Unlocking Substack: How Creators Can Build Community & Monetize Their Message with Philip Ilani

Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Hi and welcome to the mystic marketing podcast where we help coaches and spiritual entrepreneurs amplify their voice and monetize their mission leveraging podcasts and the power of the Gnostic TV network. I'm your host, Jill Hart, of the coaches alchemist. Here's the truth. Most creators are trapped in the cycle of creating without earning. Our guest has created a publication designed for creative souls who are tired of choosing between their passion and a stable income.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Today we're chatting with Philip Ilani, creator of Philip's creative lab on Substack, where he creates unique systems to help creatives and writers like you get visible and make money welcome to the show, Philip. It's really great to have you here.

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Philip Ilani: Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. It's really really excited to be here today. Yeah, thank you.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Okay, I'm gonna ask you the big question.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: what do you feel is the most important way to amplify one's voice and monetize their mission in today's world.

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Philip Ilani: Thank you. Thank you for that question.

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Philip Ilani: yeah. I mean, if if you look around to this world I I see a lot of things changing. Compared to you know, years back.

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Philip Ilani: people now tend to buy from people and buy from brands that they trust. And how do you build trust? You only view trust. When people get to know you.

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Philip Ilani: You know, on a deeper level.

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Philip Ilani: And so

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Philip Ilani: I I listened to a survey recently, where, you know, I saw some very staggering figure. About 81% of people, you know, prefer to buy products and services from people that they trust.

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Philip Ilani: and a product or service that you know builds community around it. It's it's a very powerful tool that I have seen in, you know, many big brands stock

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Philip Ilani: about Amazon, Tesla, and even, you know, cryptocurrency, you know. Crypto coins that do very well now are are coins that you know, build massive community around it. And that's what you have on substack.

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Philip Ilani: So soft is a platform where, it accommodates every single creator you can. You can talk about writers, Podcasters, youtubers, audio visuals, and any kind of creator you can talk about. And so one single powerful tool that I I think substack has used to achieve. This is because of the community that it has built around it.

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Philip Ilani: And and yeah, so many cool features, we we can go on to talk about today. But I think that's the most powerful tool that's driving the the the platform. And it's exploding.

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Philip Ilani: Yeah. So that's what.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It reminds me of the early days. I don't know if you're familiar with Squidoo back in the day, like the 2,000 tens, I think, was kind of starting maybe a little earlier than that, but it really blew up, and people made all kinds of money with it, and I think it really helped Amazon honestly, because everybody was they were affiliate marketers for Amazon back when Amazon really paid their affiliates a lot of money

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: but affiliates, built Amazon into what it is today.

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Philip Ilani: That's right, that's right. I I completely agree. Even now I I mean the the payment is not as it used to be in the past, but

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Philip Ilani: you see that the business still runs on, affiliates in big affiliates, it still makes substantial amount of money on, on Amazon and many other platforms. So yeah, products and services that build

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Philip Ilani: community around it. I think it creates this evergreen flywheel that keeps it running. And so you see these products and services that they don't really need to do adverts. They don't need to to market their product because the product markets itself because of the loyal community that that spewed around it. And and this is the powerful tool that I see creators, you know, using on substack

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Philip Ilani: where they create these. You know, loyal readers, loyal subscribers and people tend to, you know, just pass the world around. It's a really awesome community, and I'm happy to be on it.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I think, with substack. The

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: the magic really happens in creating connections with other content creators over there and doing collaborations. But it's just like supporting when you support somebody else. It it really helps you because people will see you, and they see you all over the place, and the more they see you. Then the more they're going to come over and see what you're doing, because it's kind of like 2 separate little

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: pieces that are. Have this little veil between them there's the content creation port part, and then there's the social media aspect of it, and they kind of cross, but they're still sort of separate. And then there's like the the readers that you're contacting that are outside of the platform. And then you draw them in. And it's just like. It's kind of a magical platform to me.

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Philip Ilani: Yeah, I I think the the the developers behind soft stack system.

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Philip Ilani: a a, a. I think they are doing a really great job. Because I mean, it's it's 1 platform that I think is complete.

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Philip Ilani: So you can find on the platform the social media aspect, which is the note, which is something I use very well.

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Philip Ilani: You get to meet new people, new creators, really awesome people who are very supportive.

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Philip Ilani: and then you get to also. You know. Talk about what you do on the platform, even on on notes. And and if you have Linkedin or X or any other social media. I see a lot of traffic, you know, people coming in and people are creating flywheel. It's it's just taking off. It's amazing.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It really is, because nobody.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm not gonna say nobody knows about it. But it. It's really at the very beginning stages of

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: blowing up. And if you ever wanted to be like the 1st person in Facebook and knew what you were doing when you got there, this is your opportunity, because it's like

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's the it's the frontier of where I think content. Creation is going.

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Philip Ilani: That's that's right. Yeah. I mean, you know, a few years ago newsletters seemed to to be, you know, dying of people felt people no longer read, you know, emails and all of that. But it's there's a big comeback. I I read a survey

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Philip Ilani: by Celia on on substack recently, where she she analyzed about 75,000 newsletters and one very key takeaway from from that survey for me was that Newsletters are actually coming back. And and they're taking over

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Philip Ilani: people people want to associate with with people that they trust. And the only way to do that is to build, you know, loyal subscribers, people you connect with on the personal level. Sub stack has created that system. There's there's the chat feature where you can, you know. Talk to your subscribers, get to know them.

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Philip Ilani: know their challenges, you know. Get to know what they really want to hear from you that way. You create content that

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Philip Ilani: people can engage with. People can relate with not just, you know, throwing anything out there in the air and hoping someone will find you, but you get to, you know truly understand people who who are following you and subscribing to you, get to know their pain, their desires. And so you can create content, you know, on demand for for these people. And to me, that's a powerful system to have.

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Philip Ilani: So yeah, I completely agree with you.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: How did you discover substack.

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Philip Ilani: Yeah, my, my story of soft stack is is kind of funny.

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Philip Ilani: I discovered substack, I think, about a year ago and never paid attention to it because

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Philip Ilani: I don't know. I I just didn't pay attention to substack when I 1st heard about it, and then I read a book

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Philip Ilani: I saw the mention of substack, and so it reminded me of I mean, I've heard this thing before, and so I went to check it out, but I think it was in October.

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Philip Ilani: I checked it out. I mean I I signed up, and I never did anything about it since October, and I I left it. And then in December I saw on on X someone talking about substack. And I was like, Yeah, I remember I signed up for this thing, let me go check it out.

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Philip Ilani: And so when I checked it out.

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Philip Ilani: I was just blown away.

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Philip Ilani: And since then I've never I've never. I've never spent a day not looking into my sub stack, you know, connecting with people they are really 1 1 thing I I think it. It's a win for substack is that

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Philip Ilani: Sub Stack has been able to gather really genuine people who are willing to connect. I've never met jail before. But here we are, you know, talking on this. Podcast so it's it's an amazing thing. You get to meet people from all over the world, really awesome people who are ready to support, you know, whatever you do.

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Philip Ilani: So it's it's really amazing. So I I got serious about my sub stack just in in January, barely a month now, and I've I've grown

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Philip Ilani: my subscribers.

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Philip Ilani: just a little above 100, which I think is a really good thing. Just being active on the platform for barely 4 weeks.

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Philip Ilani: So yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I think we kind of. I think we started really paying attention to substack about the same time. Because and I found you, I think through a chat

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: in one of the communities that we're both part of. I know we're both part of several of them, but you had created a getting started guide that walks people through the settings to set up your sub stack. And yes, there's tons of videos out there, but you do it in a way that's got pictures and arrows, and I was just so impressed with how simple you made the process for people that just really

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: subset can be confusing when you 1st go over there, because there's so many moving parts it's so powerful. But once it once you.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you break down like the simple things to make it easy for people to just do the things that they need to do in order to just get started. And really, that's

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: that holds people up.

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Philip Ilani: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I I wish I had that guide. When I started out.

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Philip Ilani: I I made a lot of mistakes. You know, getting started it. It's really overwhelming when you don't, you just get on the platform for the 1st time. But in the true sense of it is a really easy platform to be on. You don't need to be tech. Savvy? You don't need to know how to code to use the platform. It. It's so easy to use, yet overwhelming when you start.

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Philip Ilani: And so when I started, I I made those mistakes. And I, I said to myself, I'm going to create a step by step process.

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Philip Ilani: Every single step I take in creating, you know, after making those mistakes. And then someone who is coming behind me might, you know, probably need that. And I've I've had a lot of good feedback from my subscribers and from many other persons. How that guide has has been really been helpful. I mean, there are videos out there to to watch and and step by step, process to use which I did. But some of the videos can can be confusing at times.

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Philip Ilani: because, you know, the platform is constantly changing.

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Philip Ilani: Consistently I I update the guide. If I find any new feature, I, you know, inform my subscribers, and then I update the guide and keep it ever green, so that you know, it helps as many persons as as possible who come to join the platform. So yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm happy. You found it helpful. Yeah. And I put it in

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: my getting started guide that I give people when I, because I'm always sending people over to substack. It's like, Hey, you guys got to see this place. But here, here's the getting started. Guide.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Look at this. And I have a video in there about how to navigate around in there, because that's really confusing. When you 1st start because

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you you push the same thing in different spots, and it doesn't give you the same answer.

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Philip Ilani: Yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But it.

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Philip Ilani: You've really done a great job there, Jill, putting that guide together, I think it will help a lot of people.

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Philip Ilani: I'm also going to recommend that guy to to my subscribers people who would need it, people who are creating their own communities. And that's the beautiful thing you have on substack. There are people who are really willing to help you, you know, hold you by the hand and lead you and something. I'm also trying to start for my subscribers to do a 1 on one

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Philip Ilani: section or at the weekend. Sometimes, you know, to guide people who are stuck.

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Philip Ilani: We get. We get on zoom, for instance. And then

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Philip Ilani: we we get to look at your publication. See what you are doing right? Suggest a few things that that could help you. Yeah. So that that's something I'm also working on.

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Philip Ilani: Starting this weekend, maybe. Is something that I'll I'll push out. Yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, I love that. And it. The whole thing about substack is it's everybody helping everybody else. It's not like one person is like the superstar and everybody else is just picking up the crumbs. The more people you help the more momentum you get over there. It's just it's

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's just amazing to me.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, I can't believe believe I spent 2 years like sitting on the bed.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That's about it.

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Philip Ilani: Yeah, I I wish I wish I started earlier, too. But I think this this time now is also the right time to get in

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Philip Ilani: you see, substack making the announcement, getting really big creators coming in. So there's going to be a lot of people floating in in a couple of months.

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Philip Ilani: so yeah, I think it's it's it's not too late to get in. This is the perfect time to get in. Now, if if you ask me? Honestly, because it's just the the the platform is just exploding

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Philip Ilani: you. You get to connect with really great people from all over the world. It's it's amazing.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: They're thinking people. They're people who write and and consider consider the things that they write and it. It's like

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: all kinds of things. People talk about trees and branches and the moon and

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: esoteric things and practical things. And I just like

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: everything is welcome here. And yeah, there's the political stuff, too. But even the political stuff isn't like nasty political stuff. People just state their point of view, and you can agree with it or not. But you don't. You don't get these big arguments like you get on some other platforms. It's just like, Okay, this is my point of view. Can you look at it.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you know, if you don't agree with it, or if it triggers, you, then, you know, don't look at it to tell you.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But the people over there aren't about starting a fight they're about. Let's come together. Let's make something beautiful out of this platform. Let's really

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: as a global community. And it really is a global community over there. You could just like

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it just feels good.

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Philip Ilani: Yeah, yeah, that's right. I read a newsletter news later today

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Philip Ilani: about a young lady who's who's writing from her kitchen. So I think it's later from my kitchen or something. I can't remember the exact name. And yeah, she's just writing about things. She cook.

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Philip Ilani: you know. So yeah, just like you said that. You know all kinds of things. People write about. People write about farming. People write about gardening. People write about flowers, people writing about beds, you know, all kinds of writing, and the beauty is that you get all this variety there. And you know everybody putting out their creativity.

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Philip Ilani: It's it's really amazing to me. And you get to connect with these people at at a personal level. You can, you know. DM, them. You can chat them directly you can talk to your favorite, you know. Creator. Today I I had a

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Philip Ilani: I had an Aha moment because I've been following a Creator for a while now she has about 12,000 subscribers, and I sent her a direct message, and she replied, me, I was like.

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Philip Ilani: what's going on here, you know, and and everyone is willing to support. People are just really nice on on, on substack. Someone wrote recently that substack has been able to gather the nicest people on it on one platform. And I think it's true. Yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, it just it's

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's just a nice place. And it's not like you go over there. And they're selling you stuff.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, marketing does happen. But it it's more in a Oh, by the way, this can really help you

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: sort of thing. And and you know, if you want it, great if you don't want it. Great. But did you know about this, or did you see this, or have you looked at it this way or God? There's some writers that are just like that drool worthy comes to my mind, and they just like the way they write, is like an artist, the way an artist paints a master artist paints a picture. You're just like mesmerized with every word. It's just like.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So Yummy and others just like, Come on.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: this is what I'm doing today.

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Philip Ilani: Yeah, I think it's really amazing. I see people connecting on on really personal level. I I see people not being afraid to put themselves out there.

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Philip Ilani: And yeah, the the community is just supportive, you see, people, you know, going all out to support each other, you know, collaborating

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Philip Ilani: recommending people sharing, you know, people's thoughts, you know, supporting really

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Philip Ilani: people who are who are just starting starting out.

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Philip Ilani: So yeah, I I see a very good collaborative spirit on, on substack and I'm I'm loving it. I'm loving every bit of it. Yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, I'm I'm with you. There. I have to talk about your titles.

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Philip Ilani: Before we go, because you do such an amazing job titling your content.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: How do you do that? What's your secret?

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Philip Ilani: Well, yeah, I mean, it's something I've I've learned over time that for you to to be able. You know there are lots of things going on on the Internet and for you to be able to grab the attention of of, you know the right audience. The right reader.

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Philip Ilani: You have to be able to tap into their.

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Philip Ilani: You know there are 3 things you can tap into their pain, their desires, and their motivation.

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Philip Ilani: And so I engineer these 3 things.

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Philip Ilani: depending on what I'm talking about. I engineer these 3 things because I now understand my audience because I talk to them every day.

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Philip Ilani: I engineer these 3 things, and I'm able to to come up with titles that

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Philip Ilani: if you see it you would want to see more.

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Philip Ilani: So. So when I I write.

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Philip Ilani: you know my all right, what I want to talk about. And then I ask myself, what's 1 sentence? I could

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Philip Ilani: right that someone would want to stop to

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Philip Ilani: what's in here. What's he talking about?

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Philip Ilani: And so that's how I come up with with my titles and over time. I have seen titles that I think work. So I have a proven system. I have templates that I use.

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Philip Ilani: Which is something I'm I'm preparing to give to my paid subscribers.

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Philip Ilani: but yeah, I have a system. I have a template of proven titles that have studied over the years. I know that if people see this title they would want to read what is inside and

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Philip Ilani: and so I have that template that I can plug in. And any more anyone can. Actually, you know, plug in whatever you want to use.

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Philip Ilani: And yeah, you get. You know, your newsletter has been opened by a large percentage of people. You get your post being read. So it's it's a psychology thing, something I teach my subscribers. I'm sure we'll get to talk more about this.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I I love that, and some of the titles that he uses are like one sub stack or 2

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: 5 seats.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Christmas naming your newsletter that one and stop sending boring emails.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love that.

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Philip Ilani: Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Geo.

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Philip Ilani: yeah. That means that you get better with the more you write, the more you write them, the more. You get better with them. And and there are proving frameworks that you could use to do this. It's it's not rocket science. But yeah, you can lend them, and you can use, you know, templates. Use what is already working. You don't have to reinvent the wheels. You can use what is already working for. You know, big people, I study big creators a lot.

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Philip Ilani: So I look at what they are doing.

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Philip Ilani: how they are getting results. And then I bring it down to what I talk about, what I write about, and then I try to create a template out of that, and then I use that for myself, and it works every single time.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yes, as they say, success leaves clues, and if you go to where the successful people are, even if you just subscribe to their newsletters for free. You can learn so much just by watching how they construct those newsletters, and then you follow their notes and you follow their chats and see how they're operating those things and the things that they're doing, and and how they are getting subscribers, because there's

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you can see it, you know, if you look at a few of them, there's patterns.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: This like pattern. Recognition serves you well.

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Philip Ilani: Yeah, I mean, I mean it's it's a proven thing that you you show me your friends, and I will tell you who you are

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Philip Ilani: the people you you associate with, how it goes a long way to

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Philip Ilani: to reveal who you are and what you get. So yeah, you. You have to associate yourself with with. You know people who are doing it, and then see how they are doing it.

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Philip Ilani: Which is something I want to do for my my subscribers. I want to get everyone to that point where we can all celebrate.

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Philip Ilani: you know, big milestones.

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Philip Ilani: I reached 100 subscribers this morning.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Deal.

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Philip Ilani: Yeah, I mean, just in in under 4 weeks. I started getting really active

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Philip Ilani: mid January, and between then and now, I mean, I still have my my 9 to 5 work. And I do this part time.

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Philip Ilani: But yeah, the the few times I have to spend on substack. I make it count. I I try to give people value and teach people what what they like to learn.

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Philip Ilani: And yeah, in return, I get thank you in clicks. So

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Philip Ilani: it's really amazing. Yeah, it feels good.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Like you're you're you're really contributing to making the world a better place by being there and and showing up for people that really need what you have to offer.

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Philip Ilani: Exactly. But that's I think that's how the world works. You give people value

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Philip Ilani: and you get paid in return. You get paid in in kind words. I've I mean, I've read a lot of really nice kind, you know.

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Philip Ilani: Comments from from subscribers and from total strangers. People I've never met before about how my content has helped them.

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Philip Ilani: And I think that's the most fulfilling thing for me as a creator. When you get people really giving you feedback about what you do, and positive feedback at that. So it's it's really fulfilling. And and I'm grateful for that.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love it. I love it.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So how can people find you over there?

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Philip Ilani: So my publication is Philip's creative lab.

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Philip Ilani: and then Philip Ilani is my handle. If you just search for my name it should pop up.

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Philip Ilani: Yeah, I think that's the easiest way to find me. Philip's creative lab

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Philip Ilani: is my publication. It's going. It's undergoing a lot of, you know, metamorphosis at the moment, starting out, trying to to align what I talk about with what my! My audience really want to hear.

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Philip Ilani: But yeah. If you also search for my name, Philip Ilani.

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Philip Ilani: You should, you should find me, and I'll I'll be happy to connect with as many persons as possible.

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Philip Ilani: Come on, let's let's do this.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, let's do this.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and you can. I'll put the the Philip alani.substack.com in the show notes so you can just click on over and see what he's doing, because he's doing some amazing things over there. Really, really helpful content. Thanks a lot for joining us today, Philip, and

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: be sure to go get his

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: getting started. Guide, get my getting started, Guide, and you'll find his getting started guide in there and a few other videos that I've gone through, and I've collated where you can who you can listen to, to help you really get

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: the certain pieces that you need to to get started over there in a in a big way, and also to get followers and to navigate over there, and all the bits and pieces, so it takes all of the oh, my cow! I don't know where to start during the headlights out of the equation when you get over there and show up.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And really, it's just showing up and make some friends. And

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: so, thanks to everyone for tuning in today, whether you have a podcast or are interested in starting one or love being featured on podcasts, and would like more information about getting your message in front of our huge and active audience be sure to reach out to us at jill@gnostictv.com. We love to help spiritual entrepreneurs and coaches amplify their voice and monetize their mission and offer a variety of ways to do this on the Gnostic TV network

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: platform. Join us next week as we reveal more ways to amplify your voice and monetize your mission until then, and go make the magic happen and get

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: visible.