I share writing & editing lessons so entrepreneurs & founders can attract + convert high-value clients | Edited 3M+ words | Former Head of Content | Running on seltzer 🤩

I help solopreneurs and founders turn their scattered expertise into content that drives business. AKA, I get you out of the "recognition gap."

If you're stuck in the recognition gap, your content probably isn't making people think, "Holy sh*t, I need to work with this person."

I've been there.

After 4.5 years as Head of Content, I went solo and made every mistake in the book: scattered messaging, feast-or-famine revenue cycles, content that got likes but zero leads, relying on referrals like my business depended on it (cuz it did).

Then I had my 'aha!' moment: Stop trying to be known for everything. Own one specific problem so I can become the obvious solution. 

What I do now:

🏴‍☠️Duo Consulting: We help solopreneurs standardize, market, and sell their consulting offers

📈 How Solos Scale: Podcast, newsletter, and mini books for solos stuck in the recognition gap and keen to scale from $20K+ to $50K+ per month

📚 Cut the Fluff Newsletter: Exploring how solopreneurs and founders can cut the fluff in their content, business, and life

A few milestones for good measure:

→ Built a 90K+ audience in 3 years
→ Sold multi-six figures in courses to 2100+ students
→ Helped dozens of clients land $45K+ deals and scale to high six and seven figures. 

My philosophy: Your expertise and the way you frame the problem you solve is your edge. Let's package it into an offer your ICP knows, likes, and buys. 

✉️ Weekly insights: Cut the Fluff newsletter, How Solos Scale podcast 
🎯 Work with me: Duo Consulting 2:1 program 

Book a call: Duoconsulting.co

Erica Schneider

The real work behind LinkedIn “inbound” is outbound.

LIES: You just post consistently and watch the inbound roll in. (Especially if you sell services.)

TRUTH: You post content to open engagement loops. Then you close those loops yourself by starting real conversations. First in the comments, then in DMs.

Of course pure inbound exists. I get inbound leads often.

But that’s only after years of time here and, regardless, relying 100% on inbound means you’re leaving so many deals in the dust. So yeah I get inbound but I also start DM conversations all the time. 

Take our client Brian.

Brian spends about 7 hours a week starting conversations.

He has roughly 20 going at any time.

He gets a 30% booked call rate from those conversations.

And he makes a lot of f*cking money. 

(He loves making a lot of money but that's just Brian. The actual amount isn't the point. Having enough money to love your life is the point. And that requires getting clients.)

Regardless of how crazy Brian is (HI BRIAN) you do need to find a biz dev situation that works for you. 

And that number needs to be higher than 0 hours a week.

Cuz whether you like it or not, when you work for yourself, biz dev is literally part of your job description. 

You should be spending ~1/3 of your time on it. 

Especially if you’re in services. Services = the relationship business.

You don’t need thousands of people to become customers. You need 2-10 clients per quarter.

So TLDR:

-Posts open engagement loops
-The DMs close them
-Sometimes prospects start those conversations
-But you also need to send DMs
-Yes, inbound is possible
-But even so, stop waiting
-Go do biz dev 
-Cuz you run a business
-And you need clients to pay you to keep running said business

That’s the game. Love it or hate it.

Offer design & content for scaling solopreneurs | Co-Founder @ Duo Consulting | Running on seltzer 🤩

My twins are 3 today. I was really scared of becoming a parent cuz I wasn’t sure I’d be any good with little kids. Turns out, “good” doesn’t mean good at playing silly games or doing funny voices or making some crafty thing they’ll obsess over. It means loving them even when you suck at all the above. So by those standards, I’m doing pretty great. They also make me wanna bang my head against a wall but I’ve never loved anyone who doesn’t make me wanna do that from time to time so. 

TLDR: loving them hard = good enough ❤️

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I get this question a lot so here's the answer: 7 months. That's how long it took for me to shift my audience upmarket.

7 months ago, most of my connection requests + engagements were coming from content people, freelancers, writers. 

Today, most of them are coming from founders, co-founders, senior marketers in-house.

Other FAQs + answers:

-Yes, my engagement dropped for a few months during the shift
-No, this did not impact my business
-In fact, I'm making more MoM revenue (consistently) than ever before

How I did it:

-Shifted from talking purely about content to growing and scaling your solo biz + occasionally how to do that with content
-Shifted away from "how to" content and focused more heavily on marketing the problem
-Vigorously followed our MP3 framework, focusing on my new ICP (market the problem, process, proof)
-Posted LESS often, but higher impact
-Still comment the same amount

TLDR: My upmarket audience doesn't need to know how to do things themselves. They need to know that:

1) Someone deeply understands their problem
2) Has a process to solve it
3) Has proof that the process works
4) A reliable partner exists to help them scale their biz

How to content is wonderful for engagement and teachable moments but if you're a service provider, in my experience, it's going to attract downmarket buyers who aren't ready/don't have the cash to invest. 

(Doesn't mean don't do it, but instead wrap it in your process rather than a viral teachable moment)

"OK, I get MP3 (Problem, Process, Proof). But what about the personal stuff?"

We've had this conversation at least a dozen times since releasing MP3.

Fair question.

Some of the most magnetic solos on LinkedIn share way more than their frameworks. They share their kids, their existential crises, their "I don't have this figured out" admissions. And it works for them.

So is that a fourth P? And do you need it?

Here's what we've landed on: MP3 is required. MP4 is optional.

MP3 = problem, process, proof
MP4 = problem, process, proof, parasocial

My co-founder Nick Bennett 🏴‍☠️ doesn't do parasocial content. It's not his thing. Hasn't hurt his business. 

Last month, Anthony Pierri admitted he's never posted a personal thing ever. He's got a massive audience and a highly successful business.

I do share parasocial content. The parenting chaos, the mindset work, the unfiltered admissions. It's part of how I connect. But it ONLY works because MP3 is already there.

The trap I see people fall into is when parasocial runs ahead of the foundational stuff.

People get to know you, but not the problem you solve.

So they like you. Maybe enough to get on a call. The vibes are there. But they were never sold on what you do or how you help, so it ends with "let me think about it," and then they never hire you. They keep engaging with your stuff cuz vibes, but yeah, they're not opening their wallet.

The takeaway:

People need to care about the problem you solve in order to hire you. Caring about you may bring them into your world, but it will not make they give you money.

SO how do you decide whether to do parasocial content or leave it?

I went into more detail in my newsletter, so go check it out.

https://lnkd.in/eT78bQ3p

A warning: I know solos with 50K, 60K, 70K followers making less than our clients with 2,000.

Because they built an audience of consumers, not buyers. People who love free education. People who leave "omg this is gold" comments and would never in a million years pay $5K a month for anything.

Once you're known for being known, it's very hard to reprogram yourself because the feedback loop is brutal:

-The personal content gets engagement 
-The dopamine hits 
-You wake up the next day and play again
-More dopamine 
-A month later, you realize you haven't done any problem, process, or proof content 
-A client churns
-"I need a client" 
-So you write something about the problem you solve 
-It gets 10 likes instead of 200 
-You feel like shit because it "didn't perform"
-And now you're trapped

Stuck craving dopamine and money and having no idea how to satiate those needs in tandem.

I am speaking from personal experience because this was me a year ago.

So here's what I've learned, and I hope this helps:

The dopamine isn't real. The money is.

That said, you can have both. You can post the personal stuff, have fun, make jokes, share the chaos. But it has to be layered on top of a foundation, not instead of one.

And yeah, reprogramming yourself to care less about likes and more about income is uncomfortable. 

You have to watch posts "flop" and not spiral. 

You have to trust that the 10-like post about the problem you solve is doing more for your business than the 200-like post about your morning routine.

It takes time. It takes intention. It takes looking at your bank account instead of your impressions.

But it works. I'm proof. Nick's proof. Our clients are proof.

I wrote more about this in my newsletter yesterday. Go read it if this resonates.

https://lnkd.in/eX3iMWQ7

First time I ever met Louis Grenier was on his podcast. It was the most fun I'd ever had being interviewed. His fiery no BS questions aligned perfectly with my fiery no BS personality. 

Naturally, we moved our friendship to WhatsApp. Actually I think we facetimed at first, but I digress.

We both had (have) toddlers. We both have our own businesses. We both are epic.

Anyways, when he started his community a few months back, he asked if I'd come be a guest speaker.

"DUH OF COURSE ANY TIME," I replied.

And so, alas, that time is tomorrow. And apparently it's the most RSVPed event so far. 

"NO PRESSURE," he says. 

"I EAT PRESSURE FOR BREAKFAST," I reply.

Or I just what I said in the screenshot but I thought that.

So yeah are you coming? Because Louis is giving away a free 7 day trial offer for his community just so you can come hang with us.

Comment "NO PRESSURE" and I'll give you the link. 

(I'm also just gonna post the link below but hey, engagement bait is always FUN)

Workshop topic: How to turn LinkedIn likes into money (cuz engagement doesn't pay the bills)

See you there!

https://lnkd.in/eAp6WyPj

Hey service providers: If you're constantly drained by your clients, it's not because you're bad at boundaries or because you need to "toughen up."

It's because you're attracting parachute seekers when you want to work with partners.

Here's the difference:

🪂 Parachute seekers want you to do the hard work for them. 

-They need validation on every decision. 

-They second-guess every move. 

-They're ultimately looking for someone to save them.

🤝 Partner seekers know it's going to be hard, but they thrive when they push themselves out of their comfort zone. 

-They just need a guide. 

-Someone to go back and forth with. 

-They're strong, they trust themselves (despite having limiting beliefs), and they want you in their corner as they figure it out.

Here's the rub:

The way you describe your work determines which type of person shows up.

If you lead with failure indicators (everything that's broken, everything that's not working, how bad things are), you'll attract parachute seekers. 

People who are scared, stuck, and don't have the resources (financial or emotional) to actually do the work.

If you lead with success indicators (what they've already built, what they're ready to scale, where they're headed next), you'll attract partner seekers. 

People who are ready, resourced, and capable of executing.

Same problem you solve. Different frame. Completely different client.

Nick Bennett 🏴‍☠️ and I work exclusively with partner seekers. 

People doing consistent $20K months who want to scale to $50K+. 

People who have already proven they can build something, and now they need help optimizing it.

The work is the same. The conversations are completely different.

It all starts with how you frame the problem you solve. Which is why "problem framing" is always the first step in our program.

(Followed closely by engagement model, POV & positioning, then business vision.)

We're gonna write and podcast more about this over the next few weeks, so subscribe to the stuff and things (in my profile).

Or reach out if you're our ICP and looking for your next partner in your scaling journey.

I've fallen down an N8N rabbit hole and I'm not coming back up. I vibe coded so hard last week my arm started tingling (not in a good way).

These 5 workflows are saving us a disgusting amount of time:

Context: I'm using Claude side-by-side with N8N to help me map out the workflows and write the code for them. I have no idea what the f*ck I'm doing, but it works.

1. Meeting recap automation

When a meeting ends, the Fathom link gets sent to a Notion database, which triggers Claude's API to create a structured recap, then sends it to the right Slack channel automatically.

2. Meeting pre-agenda

Looks at my calendar for the next day, finds just client meetings, pulls up the most recent call transcript, which triggers Claude's API to create a structured agenda, and sends it to the right Slack channel.

3. Sales call to HubSpot

Anytime a sales call gets booked, it creates a new deal in HubSpot and sends us a Slack message with their form details.

4. Voice of customer from sales calls

Grabs the transcript after every sales call and runs it through a prompt that extracts: context about them, direct quotes, pain points, desired outcomes, current solutions, urgency/triggers, and objections. All automatically organized in Notion.

5. Client meeting insights

After every client call, it captures: breakthroughs they had, blockers they're facing, limiting beliefs that surfaced, and content ideas based on what we discussed.

(Bonus) 6. Slack channel history past 7 days

Get all the messages (including threaded messages) from the past 7 days summarized so you know wtf you actually talked to clients about async over the past week. So helpful.

We're about to roll some of these into client workspaces too. They don't even know it yet. Just gonna appear. 

Just sharing because this is genuinely fun. And sharing actually good AI use cases makes the world a better place.

Anyone built anything else genuinely useful in N8N? Or Zapier, which I can just translate into N8N.

PS. I can't stress enough that I am not a developer or ops person so if there are manual ways to do this that are cheaper/better than N8N I'm not interested cuz I have no idea what I'm doing k thx.

"Should I do this?" is a question I bet you've asked yourself 400 times this month with no one to answer.

This is the part of solo life that sucks, tbh. The loneliness tax. The way every decision lives in your head, bouncing around, never landing.

“Should I raise my prices. Should I fire this client. Should I take this call. Should I pivot. Should I hire. Should I wait.”

The longer you sit with them, the heavier they get. Until the thing that would've taken five minutes to decide becomes this massive weight you've been dragging around for months.

Yes, you can join a community. I'm in a few. They help. But there's nothing like one-on-one attention for your problems. It just hits different.

Which is why this is my favorite "I didn't know how bad I needed this" problem we solve for clients. 

Yes we have a foundational program to standardize your offer, apply our MP3 content framework, elevate the problem you solve, improve your sales talk track. All the critical stuff.

But my favorite moments are the ones where clients have been agonizing over whether or not to fire a shitty client, we talk for 20 minutes, they fire them that week, and feel so free.

Or when they've been thinking about hiring a contractor for six months, we clarify what they actually need, and they post the job the next day.

It's an unintended benefit, but a few clients have started calling us their non-equity co-founders. 

Cuz lez be real, most solos don't have the luxury of bringing in equity partners to help them scale, or hiring a COO or a co-founder to share the load.

Boom boom pop. Decisions non-stop. 

So if you're doing $20K+ months and at full decision fatigue, hit me up. This is the work we do. On top of all the foundational stuff we advertise 🤝

Jay Yang

Acquisition.com

Social Media Strategist for Alex & Leila Hormozi

Pre-Production Strategist for Alex & Leila Hormozi

The Spark

Writer

I help established entrepreneurs scale their brand and market their products using social media.

Founder

AppSumo

I worked directly with Noah Kagan (Founder & CEO of AppSumo) to strategize, create, and grow his social media brand and email newsletter. Led the social media campaign that helped make Million Dollar Weekend a New York Times bestseller.

Head of Content to Noah Kagan

Z Fellows

Grew the Z Fellows Twitter account from 1,066 to 22,369 followers in 1 year and newsletter from 3,460 to 6,000+ subscribers.

Content Strategist

The Startup Archive

Developed the content creation and distribution system that grew the Startup Archive Instagram account from 0 to 160,000 followers and Twitter account from 0 to 40,000 followers in 9 months.

Perch

Marketing

Good People Digital

Researcher & Copywriter

The Newsletter Nerd

Started and scaled a B2B newsletter media company to exit within 5 months.

beehiiv

Created and launched the beehiiv 101 resource.

Growth Marketer

Hi, I’m Jay Yang.

I believe you don’t need permission to create your own opportunities.

When I was 16, I cold-emailed Tyler Denk, the CEO of beehiiv, with a list of ideas on how I could help. That email turned into an internship where I built beehiiv 101—a course that’s helped hundreds of users unlock the platform’s potential.

At 17, I sent Noah Kagan, founder of AppSumo, a 19-page pitch deck breaking down gaps in his social media and email marketing—and how to fix them. That landed me a role as Head of Content, where I led campaigns (like the one that made Million Dollar Weekend a New York Times bestseller).

These days, I help entrepreneurs scale their brand, grow their audience, and market their products more effectively.

When I’m not working, you’ll find me:

• Playing pickup basketball at the local gym.
• Picking up and putting down heavy things (roughly 10-12 times).
• Hanging with family and friends.

Pretty cool thing to wake up to - got featured in Forbes!

You can just do things 🫡

Alex & Leila Hormozi’s Written Media Strategist | Author of You Can Just Do Things

I turned 20 two weeks ago…
Here’s how I got here:

When I was 15, I googled “how to make money online”.

That led me to start a music promotion YouTube channel where I’d promote underground artists songs to help them get exposure.

I posted every single day for an entire summer… but the channel didn’t go anywhere :(

But it did teach me the power of online content and value creation.

At 16, I realized I needed more guidance on how to run an online business, so I cold-emailed Tyler Denk, the CEO of beehiiv, with a list of ideas on how I could help him.

That email turned into an internship where I built beehiiv 101—a course that’s helped hundreds of users unlock the platform’s potential. 

At 17, I sent Noah Kagan, founder of AppSumo, a 19-page pitch deck breaking down gaps in his social media and email marketing—and how to fix them.

That landed me a role as Head of Content, where I led campaigns (like the one that made Million Dollar Weekend a New York Times bestseller). 

At 18, while in college, I decided to try my hand at the game of business and scaled a ghostwriting and creative agency to six-figures within its first year. 

I learned a ton about offer creation, sales, onboarding, client success, marketing, and operations.

At 19, I dropped out of college to work on Alex & Leila Hormozi’s media team as a written strategist writing tweets, ads, VSLs, YouTube scripts, and emails.

I also self-published my first book You Can Just Do Things, which became an Amazon best-seller.

To be completely honest, those two decisions were the scariest decisions I’ve ever had to make.

…and now I’m 20.

And I’m still just getting started 😈

If I could go back and give my younger self one piece of advice - it would be this:

>> Do more things that would make your 10-year-old self proud. <<

The goal is to look back and be able to say…

“Everything we said we’d do, we did.”

The quickest way to change your life is to put yourself in an environment where you feel out of place and force yourself to level up.

Since joining Acquisition, I've been in rooms with deca-millionaires and centa-millionaires. I've led meetings, worked with vendors, run learning workshops for the team, and pitched ideas to the company's leaders.

In nearly every one of those situations, I felt slightly out of place.

And that was the point.

Mimicry is fundamentally baked into the psychology of every human being.

Rather than trying to fight against it, lean into it, use it, find the best people you know, and spend as much time with them as possible.

Work with the best in the world. Lift with people stronger than you. Run with people faster than you. Hang out with people happier than you.

You become who you surround yourself with.

Social Media Strategist for Alex & Leila Hormozi | Author of You Can Just Do Things

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Reminder to self:
"Never let your quest for more distract you from the beauty of enough."



This Thanksgiving, I keep reminding myself that I'm living the life my younger self once prayed for.

This past year has been absolutely wild...

• My content agency crossed six figures, and then I shut the whole thing down.

• I published my first book (which became an Amazon bestseller), dropped out of college, and moved across the country to join Alex & Leila Hormozi's media team.

• We broke a Guinness World Record and made $106M in 3 days.

• I ran my first marathon. Got featured in Forbes. And built my Instagram to over 250k followers.

When you see it all listed out like that, it looks like everything just clicked into place.

But honestly, there were so many nights where I'd lay awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering if I'd completely blown up my life for nothing.

The weird part is that all these "highlights" probably made up 1% of my actual year. The other 99% felt pretty ordinary, messy and uncertain.

It's only when I look back now that I can see how much actually happened.

And that's what I keep forgetting:
That growth happens in the quiet stretches, not the headlines.

Whenever I catch myself complaining or feeling sorry for myself about some random little thing...

I stop and think about how 15-year-old Jay would absolutely lose his mind if he knew about all the cool stuff we've experienced this year.

I met so many incredible people who became real friends. I learned more than I thought possible. And I'm finally starting to feel proud of who I'm becoming.

While I'm still just scratching the surface of the things I want to do with my life... I'm beyond grateful for everything that's happened thus far.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Here's to many more incredible experiences with incredible people.

- Jay

Ps. YOU CAN JUST DO THINGS (!!)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

A reflection on turning twenty…

(Link to full blog in the comments)

Stop worrying

|￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣|
        you can just do things 
|＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿|
                    \ (•◡•) / 
                      \      / 
                       ——
                        |     |
                        |_   |_

"Don't be so busy planning the future that you forget to live in the present."

You have to proactively shape the life you want, because if you don't, you'll be pulled by the natural entropy of society.

Creators and content teams...
A hill I'm willing to die on:



You're probably not paying enough attention to your written platforms.

And here's why:

It's well known that YouTube and Instagram are incredible platforms for reaching people and driving revenue.

So most content teams believe they should allocate more resources to those platforms.

BUT... there's a caveat.

While that is a directionally correct statement, there is additional nuance that needs to be taken into consideration.

You see, written content isn’t just one of the platforms. It’s the foundation of all the other platforms.

Tweets become:
• YTCP posts
• Threads posts
• LinkedIn posts
• Facebook posts
• Instagram posts
• Scripts for shorts
• Scripts for YT videos

So even though Instagram or YouTube may get more total impressions than X...

A large percentage of those impressions are driven from X content.

So... what’s the conclusion?

Written content shouldn’t be an afterthought.

When the writing works, every downstream channel performs better. When it doesn’t, the entire system underperforms.

I turned 20 this past Friday...

What advice do you have to make the most of this next decade? 👇

This idea might actually change your life:

HOT TAKE:
A leader's job is NOT to tell their team what to do...



A leader's job is to set the standard.
To create guidelines.
To give support.

To make their team look good to everyone else.

If a leader is constantly:
- stepping over their team
- chasing the spotlight
- protecting their ego above the mission

... run the other way.

You won’t grow under someone who needs to be the star.

Leadership Ideas

Your life is what you tolerate.

The habits you keep.
The excuses you make.
The friends you allow in.

If you want to change your life, change your standards.

Stop tolerating mediocrity

People calling you 'lucky' is one of the ultimate forms of flattery.


It means you have so much momentum, people can't comprehend the amount of volume and work you've done - so they write it off as luck.

Let them call you lucky

Harsh Truth: Everything you want is on the other side of a few hard decisions.

taplio

The Battle

Erica Schneider

Jay Yang

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