A few days ago, John Bejakovic wrote an email outlining what's working for him right now... in business and in life. Then he sent out an email prompt (for those who are subscribed to his Daily Email Habit) with the same. Reading his "what's working" list was interesting, so I figured I'd share mine... and maybe turn it into a prompt for you guys, too. What's working for you right now? In your work/business... or in your life? Make a list of 5 things and share with us! (10 is better, but may be overkill for a community, so let's go with 5 for now, but feel free to come up with 10 ideas for yourself... usually the longer the list, the better and more revealing they are.) I'll start 👇

Here's what's coming in June for Vault members: ☑️ First week of June (Date TBA via email): Field Notes focusing on email promo strategies ☑️ Thu June 18, 1 PM EST: Live - SEO/GEO/HEO Blog Writing Best Practices (focuses on how-to guides since they're best for discoverability... and HEO stands for Human Engine Optimization, FYI, since that's just as important as SEO and GEO... if not more... and yes, I've just made it up...) ☑️ Thu June 25, 1 PM EST: Live - Audience Growth Q&A Register for the live events here: https://luma.com/thesideblogger ✌️

Context: I asked Gemini and Claude to research a company so I know if they have enough money to pay what I'm asking for. Gemini: Yep, they've got money Claude: Bootstrapped company, so no money. So I tell Gemini that Claude disagrees with him, to this, dear Ants, Gemini's real response: "First off, this is exactly why you don’t let an AI tell you what a human human business owner is going to do." And then again... "You did the right thing. Don't let a chatbot scare you out of your worth before the founder even has a chance to read your email. You gave him options, you backed it up with data, and you positioned yourself beautifully." WT-actual-F... ????? 😂🤣😂😂🫠🫠🙃 Also... "human human business?" It lost its mind!!!

I had the Monetization Q&A this morning. It was a small group (3 people aside from me) so we had fun just casually chatting, bouncing off ideas, and then sharing our mutual dislike of Substack (or rather the people who run it). In any case, @Megan Justice, who is happy with her tax filing business, but also has a newsletter on the side for people who are interested in learning about Megan's work, mentioned she'd like to make at least $100 consistently from her newsletter. This was humbling and reminded me of a book I read recently by Travis Sago, Fans & Fortunes Formula. In it, Travis reminds us that while we, the expert business owners, often look at the bigger picture (how to make six figures), our audience isn't necessarily there. Like Megan... she's not trying to make a six-figure blogging business. She already has a successful business that keeps her busy... but she also enjoys having her newsletter on the side, and thinks it would be nice to make some money off it. So... my question to all of you: How would you make $100 consistently (say every week) from a small newsletter? I have my ideas that I shared with Megan, but I'd love to crowdsource a few if you have thoughts?

After a very, very long time, I published a guest post on The Side Blogger. This whole thing came about in a weird turn of events: Lib (the person who wrote it), made a LinkedIn post asking if anyone would like a high-quality guest post. I didn't know Lib at the time, but I saw @Lex Roman jump in the comments and go all "me me me." And because I trust Lex and know they've been publishing guest posts on their site Revenue Rulebreaker for some time (I was the first to publish one on Revenue Rulebreaker, in fact), I also went me me me... Anyway, the point is, I'm happy with how this turned out. And I would like to do more of these. However, I've tried to make it work in the past, but it failed miserably. Not everyone turned in quality work, and it ended up being more work than what I signed up for. So I'm understandably a little concerned. I was also paying a fixed amount for articles, and that attracted all sorts of wrong-fit people. So, now I'm wondering how to make it worthwhile for both parties. One option would be to pay them a fixed amount as I did before, and the other would be to do a JV-style thing where I promote them to my list in exchange for a quality article. Anyway... lotsa thoughts around this. I guess my question is... has anyone here accepted or contributed to another website? Was it worthwhile? And what would be your ideal form of compensation? A fixed payment or a JV style thing?