you wanted to.

And it's just like, where do you stand out with that? Hmm. Um, so aside from having like insanely valuable content and he was talking about community being like another good piece of it. So that was interesting, like

Dylan Redekop: the Growth In Reverse pro community.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, exactly. Plug.

Dylan Redekop: I dunno if that was obvious or I feel like you

Chenell Basilio: should get a physical plug on your desk just like so funny.

Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. We do have a little community called the Growth In Reverse Pro Community that you should check out. If you are interested in newsletters and growing them and hanging out with us, then you should definitely join.

Chenell Basilio: Yes. And [00:25:00] Dad jokes galore because they happen all the time.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Um, no, but he also gave a talk later, which was great because he was talking about.

Community and that kind of thing. Mm-hmm. And one of his quotes that I remember, he said, everyone always says that content is king. He's like, if content is king, then AI is storming in the castle. And I was like,

Dylan Redekop: oh, I like that. Hmm. Darl said that.

Chenell Basilio: Darl said that.

Dylan Redekop: Interesting.

Chenell Basilio: And he like glossed over it so fast and we were all like, oh.

Our, our jaws were on the floor. I was like, what? You should have paused on that moment for like 10 more seconds. Yeah. 'cause we all were just like in awe. Um, so I love that phrase.

Dylan Redekop: That's interesting. It's a good metaphor.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: Okay. Yeah. I gotta marinate on that.

Chenell Basilio: Yes. It's a good one.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Okay. So we've talked about AI a lot, physical newsletters, , we've talked about, , crazy apps.

What do you think, if you had to say like, , aside from the AI thing, what was. What was [00:26:00] the most valuable piece of information you think you got from the conference

or maybe mindset shift?

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I think it was just like, just what I said in the beginning. Like, you don't know who's listening, reading, enjoying your content until. You actually put yourself out there and write or get on stage and speak and tell your story. I had two people come up to me immediately after my talk and say, please come on my podcast.

The one is huge. And I'm like, okay. So that's gonna be fun. Hopefully that pans out. Um, that'd be amazing. But it's just like knowing that your words that you put on paper can then translate into something. You can speak out and get. There's like more of an impact when you're in person and it's just so mm-hmm.

I, I always talk about how like I hate speaking on stage. Yeah. And it stresses me out the two weeks before I'm like a wreck and I'm always like, I'm not doing this again. I'm not doing this again. And then I'm like, oh, that was actually worth it. Okay, fine.

Dylan Redekop: You're like, oh yeah, this is why I do [00:27:00] it. I think that's.

That's a good point and a good note. I'd love to, I'd love to do a talk someday. I just dunno what I would talk about. So, and it's like one of those things that I am Dr. Like I would be, so I would be like you a nervous wreck. Like I do not want to be a public speaker, but I feel like I have to do it just to like conquer that fear.

Someday. But I, I wanna go back to the thing you said about you never know who's listening or who's reading, right? I published an edition of my newsletter. I took a little bit of a summer, summer break, didn't publish for about six weeks, and I just sent an edition. I'm talking about our challenge and a few other things, and I got two replies and one of them was from Brendan Dunn.

And I was just like, I was just kinda like, and he didn't even really comment on the. Actual edition. He had a different question for me but I was like, man, like there's people that actually read this and open it and, um, and reply. So it, it was just a, a good reminder of like, Hey, I should probably.[00:28:00]

Keep publishing and be thoughtful. And remember that whenever I'm like like I, I honestly, I send that newsletter out. I'm like, I haven't published in six weeks. I'd be surprised if, a handful of people actually read it. So, that was a good like, reminder that no, people do listen and, and some do actually care what you're writing about.

Chenell Basilio: That's awesome. I love that. Mm-hmm. And it's just a good reminder like. Reply to emails if you like, the creator's work. 'cause it's, this is a hard game and it's not always easy when you get crickets after spending like hours and hours on something. So it's a good reminder to uh, do that. That it

Dylan Redekop: is.

Chenell Basilio: That it is, yes.

No, I think the other thing I was gonna say, uh, will Reynolds came and he is, if you're not familiar, he's like big in the SEO space. I knew who he was 'cause I'm. From Philly and he is a Philly based SEO agency guy. Uh, so he owns an agency called Seer Interactive and he, I think I saw him speak in 2016 at a conference in New York about [00:29:00] SEO 'cause that's what I went for my day job.

And he's always like passionate. There's always cursing. He's always talking about the most interesting things when it comes to like the future of the space.

Dylan Redekop: Hmm.

Chenell Basilio: And he. Was talking about how he's going str like hard on social media and actual humans and not focusing as much on search engines and Google and all of that stuff.

And this is coming from an SEO guy. Hmm. Like,

Dylan Redekop: Hmm. He's like,

Chenell Basilio: humans matter more than a freaking search algorithm. Yeah. And I was like. You're right. And he's like, so when I post something on LinkedIn and I get 30 comments, he's like, that means more to me than getting 10,000 random Google page views from bots or people who clicked over and then were like, this isn't what I wanted and left bounce.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: So he was like, just hammering home that concept. Yeah. Like he gave a bunch of other really cool, uh, ideas for growing with SEO, but I think the thing he kept going back to was like, social media is humans. Like you can't. Yes, there are bots on social media and stuff, but there's an algorithm.

But the vast [00:30:00] majority, yeah. Yeah. But the vast majority of people commenting and liking and sharing your stuff on social media are actual people.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. So unless you're on Twitter, which is just an

Chenell Basilio: interesting,

Dylan Redekop: sorry. And there it is. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Nice. Just had to, just had That's okay. Poke jab that one in.

No, I totally agree. I think that like, it's called social media for a reason and despite, the bot issues, and I joke about Twitter. You know, there's, there's bot issues on every platform. Um, it just, it's more on others. But I think the, like that, that really highlights the value of real people actually.

Replying and engaging and sharing your content. And, um, you know, that's why we started up another social media challenge, like growth challenges because that's just where, not just about growing an audience, but where you can actually like meet people. Right? Like, would you be at these conferences, talking, meeting all these people if it weren't for social media?

Chenell Basilio: Mm. Probably not, probably

Dylan Redekop: not. Like you might have published your newsletter, but would it have grown if you weren't, you know, active [00:31:00] on social media? No. And Twitter, back in the day, we just had an episode about how you did that. And so, you can hate social media for all the reasons that a lot of people do hate it, but at the end of the day, it is a very powerful medium too.

Connect with people and engage and, um. You can, I kind of feel like you can choose to hate it and just have this negative Nelly sort of mindset about it. Or you can embrace it for what it is and just you know, accept that yes, there are the bots and there's the reply guys, and there's the, the crap, the algorithm changes and all that.

But at the end of the day, if you can have a bit of a half glass full attitude towards social media, I think that's only gonna do you favors in the future, approaching it with that mindset.

Chenell Basilio: A hundred percent agree. And you even get feedback on your content. Like yeah. If you have ideas for content, put them out as six different LinkedIn posts and see which one resonates more with people.

Mm-hmm. It doesn't have to be likes or impressions, but see what people are commenting on and replying to and actually starting a conversation around and go write something longer form about that.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Social [00:32:00] media is such a great place to do that. Yeah. And, um, I'm excited to, uh, get back into it with that.

Dylan Redekop: Totally. And it's like, uh, we mentioned this in our onboarding call recently, um, about it being like this really quick feedback loop, right? So instead of spending hours and hours researching or writing an article on a post, and then you publish it and it, gets nothing, you could have maybe just like, instead spent 10 minutes doing a social media post and seeing if like people actually resonated with the idea or with your opinion or your, you know, spiky point of view or whatever it is.

And, um. And then gotten that feedback so much faster. So I think there's a lot of opportunity to leverage social media to just kind of test ideas. Um, and this isn't, I'm not saying anything new here. People have been saying this for years, but, um, I think it's worth repeating that it's just such a great opportunity to test these things and see what is resonating and see what people are engaging with.

And sometimes out of the comments sparks an even better idea or a different idea or something that you can just, um, include in your [00:33:00] next, in your next post as well. So I think there's, yeah, way more positives and good reasons to use it than not

Chenell Basilio: agreed. And I think even you kind of mentioned this offhandedly, but commenting on other people's posts and if those comments do well, then write your own post about it.

And if that post does, well then write a blog post and like it just goes down the line.

Dylan Redekop: Yep.

Chenell Basilio: And I think that's such a good. Easy starting point for most people is like they're terrified to actually post something and like take a stand. But if you can just comment something instead on someone else's post, I think it's so much mentally it's easier to get through that.

Mm-hmm. And then it's like, okay, out of the last 30 comments, which one got the most engagement? Mm-hmm. And then it's like, cool, go write a post about that and see if it resonates. If so, keep going. You know, it's like such a good way to get started. Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: I think if you spend, take 50 minutes a day and whatever social platform.

Of choice go through your feed and try to reply to, maybe set a number or just set a time limit and reply to a number of posts. And [00:34:00] my guess is you'll come out away with at least one idea for your own piece of content. I know we're, this isn't a social media episode, but, uh, Richard Vander Blom, who does the LinkedIn report, the annual LinkedIn report.

I think he, I could be wrong exactly on this number, but he tries to reply to I think 30 posts a day. And from that he just sparks like post ideas. And I can relate because the more people I comment on the more ideas I get for, for posts and yeah, usually they're like more opinion based types of posts, but the more those will spark.

Right.

Chenell Basilio: That's awesome. I'm gonna take notes 30 a day. Okay. Yeah, that's my new goal.

Dylan Redekop: Woo. Maybe I should confirm that number before we 30 a day Seems doable.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I think so. Except for when you think about like, you actually want them to be good comments, but

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: That, that helps. Um,

Chenell Basilio: but no, I think, I think social media is just part of all of this, right?

Mm-hmm. Like even at the conference we're talking about like. Meeting people on social media and how you can get [00:35:00] feedback loops like we were just talking about on social media. And I mean, there were tons of sessions. I was just looking at the the agenda and of course there was stuff about, you know, LinkedIn and, and all kinds of other platforms of like how to have a successful social media strategy.

Mm-hmm. So I think that it's just like. It's an interesting thing and yes, like you said, you can be grumpy about it or you can just get over that part of it. Mm-hmm. And like look at it as a growth platform and a place to meet people and connect and learn what's resonating with folks.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: So

Dylan Redekop: yeah, much better said than, than my spiel.

Very succinctly. I thought yours was better. I was just

Chenell Basilio: sum summarizing, but I think

Dylan Redekop: I like the word grumpy. Just like that approach. Like, yeah. 'cause there's people who just like, yeah. Social media's stupid.

Chenell Basilio: And like I've said that before. Yeah. I think we've even said that on this podcast before. Well, and like there's seasons of being grumpy about it.

Yeah. And it's fine. But if you can get back to a place of like, okay, for 30 days I'm gonna try and post every day, let's just do that. Mm-hmm. And then from there you're like, okay, this was beneficial, or this felt useless. Maybe you tweak your strategy [00:36:00] for the next 30 days. Yeah. Or you don't, and you just do something else.

But I think it's important to try,

Dylan Redekop: there's seasons for grumpiness and we posted that in the wintertime, so I think that kind of makes sense because, because it's time to be grumpy. I think though the part of social media that we're grumpy about more is like, my impressions have tanked, like the algorithm changed.

Like it's more about the businesses running these platforms more so than obviously the. People in them, um, or the, the people that you're meeting, right? Those are, that's like the best part. And that's always been a part that we've appreciated and that we've like, you know that we've said that people should use 'em for those reasons as a.

As opposed to others. But yeah the grumpy part I think for me at least is like, man, I used to be able to like get, you know, 3000 impressions on a post and you know, X amount of likes and whatever, and now it's like, you know, just like fell off a cliff. And that's usually the complaint I hear with social media, the frustrations behind the companies, just like making you basically pay for reach and engagement.

Chenell Basilio: But then [00:37:00] you look at like, are you actually getting the same number of comments and like the same number of real people talking to you? And I think despite

Dylan Redekop: impressions, Lauren, despite imp impressions,

Chenell Basilio: again, like it's not the end all be all I'm always trying to look more for like replies, shares, saves.

Um, those are really the important metrics. So if you can not focus on likes or impressions, that true, I think you're gonna. Feel better about yourself.

Dylan Redekop: I think the other thing too, we just had Nathan May on the podcast, and he had a really, I love this when he, and he, he was quoting it from Sean Griffey of industry Dive.

And

Sean says, it's not how many, it's who, right? So it's not how many people are on your email list, it's who's on your email list. Um, so you can have that same mindset when it comes to social media. It's not how many people are commenting, how many people saw my post? How many people liked it? It's who?

Saw it, who commented, who liked it. I'm sure there's like three people in your social media audience that if they, those three people commented on your [00:38:00] post that would do more than a hundred other people seeing it and commenting on it. Right. Right. So I think that's really, that's a really valuable point and mindset to harness.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I think one last thing, it kind of ties back to what I was talking to earlier, but it just. I just remembered on the topic of like slowing down and like being more intentional and like adding some friction into your life. Andy Crestadina, who I think he runs an agency, he's been in the space for a long, long time, but he said the things that stand out to him most.

In business are like getting handwritten notes, like who writes handwritten notes anymore? Like send someone mail. That's a big deal. And he, he shared a picture of Anne Hanley had sent him a postcard that like thanked him for speaking at her event and she drew this like nice little spider web on it because her talk was about.

Charlotte's Web or something. Okay. And I was like, that's so interesting. And like, taking the time to like doodle and like thank someone physically with a postcard is so underrated. So [00:39:00] I think I wanna start doing more of that.

Dylan Redekop: Do you, go

Chenell Basilio: ahead.

Dylan Redekop: Do you take people's mailing addresses? Who join the community?

The Growth In Reverse Pro community?

Chenell Basilio: Uh, I have some of them. Hmm. I think the US based ones.

Dylan Redekop: Okay. Makes sense.

Chenell Basilio: But then the other thing he was talking about, which was interesting was collaborations, which we always talk about. We love collaborations. Yeah. But he was saying that anymore he won't just publish an article, he'll publish like a co-created article.

Kind of like how Mario Gabrielle would do with his longer form S one reports. He would get like six or seven people together to write this piece of content because you have more interesting, ideas and concepts and and thoughts from other folks

Dylan Redekop: perspectives, but then you also

Chenell Basilio: have like six or seven people who are already going to share the thing.

So he's like, why wouldn't you do that? The other piece of it is like, with SEO, like, and I know SEO, whatever, it's changing, dying, whatever, but. You rank higher when you have like authoritative people in your piece,

Dylan Redekop: right? And

Chenell Basilio: so in [00:40:00] the medical space, if you have a doctor who actually wrote the thing, you're gonna probably rank higher than if you were just like Joe Schmo writing about something medically.

Having multiple like rockstar people commenting or sharing quotes about the thing you're writing about, it's like, okay, mm-hmm. Yes, please. Yeah. Like it's like a no brainer. And then you're just like collaborating or building relationships with people, and I think that's an underrated thing that I think would be interesting to try out.

Dylan Redekop: Didn't Aakash Gupta do that as well, or did he just have people. Guest post for him? Not for him, but like, no, he wrote

Chenell Basilio: with people. Yeah. Uh, Lenny does this well too.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Uh,

Dylan Redekop: I, well, I know Lenny. Yeah. He'll even keep the person as the, like, he won't even have a byline in the, in the article. He'll just have the person as the writer.

But he, I think what he said, quote me if I'm wrong, is he just like, spends tons of time going through their article to edit it, to be like the quality that he needs.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: So there's different ways you can approach it. But that, that [00:41:00] actually makes me think, I want you to collaborate with me on this article that I'm struggling with that because Okay.

I know, I know. This is something that you, it's something that you believe and that you're passionate about. So yeah. That, that could be fun. We'll tease it now and see if we actually get her done.

Chenell Basilio: Well, that's fun. Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah,

Chenell Basilio: I'm excited to hear more.

Dylan Redekop: Cool.

Chenell Basilio: But yeah, I think the biggest takeaway for me is just like, go to more in-person events.

Yeah. Like, shake someone's hand, talk to them, go grab lunch. Get out of your normal routines and start learning from people in real life.

Dylan Redekop: Meet people.

Chenell Basilio: People.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Collaborations, relationships, all those things that we talk about growing. Mm-hmm. For what we talk about with growth for newsletters, but it's like, hey, just like, go actually get on a plane and go somewhere.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. I mean, just, I've only been to one and now I was crafting commerce and I've gushed about it. I don't need to do that again. But just the amount of interesting people that I met both who I knew about before I came to the conference and who I just met there at the conference. It was just.

It's in, you can't compare. It doesn't compare to anything you do [00:42:00] virtually online, uh, digitally, like the in-person element is just tenfold, um, more powerful.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Uh, and so one thing I'm planning on doing, which I haven't told you yet, but I think I wanna get, I wanna do like a 10 person dinner, 10 15 person dinner in like Philly or New York, Vancouver, just like, probably not, yeah, for the first one.

Yeah. But I do wanna do this like just low stakes, like nothing crazy, but just like reach out to 10 people who have newsletters or building audiences and just like. Talk, like, let's share a meal. Mm-hmm. I think that would be so fun. Mm-hmm. So I do wanna start doing that.

Dylan Redekop: I think that would be great.

Chenell Basilio: Yes.

Dylan Redekop: I don't know if I'll be able to make it, but, but you can report back.

Chenell Basilio: Okay. We'll see. We'll see. Yeah. We'll do the first one and then kind of see where it goes from there. Yeah. Maybe we'll do Vancouver edition or even

Dylan Redekop: Seattle. Keep it or Seattle. Yeah. Keep it, uh, stateside if you need. It's coming up on

Chenell Basilio: winter, rainy season.

Right. I'm not trying to do that.

Dylan Redekop: True. Maybe

Chenell Basilio: it would be That's fair. Spring-ish. Okay. But I love it. [00:43:00] But yeah, I wanna start doing those smaller things. Test it out once and see what happens.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Sounds fun. I like it. Yeah, I like it.

Chenell Basilio: Cool. I think that concludes the, I don't know, it's just fun to meet people in person.

Yeah. So I'm just gonna keep doing it and keep telling you about it every time I do. 'cause it's fun. Um, getting ready to go to Audience Camp, which is Matt McGarry's. Mm-hmm. 40 person. Geez. Yeah. Conference that's

Dylan Redekop: like a week away. It's

Chenell Basilio: not even a conference. Yeah. Yeah. Next Friday.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Chenell Basilio: Crazy.

Dylan Redekop: And you are, when do I work? Yeah. This is work. I, when, when do you, when did you do work at home, I guess, are you, are you speaking there as well? Yeah, at Audience Camp.

Chenell Basilio: I'm a facilitator. Oh, sweet, sweet. So I'm helping like guide conversations and stuff, but I don't actually have to speak.

Dylan Redekop: So you're a camp counselor?

Chenell Basilio: Uhhuh for Well, there you go. Oh, he should, he should have totally named them that

Dylan Redekop: I feel like he did, didn't he? No.

Chenell Basilio: No, it's facilitator. I think that

Dylan Redekop: it was very low hanging fruit. Like he just needs to hire a dad joke guy. And I will, I will do that for him.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. 'cause I'm listed as a facilitator.

Dylan Redekop: Huh? W want [00:44:00] Oh

Chenell Basilio: yeah. All right. I think that's it for this one.

Dylan Redekop: That's the pod.

Chenell Basilio: That's the.