33 years in business world. The one thing that stays constant? CHANGE.
Yes, you need to do 3 things no matter what - marketing, sales and delivery. But the how, the who, the where changes all the time.
Yet, the same strategies from 2018 are being taught. We have so many clients so frustrated that they have purchased so many courses and programs to learn Instagram, Youtube and LinkedIn. And nothing is working. It is a time suck.
And you and I never wanted to do the Instagram thing anyway, right?
The reels, the little dances, pointing at words floating over your head, performing your life in 15 seconds for an algorithm that smacks your hand the second you try to say something longer than 3 minutes.
Some part of you looked at all of that and went, yeah, no. This isn’t me. And then because everybody and their mother said it was the only way, you either made yourself do it and felt like a total fraud — or you didn’t, and you felt like you were getting left in the dust.
And I know this for sure. That was your intuition talking. That was your design telling you something true, and you were right to listen.
Because the exhaustion & frustration you’ve been feeling isn’t about doing the work on your business. You love the work. It’s the chasing. It’s the pushing. You were out there trying to force something that was always, always meant to come to you. So of course you’re frustrated.
So let me give you some real context here, because I have watched this whole thing from the inside.
I’ve been in business since I was 18. I’m 51 now. I’ve got my master’s in business, I started out at a consulting firm, and then I went to IBM. And at IBM, I was actually hired into their emerging markets group, which is basically the entrepreneurial arm of this giant, giant company. I am really good at seeing the strategic big picture.
There is a big opportunity happening right now. And you and I are perfectly positioned to capitalize on it. It is like it was made for us.
For over a decade now, we’ve all been told the same exact thing.
Build your personal brand.
Build your personal brand.
Build your personal brand.
And listen — it worked. The personal brand model worked really, really well, for a long time. But things are changing.
The new era is just not about sitting around watching somebody’s personal brand. Watching some guru, studying her life, consuming whatever she’s performing for the camera that day. I’m not interested in that anymore. And honestly? I don’t think you are either.
I want content that actually creates value in my real life — my family, my health, my money, my mission, all of it. Not somebody’s highlight reel.
So instead of building a personal brand, I want you to build a personal publishing house.
A personal brand is content about you.
A personal publishing house is content for your tribe.
And there is a huge difference.
A personal brand is content you make for an algorithm. Think about it. On Instagram, I am not even really allowed to make content for my own people. I mean, I’m being a little facetious — but barely.
My tribe wants to hear from me. They want long form. They want to actually learn something. And the second I post a video longer than three minutes, Instagram throws up all these warnings — this won’t perform, this won’t get shown to anybody who doesn’t already follow you. T
he platform decides what’s good. So everybody stops making things for their tribe and starts making things for the algorithm.
That I am not interested in. And I don’t think you are either.
A publishing house flips the whole thing.
Now you are the founder. You’re the creative director. You’re the producer of original work made for your people — built on your design, and built on theirs. This was never really about Instagram versus Substack, you know? It’s a mindset.
The soapbox, not the stage
Instagram is a stage. It’s you, up high, with a microphone, doing a monologue down at an audience.
But a publishing house?
That’s a soapbox. And a soapbox isn’t very high, right? You step up just enough that your people can hear you over all the noise — but you are standing with them. Not above them. With them. You’re in a conversation, not a monologue.
The women I work with, we came from boardrooms and classrooms and operating rooms and courtrooms. We were never meant to go perform in a 15-second clip.
We’ve got depth — we’ve got decades of it — and finally, finally there is a place built for exactly that. A place where your real, original work gets to stand out from all the AI slop instead of drowning in it.
So here’s your permission slip
If you’ve been sitting around waiting for somebody to hand you one — this is it.
You were right. That path you already knew was yours — the long form, the depth, the real conversation, the work that’s actually about something — that was never you being difficult or behind. That was you being EARLY.
You don’t need to learn how to perform.
You need to start publishing.
We are done building these personal brands that are all about us.
We’re building publishing houses for our people. And that, my friend, is how you serve, how you monetize, and how you prosper in this new era. ❤️
If you’re ready to actually start — the most powerful place to build your publishing house right now is podcasting on Substack.
And almost nobody is teaching this yet, which kills me, because it is so good. Learn how to publish your podcast on Substack!
So I broke the whole thing down inside my paid tier, the Substack Soapbox — the training, plus the playbook and the template so you can actually go do it.
It’s $79 for the whole year, and the link is right below. Come build yours with me.
— Julie
Watch the training, get the playbook & the podcast artwork Canva template!
