Amanda Northcutt (00:00)
Hello, you're listening to the Level Up Creators podcast. Amanda Northcutt here, founder and CEO. We help creators and digital thought leaders like you turn your knowledge and experience into rock solid recurring revenue. And we are so glad you're here. Welcome. Today, we have a very special returning guest, the incredible Sam VanderWielen.

Sam is an attorney turned entrepreneur and one of the top legal educators for online business owners. She's the founder of Sam VanderWielen LLC, which has helped over 350,000 entrepreneurs with her signature ultimate bundle.

legal contract templates, and of course, her podcast, On Your Terms. Beyond her expertise in business law, Sam brings raw honesty about entrepreneurship, bouncing massive growth while navigating personal challenges, including brain surgery and losing both of her parents. Sam lives in Long Island, New York with her husband, Ryan, and their Bernadoodle Hudson, a collection of too many coffee mugs and a stack of must read fiction books. Sam, welcome back to the show. I'm so glad to have you.

Sam Vander Wielen (00:51)
You

Thank you, Amanda. Thanks for having me.

Amanda Northcutt (00:59)
And obviously, we've covered the whole legal protections for entrepreneurs before, so everybody should definitely go back and listen to that episode if you have not. Really, really important foundational stuff there. But we're going to, again, mix in some fresh topics today, especially around your book and new strategies for business growth. But before we dive in, could you give us just the of the Cliff's Notes version of why you deviated from a traditional legal career and how you came to do what you do now?

Sam Vander Wielen (01:24)
Absolutely. So I was a corporate lawyer, I was a business lawyer and I really hated it, but I had also completely adopted this victim mode mindset where I was like this miserable career happened to me and there's nothing I can do about it. And I acted like I was punished to a life sentence of being a lawyer, which I joke in my book, I think.

could be a thing, but I just really didn't like it. And it wasn't for me, but it wasn't until I had a real like life shakeup moment actually on a flight home from Amsterdam back to Philadelphia, where I'm from, that it really just shook me into taking action and realizing that I had more choices than I thought that I did. And I just started taking responsibility for my happiness. Still at that time though, I thought my happiness existed in my job, which is a lot of where the title comes from for my business, from my book is that

I thought, okay, if I leave my job and I start a business, I'll be happy. But as you mentioned at the top, I left the law in 2016. I started an online business and I subsequently had brain surgery and then both of my parents died back to back within a year. And my dad had had leukemia, so it was very difficult. so life didn't stop lifeing. And at the same time, my business was wildly successful. And I think it was actually kind of related to what I was going through, but

The joke was on me that I thought starting my own business was going to be the thing that made me happy and resolve all my problems and that life would be smooth sailing after that.

Amanda Northcutt (02:55)
And everybody who's listening, definitely again, go back and listen to that first episode that I was fortunate enough to record with Sam. mean, Sam, your story is just unbelievable. it's just, yeah, life is gonna life, isn't it? And it's like, when it rains, it pours. All of those cliche statements kind of happened over the course of a very short period of time. I mean, I cannot imagine.

Sam Vander Wielen (03:14)
I know.

Yeah, was, it was and is still a lot to be honest, anybody who's grieving knows that that doesn't really have an expiration date. So it's still very much ongoing and it's still pretty recent. I only lost my mom a year and a half ago. But I think it was so like one of the most unexpected things and very much not intentional by the way. So like I am not here to say like, I hope bad stuff happens to you because it ends up being really profitable. What I'm actually trying to say is that

in having my back against the wall essentially and not really having any other options. I needed to make money off my business. I just needed to make a living. We're not talking G-Wagons and whatever else. I just needed to make a living in my business. I had to figure out something where my business, even though was online, didn't exclusively rely on me or require tons of content all the time or something like this.

pushed me accidentally to create a much, much more efficient, streamlined and evergreen business, which is what I ended up writing my book about because I want people to be able to go out and create a very simple, like chill marketing strategy for their business. Hopefully not because anything bad is going on in your life, but maybe you just have better things to do.

Amanda Northcutt (04:35)
love that you actually have something to say and you wrote a book about it and like you've birthed this gift to the world that is actually worth reading. mean, books are a dime a dozen and I'm so excited for all of the knowledge and information and takeaways and actionable insights that you have packed into this book while being a human. so...

Sam Vander Wielen (05:00)
Mm.

Amanda Northcutt (05:01)
Tell us a little bit more about those like okay the title of the book is really intriguing when I start my business. That is a common Trope and obviously misinformation we all we you and I both know that starting a business is very very difficult and it's like pushing a boulder up a hill and Tell us more about I mean why you wrote the book about this instead of Your area of subject matter expertise at least one of them being a lawyer and then

legal importance and things like structure of the business, tactical stuff. Why did you go this direction instead?

Sam Vander Wielen (05:35)
Yeah, I actually refused to write a legal book. I'm a Scorpio. I'm very, very stubborn. I will like die on every hill that I want to be on. And so I was very adamant that I wanted a Big Five book deal. And we had some talks with other Big Five publishers who were like, hey, it has to be legal. And I was like, hey, have a nice day. And so it was great to find like this relationship where I wanted to branch out. I I wanted to mention this, I guess, for people who feel like

pigeonhole like, or you're not like a one note person. I, yes, I am a lawyer, but I am also not destitute to having to talk about legal stuff for the rest of my life. I have also picked up on so many things along the way. And as I, I've now had a multi seven figure business every single year since 2020. And I get constant questions from people being like, well, what do you do for this? And I love your funnel or people attend my webinar. I was on a podcast yesterday where the host said I attended your webinar just so I could hear you.

do it. And I've never seen anybody do a webinar like that. Like I get questions and comments like this all the time. And you're right, I'm a lawyer. So it's like, where else do I have to point to people? I didn't want to create a course. I didn't want to do anything. I really, I love to write and I love to tell stories and people have always seemed to enjoy at least the 46,000 people who get my emails tend to enjoy the fact that I tell stories and teach lessons at the same time. And I thought there was like a hole in the market to be able to teach people about evergreen marketing strategies.

while also making it like fun and easy to read. so I really, yeah, I really wanted to put this out there for the person who hasn't quite found this voice in the online business industry quite yet.

Amanda Northcutt (07:13)
Thank you for doing that. And again, books written or authored by people who have something to say is really powerful. And also that through the activities in your business, you've created so much leverage for yourself. And being a good CEO is a lot about knowing where to create points of leverage and how to exploit those ethically in order to reach your long-term vision and your shorter-term goals.

I love that you showed up to negotiations with Big Five Publishers and were like, nope, bye.

Sam Vander Wielen (07:46)
Yeah, it wasn't worth

doing it in my opinion if you couldn't do it the way you really wanted. Yeah.

Amanda Northcutt (07:52)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you knew what you want and you went for it and you had the leverage. And I think most people know that you have, you hold the cards in a negotiation if you can walk away and be okay with that. So I think that's really cool that you do actually have the multi-seven figure business. You are not just writing in theory and you have the actual stories and the chops and the demonstrable track record of success to back it up. And again,

Sam Vander Wielen (08:02)
Mm.

Amanda Northcutt (08:19)
You and I had a conversation offline before I hit the record button about how that is not unfortunately always the case when people are publishing content and books and it is a lot more theory than it is fact and based on your own experience. So tell us more about the book. I mean, what can we expect to feel as we are reading through it and then what are we gonna walk away with?

Sam Vander Wielen (08:43)
Yeah, I hope that you feel seen in some of the things that you maybe have experienced as an online business owner that you're like, yeah, I did think that was kind of weird that everybody makes these claims or that they talk about these things that way, but they don't actually have any experience or knowledge or that I thought that there was this one magic bullet right way to do things that turns out it doesn't exist. I hope to inspire people to be more experimental and curious, my favorite word.

about what marketing strategies they like, let alone which ones work and which ones speak to their audience and how to feel maybe a little bit more empowered and confident to go out and try different strategies. Obviously, I give you the layout of a lot that I recommend or at least like a framework for how I recommend going about them. I teach people how to build their first on digital products, like a million dollar digital product. And so we actually build out the product together in the book all the way from conception

to beta testing, to marketing, to scaling it. And then there's a whole separate chapter that teaches you how to build a marketing ecosystem just around that product itself. So I'm really excited to have something that people can really take and implement. It's one of the other reasons why if any of you purchase the book right now, you'll get access to book club with me in May. So like every week in May, I'm gonna do.

implementation, so we're gonna do a live call with everybody who buys the book and we're gonna implement this stuff in real time because everything I wrote in there is tactical and implementable just related to your marketing strategies.

Amanda Northcutt (10:12)
Ooh, I love it. The practical and the tactical and the human element all mixed together into this amazing soup that is your book. Let's talk a little bit more. You talked about experimentation and curiosity. I also commonly hear, well, we all, think, see on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, wherever, ads and posts from creators who are claiming to sell like a silver bullet. This is the one way to do it. This is the one way to make your six-figure course launch in a

Sam Vander Wielen (10:38)
Mmm.

Amanda Northcutt (10:42)
By the way, a course is like the only way to make six figures on your own. And just kind of like this very fixed mindset of this is the way that it is, this is the way that it works, it is my way or the highway. Whereas it sounds like in your book, what you are helping people do is think. You are helping people learn how to think and make decisions based on the information they have at the time and what is best for them and their unique capabilities and goals, architecture and things like that. So tell us more about

Sam Vander Wielen (10:59)
Mm.

Amanda Northcutt (11:11)
that and why that is so important to you to transfer like that level of context as opposed to just follow these instructions, don't deviate from the roadmap, my way or the highway.

Sam Vander Wielen (11:22)
Yeah, that's such a great question because as I explained in the book, when you look to these gurus online, you're actually looking to the wrong guru. The guru is your potential customer. That's who we need to really talk to and hear from. And we need to understand what's going on in the market. We need to understand why you're different and why is any of that different stuff about you or your product any better and what's missing in the market. I talk a lot in the book about the fact that we can

personally be different as content creators so that there's maybe something unique like, you know, for example, I'm like a non-stuffy lawyer that makes it a little different than what people typically expect when they're going to hear from a lawyer. But my product itself was also different. So when I designed my digital legal templates, when I designed the Ultimate Bundle, I differentiated the product along with myself. And I did that because I knew what spoke to people. I knew what people were looking for. I knew people were saying like, hey, this is why I'm not going to that other

person or this is why I don't use that company because that's not speaking to me. And it wasn't like I had to try hard. I didn't have to ship like shape myself in any way. That was me. It was kind of like a me was missing. Right. And so I really, I guess I feel pretty passionately about people backing up and being like, wait, I'm taking all this information or this advice from this person who knows nothing about me. There was nothing about the market that I'm in or my customers.

And instead we're going to shift the focus on to what is your area of expertise? What are you different and better at? Why is that different and better good for the customer? And what is the customer looking for and asking for? And we're going to build a product out like reverse engineer it from there.

Amanda Northcutt (13:01)
I love that. It's very process oriented, but again, highly customizable. But it's such a unique quality that you have. And I love your methodology as well. mean, you're like speaking the beginning parts of the MRR method, which is our proprietary methodology. And it works. It works when you know how to think about business, you know what the important players are, stakeholders, what you uniquely bring to the table.

what problems you are uniquely capable of solving for a specific subset of the population, your ICP, your ideal customer profile, and how do you get someone from this spot of feeling a great deal of urgent, expensive pain to a place of confidence, clarity, success, whatever the case may be. And then your packaging or your products and services is really just the packaging of how you're delivering that medicine to a person.

Sam Vander Wielen (13:52)
Nyeh.

Amanda Northcutt (13:55)
I love that and it works. It works and we're like, the proof is in the pudding and you and I are sitting here right now with multi seven figure businesses, women owned by the way, which is super cool. And this is how we did it. listen, you should listen. A lot of people feel stuck. People who want to step into entrepreneurship feel really, really stuck and nervous, especially if they have a steady corporate job and they don't have like a really pressing reason to leave other than.

Sam Vander Wielen (14:04)
yet.

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Northcutt (14:23)
they really, really want to and they hate their job and their life because of it. But the money's good and so maybe they stay and they just don't know what to do next and like spinning out kind of in their brain every day, showing up to their desk, hating their jobs and wanting out, but not knowing what to do next. How do you teach people to get unstuck and move toward action rather than rumination?

Sam Vander Wielen (14:45)
Yeah. mean, that was part of where the book title came from because I think that it's interesting, right? When you're in a job that makes you really miserable, I would be really curious for the person listening who that feels true for, whether your job is also your life. Because that was me, right? So was like my job made me miserable, but I didn't have anything else in my life. Like I wasn't supplanting it with something different. And so I found that really interesting, like with

Amanda Northcutt (15:07)
wasn't quick.

Sam Vander Wielen (15:11)
with time and space away from the law, was like, why wasn't I going out and doing other things, right? So it's not then a surprise to me that I jumped from a corporate career to starting a business that I thought would resolve all those problems. I was still putting the happiness in something external and expecting it to fix me or make me feel better. And so for anyone listening who's feeling that way, I guess there's a little bit, I have a chapter too, I think is all about setting expectations and just kind of stepping back and be like, okay, that's...

that's not actually going to fix this problem for me. It might create some freedom and flexibility for me. It might allow me to be more creative and like flex my passions and that's really cool. And that might ultimately make you all happier. But there are also, as you know too, like there are a lot of stressful things about being a business owner as well that you might not expect. So I wouldn't wait until you make a move to make effort towards being happier.

I guess that's all to say. Like there are things you can do in your life right now without making a major shakeup, without putting yourself in a tough financial position, right? There are things you can do right here, right now to shift that mindset. And if that means you still end up starting your own business or going full time in the one that you have on the side right now, fantastic. But I just wouldn't expect that thing. Like I write in the book a lot about how we accidentally, like we put a lot of pressure on these little baby businesses to do a lot for us. Like people...

leave their jobs and think they're going to pay them full time. And it's like, well, that's a lot to demand of a brand new business. Plus it's not a great financial thing to do for your business because we want to build what I call a business war chest and have capital and have reserves for a while. you know, that's, that's kind of, I think the mindset shift that I would go through and stepping back to see what are you really looking to that business to do or to leaving your job to do for you? And is there any way to shift some of that where you currently are?

Amanda Northcutt (17:02)
Okay, that was a great segue to my next question. I think a lot of entrepreneurs or fledgling entrepreneurs get really stuck about the right time to make the full-time leap and like the right time in quotes here. So when is, what are signals that someone is ready to go all in on their side hustle? Like what should be true before someone turns in their notice?

Sam Vander Wielen (17:23)
No, that's a great question. So in the book, I kind of walk you through this four part process of saving and cutting and how do you like set aside money. So I think that there's a certain budget aspect to this conversation that's super personal and super individual, depending on what your situation is. Like if you need health insurance and you're not gonna get it from somewhere else, if you leave, like your plan's going to look a little different. But all that to say that I would just.

first and foremost address the financial aspect of what you are doing or thinking of doing. I think one of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is that they don't know how much it costs them to live as a person, not as a business, but like they need to know their personal budget because again, to that conversation of like your business paying your personal budget off the bat is very, very unlikely. And it's, might take time. And even if you make money in your business, it's not the best idea to pull it all out to pay yourself right away. So in my opinion, so

I want you to think about like, what is your personal budget? Do you have enough? Is there something you can do part time or on the side or something like this that you cannot, like if we pretended like your business didn't exist and it wasn't going to give you anything, how would you be able to live? So I think that's first and foremost. And I think in my ideal, you know, utopian world, business world, you would do a lot of the stuff I recommend in the book in terms of doing demand research and supply research and differentiation and creating a bit of a marketing plan.

getting your feet wet with one of the big three, as I call it, either a podcast, a YouTube or SEO optimized blog. So getting your feet wet, starting to understand that platform so that you're not learning that and starting that at the same time you're doing everything else. And obviously the lawyer in me has to plug, once you know you're gonna go forward with this, getting your legal stuff set up, getting your financial stuff, getting the backend boring stuff set up so that you're just kind of ready to go, right? Like you're just ready to run.

Amanda Northcutt (19:06)
Legal stuff's a cupcake.

Yeah. Okay. What a masterclass in how to get your shit together.

Sam Vander Wielen (19:17)
I

try.

Amanda Northcutt (19:20)
And then

go into your business and into entrepreneurship with a great deal of earned confidence and competence in what you're doing. It's like you are giving the realistic roadmap of here's what this actually looks like. Here's what this actually takes. Here is the nonlinear journey, but how to think about making decision when the path gets a little bit vague, as opposed to your book title isn't how to do a million dollar course launch, you know, in three weeks or less.

Sam Vander Wielen (19:45)
Yeah, they were a

lot of the I mean, it wasn't like that, but a lot of the original titles that were being floated around were very like scale and something and like how to build this. I was like, I feel like this doesn't tell the whole story. That's what I didn't love about it. So I wanted something that spoke to you guys about what it really feels like.

Amanda Northcutt (20:08)
Yes, the antithesis of icky bullshit marketing. Thank you, Sam. We all appreciate your contribution to humanity and the creator economy in particular. My goodness gracious. A dose of reality is really helpful because a lot of what's out there is just bullshit. Okay. Writing a book is a huge undertaking. Tell us a little bit about that journey. How in the world did you make the time for that?

Sam Vander Wielen (20:10)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, exactly.

Amanda Northcutt (20:34)
within, I mean, you are the CEO of your very successful company and you wrote the book. How the hell did you do that?

Sam Vander Wielen (20:42)
Yeah, I'm still asking myself that. Well, for one, it's taken four years, so I feel like I should preface this by saying it took me a really long time. My journey was a little longer than most or than it needed to be, technically speaking, because of what I going on personally. The very first thing I did, which was an accidentally brilliant move, was that I hired my book proposal coach, Rachelle Fritz, and who I highly recommend you all following her and listening to her podcast.

Amanda Northcutt (20:44)
You

Sam Vander Wielen (21:07)
Abound and Determined. It's fantastic. But she's like the go-to person in the online business industry to learn how to write a book proposal. So just so everybody else knows, when you write nonfiction, you don't write the book in advance. A lot of people thought that you write the book and submit it to the publisher. You write a book proposal. It was like 150 pages. So you write a couple of sample chapters. You do a marketing plan, which was my favorite part. No surprise there. And you do a lot of like comparative analysis and

all of this kind of stuff. And so you send this to at first agents, book agents. And so I had this, another example of me being stubborn. was like, I only want Wendy Sherman. Like I had heard of her. She's always in the back of acknowledgements of like all the major books, fiction included. I love fiction. And she's in New York. She was a woman. Like there were just so many things. I'm like, I want to work with Wendy Sherman. Everybody was like, you can't. Wendy takes me on as a client within like 24 hours of me applying, which I couldn't believe.

Amanda Northcutt (22:02)
I'm sorry.

Sam Vander Wielen (22:05)
And it took her about three weeks. Like she read the proposal, she gave me some comments, and then she starts shopping and around. I told her, that's who I told, I only really want to go to the big five. We had all these conversations and meetings and I actually had the conversation with Hachette who I went with when my mom was in the hospital. And then when they called to tell me I got the deal on Friday afternoon, my mom passed away that night. So it was like a really wild time because

My mom died on May 28th and then you spent, like, just went right into the summer starting to write the book. It was just last summer. So you start writing, you have no idea what you're doing. It's very different than so much of the writing that we do every day in our businesses. Like I can knock out emails left and right to my list and write social content, whatever else, but this was so unique. And so I got.

so lucky that I got the top editor at the publisher and she's incredible and so she gave me so much good feedback and really worked with me. They have so many incredible people there and so it took a little over a year to write it. Then you go through the editing process, then you go through copy editing, then you go through typeset proofs and that's that. I just went to New York to record the audiobook two weeks ago which was really, really fun. It took 24 recording hours, it was a lot. And it was really fun, it was really, really fun.

And now we're sitting here with just a couple days to go. April 15th, the book comes out.

Amanda Northcutt (23:30)
my goodness. Wow. Okay. I do want to double click on something because you said lucky enough to work with Rochelle to work with Wendy to work with your probably come on.

Sam Vander Wielen (23:40)
Yeah.

Amanda Northcutt (23:42)
I don't think luck had a lot to do with it, to be completely honest with you, which leads to my next question. What did you learn about yourself through the process of writing this book? And given the timing of what was happening in your life and just tragedy after tragedy.

Sam Vander Wielen (23:56)
Yeah.

Yeah, well, on like a non-serious note, I would say my email list is king. That's what I was going to say. I learned like, thank God I built my email list. Like that was kind of the thing. Everybody focuses so much on social media and everybody that I'm saying I was lucky enough to work with was drooling over the size of my email list because they saw so much potential in that and the ability to sell the book. Right. And so like just plus one to building your email list. But yeah, I learned a lot about myself that

You know, I, there's so many things I'm actually disappointed with in myself as to like how I handled the book process. Like I, I really like wrestled it. I like kind of choked it the whole way. And I was just like, this is so hard. Or I'm so worried about what people are going to think. Or I was always so nervous at every step. And it's just one those things where looking back and like, man, I wish I would have just enjoyed it a little bit more. I also am giving myself a ton of grace and understanding that I was going through the worst time in.

my life, my mom had just been killed, which I still have not wrapped my mind around because I couldn't because I was writing a book. And yeah, I guess it told me that I'm incredibly strong. My friends use the word resilient a lot about me, that I can keep going, but also that that's not always a good thing. Like I think that's admirable to a point. And then there's also a part of me that's like,

you could probably use some rest. I don't, you know, it's a little bit of both. I think, I think I got to know that part of myself a lot more and started checking in with it a lot more as we went along of like, oh, this is a lot, it's a lot of outward energy or the book is very, very vulnerable. I talk a lot, I had a very violent, traumatic childhood. I talk a lot about my childhood. I talk about my parents having died. There's just a lot of that was very, very difficult and like a lot of personal things that come up in having this kind of business where you're very,

face forward and like afraid of being judged and all these things that come up about our fears and our concerns and worries. And so I think I've learned a lot about myself in that process.

Amanda Northcutt (26:00)
Wow. Thank you for sharing that. All right. I'm going to not dive into that right now. We may need to have you come back for a part three in a year or something like that after you've had time, yeah, to reflect. But let's talk about the email list because that is a very, we were talking about leverage earlier. That is a very powerful form of leverage when you are selling things, right? And so you're at 46,000 about email list subscribers, which is incredible.

Sam Vander Wielen (26:05)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, we'll reflect.

Yep, that's right.

Amanda Northcutt (26:30)
And we all know that legal topics are not maybe the sexiest newsletter topics, but I know you talk about a lot more than that, but your ability to use that as a lead-in to then expand on all manner of business, strategic and tactical operations and things like that is masterful. But tell me some of the biggest lessons that you've learned about email marketing over the last three or four years.

Sam Vander Wielen (26:35)
Yeah.

Hmm. I think first and foremost is that if you are somebody who also likes to tell stories or kind of sees life through the eyes of metaphor and like illustration of examples, then you can write about other things and always bring it back to what you do. So I write about my most popular email from last year was about this guy I saw at the farmer's market. And it was like, I just turned it into this business lesson and

I mean, I get a lot of responses to my emails in general, but that was crazy. And it was just like, it just is proved to me. It's like, oh, you can take these little like tidbits from your life and you can turn them into other things. And I think that that creates a lot of connection. For many years, I used to just do the emails that were much more tactical, like here are three things you need to know about this, or here's two things you need in your contract. I just am finding that people are responding, engaging, connecting with these emails much better. And so this is what I've now done for years. Lots of little.

you know, business lessons and things like that. So definitely that. My second tip is to have, you know, to honor people's different learning preferences and also where they are at on the journey in terms of them getting onto your email list. So I have what I call an easy email list entry point. So there is no opt-in, there's nothing that they need to do. They can just literally put in their name and email and start receiving my weekly emails. They get a confirmation email that gives them a little bit of a taste of what's to come, but that's it.

they go straight into just getting my weekly emails. I find that that works actually very, very well in addition to all of the freebies and opt-ins and webinars and like other things that I have. So definitely giving people like a different entry point I would suggest. I think third, I would say that I'm finding what's something that actually used to be very important and popular when I first started eight years ago, which I think went away and now it's coming back, is having a singular focus to an email. So,

we used to play a lot with like lots of different links and lots of different calls to action and like kind of asking for lots of different things. And I feel like we're swinging a little bit back to this, like, let's keep this a little tighter and more focused.

Amanda Northcutt (29:02)
Yeah, stories. How human of you. Yeah.

Sam Vander Wielen (29:03)
Yeah. Yeah. Novel. But I do think

it's interesting that if you, if anyone does something where maybe there's a preconceived notion about you, like you can actually use some of that to overcome it. So for example, you know, people think lawyers are stuffy or intimidating or going to yell at them and tell them they're doing everything wrong. So telling silly stories or being chill in my approach actually combats the very thing.

that people, it's like an initial objection or a hesitancy that they have about me. I always use the example that like, if you do something in fitness, like maybe people are thinking you're going to tell them they can never have a treat again and like never have ice cream in the summer and like they have to be perfect all the time. Showing that imperfection of yourself, showing that human side of yourself will break down that barrier that people have coming into reading your content or working with you.

Amanda Northcutt (29:54)
great advice. And then how did you market and continue to market your lead magnets and newsletter opt-in? Podcasting, paid ads, social media? What are we doing?

Sam Vander Wielen (30:05)
Yeah, so I do a mix of organic and paid. For my paid ads, really the only two things that I drive traffic to are my webinar, my free legal workshop called Five Steps to Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business. It's my number one lead magnet. So I do run paid ads to that. I run paid ads to a freebie guide that I have as well, a legal guide, like a checklist to getting your online business legally protected. So that goes really well to you.

Amanda Northcutt (30:16)
Thank

Sam Vander Wielen (30:31)
And then on the organic side, would say that I have my podcast on your terms that drives a lot of people. My emails, which then encourage people to share things with other people. So I have like a shared link and kind of a spread the word type of thing there. I do a lot with SEO through my website as well. And I'm on YouTube, so I'm kind of in all of the places. Yeah.

Amanda Northcutt (30:52)
Yeah. So it is spring of 2025 right now. What is most, what's working best right now for email list growth?

Sam Vander Wielen (31:00)
I would say what's working best for me right now, while on the paid ad side, are actually optimizing more of my organic content that has gone well. That is not an ad strategy that we used to do. We always created distinct and separate assets for ads, and then social organic content was completely separate. A little bit of what I'm doing now is if I see something going well, and I'm not talking about boosting it, I'm talking about actually taking that asset and turning it into an ad on its own.

with like a fresh copy and you know, whatever, but that's something that I'm playing with a lot more now than I thought before. I would say with more of the organic side and what's working with my email list is definitely looking for engagement, really being honest and vulnerable as to what's going on. I've definitely peeled back the curtain a little bit to say like, here's what's going on behind the scenes, this is what it's like building a book, you know, and this is what I'm doing. And that's worked really well.

to, but in a very real way, like not trying to be authentic or real for the sake of being authentic and real. Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda Northcutt (32:05)
Thanks for sharing. And you have a whole strategy and methodology around pitching directly to your list. Can you tell us what that is and why it's been so effective?

Sam Vander Wielen (32:15)
Yes, so that's what I was saying, like the easy email list, that's what I call it internally, giving people a way to immediately get your emails. It can work really well when you have more of a branded newsletter or you can, as I say in the book, like make your newsletter a thing, right? So whether that means it has a name or there's a theme or there's like something consistent they can expect every Tuesday or whatever, give them a reason where.

The email itself is the thing of value. So instead of you giving them the checklist or the freebie or the calendar, them getting your email every week is what they are opting into because that email is so valuable or there's something that you do in your email every week that they're going to get that they should look forward to. Definitely the more exclusive that you can make it, the better. So mine, for example, my weekly newsletter is called Sam Sidebar. so

People get a weekly legal Q and A. They always get business tips like of what we're talking about. I share any online business news and updates there. So if there's like some legal thing that happens in the industry, I talk about it. I don't share about that anywhere else. So that's really the best place to get that information from me. So when I'm on Instagram, for example, instead of saying go download this freebie or this checklist, I will talk about, I'm writing next week's Sam sidebar. There's actually this thing that's going on with the FTC where they're cracking down on creators.

If you want to make sure you get it, click here to make sure you get Sam's Sidebar. It's my weekly newsletter where you get legal tips and online business updates. So that's kind of what I mean of like giving it its own thing and making it valuable in and of itself.

Amanda Northcutt (33:46)
I love that. Yeah. I mean, you're the definitive trusted resource for all things legal in the creator economy and moving well beyond. So I love that exclusivity factor. So you got to have the email or you're not going to get it. yeah.

Sam Vander Wielen (33:58)
Nope, getting it's free. So it's like, why not? But yeah, you don't

just, you don't have to send people down the funnel. I think a lot of what we're talking about too is like what we're hovering around is that, that consumers have gotten a lot savvier. And so they understand like they know what this is. They know like all the webinar and then the thing. And I have a webinar and I have a funnel and it works beautifully and converts every single day. I just like to also have another.

option. I guess I'm always thinking of the person who's like, I don't have an hour or I don't want to sit there and listen to this for an hour. I maybe they're more ready to go. Like I don't that doesn't find both me. Yeah.

Amanda Northcutt (34:31)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you want to have that

accelerated path as well and like let people raise their hand and get to the front of the line. You don't have to put the artificial barriers in there if people are ready to move. So that's great. That's a good strategy. OK, so this next question is interesting, think really on point with kind of the whole arc of this conversation we're having today. But there's a lot of information floating around the internet and the creator economy about, you know, how

Sam Vander Wielen (34:39)
Yeah.

Thanks.

Amanda Northcutt (35:00)
multiple courses in a membership, in a mastermind, in a group coaching program and offer one-on-one coaching and one-on-one consulting and bespoke services and blah, blah, on and on and on. Oh, and by the way, go ahead and get brand deals and make sure you have an affiliate program and your affiliate of other people's stuff. And it's just like, oh my God, it is so overwhelming. And people, I call this like shoulding on yourself. You're like, I should be doing this. I should be doing that. It should be like, and it is so detrimental to.

take your eye off the ball and lose focus. So have to know where you're going and then be very strategic and intentional about the chest move that you make in order to get there. But for those who are really struggling with shiny object syndrome and feeling like they should be doing this and they should be doing that, what advice do you have? I mean, you have a couple of core products and you have really stuck to your guns on that one. So how do you resist the urge to squirrel?

Sam Vander Wielen (35:53)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I know it is hard. Yeah, I only have ever sold two products. So I just sell the downloadable legal templates like individually and then I sell the ultimate bundle which is a pack of the templates and trainings for people to learn how to start their business. And so I have stayed super focused on these two products. I mean for one because they work and so there was a part of me that was like why.

Amanda Northcutt (36:09)
So.

Sam Vander Wielen (36:16)
why go create all this other stuff? If there's a new contract that people will request of me sometimes, as the online business industry has changed, for example, people have asked me, like, could I have a contract for this? And I've gone out and created that thing, right? But in general, I haven't swayed from my core product suite. I think that there's a lot to be said in this industry for just finding what works for you and continuing to make that better.

This is a lot of what I'm encouraging you to do in the book and teaching you what to, how to do this in the book is like, find these core pieces, find these things about you, and then just become really well known for that. This is actually something you're hearing Starbucks talk about a lot right now because Starbucks lost its way and Starbucks started selling the mocha choco frappuccino, whatever, with sparkles and unicorns on it. And they started tanking. They were not doing well. The wait times were too high. So people weren't

waiting in line, the mobile ordering was screwing everything up for the people who were there, right? So they've taken the time to come in and now you can't even get your thing. So they have stepped back. They have looked at the menu, they have like stripped all the fluff and they have gone back to being like, how about coffee and tea? How about some simple lattes? And like, let's make this a little more streamlined and actually make the customer experience a good one again. And I was thinking to myself the other day, was like, yeah, this is kind of my philosophy is to like, you just don't want to let your menu get too fat, right?

You want to keep this nice and tight. It also allows you like my plus one plug for having fewer products and like just a streamlined offerings in general is that it allows you to be the marketing role full time, which is really what you are when, in my opinion, when you're a solo entrepreneur, my job is just to take care of my customers and to get more customers into my product every day. so like letting people know about it and then taking care of the people who are there.

and not to be out creating all this stuff, which has me now out of doing either of those two things, right? So I think that's the other thing is like, just see myself as chief marketer role and how am I going to do that if I'm constantly chasing things down?

Amanda Northcutt (38:23)
Yeah, and I don't know if you intentionally said this in the order that you did, but you said, care of my current customers and then bring in new ones. Did you say that?

Sam Vander Wielen (38:32)
Yes, very intentional, very

intentional because I talk a lot about in the book about how, you know, I talk about recurrence and retention and I look at retention actually from two directions. So I think a lot about keeping my customers, I, and so if you have some sort of recurring model or you need, create something new or an upsell or something like that, that you can get them to purchase by taking good care of them, they are going to be then more likely to purchase obviously.

But the way that I have always looked at this is also that if I take really good care of my current customers, they're going to become foot soldiers and they're going to go out and tell other people about my product. And that is better than any marketing strategy or any dollar I could spend on a Facebook ad. So that's why I every morning I'm like, and I don't, I have a whole section of a chapter dedicated to this that I am not saying that customers always have to be happy or that their happiness is always my responsibility.

My mindset coach Jen told me a long time ago that you are responsible to people but not for them and that was very helpful like for me to separate like I can do only as much as I can do but if someone doesn't Implement my stuff or doesn't use it correctly or they're just you know crabby I can't help that and I can't control how everybody else feels all the time But what I'm talking about is just being you know good like good at your job providing what you said you were going to provide operating with integrity and

What I have found is that the ROI on that is way better than any stupid Facebook ad I could run. Yeah.

Amanda Northcutt (40:00)
Yeah. As it turns out, word of mouth is still the most powerful

form of marketing, whether it is digital or in the flesh. That's the real deal when you're warm introductions and recommendations from people who can fog a mirror, you're in a lot better shape than like you're saying Facebook ads. It's invaluable. Wow. Okay. Well, Sam, I mean, this has been an incredible conversation and we could, I feel like talk all day and go down all manner of paths, but...

Sam Vander Wielen (40:07)
Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

Amanda Northcutt (40:29)
Thank you for coming and sharing your insights. Is there anything else you'd like to share before we sign off? Sign off and definitely want to include where our listeners can connect with you and find you online. And of course, get a copy of your book.

Sam Vander Wielen (40:41)
Yeah, well, I hope that, you know, if you've been listening to this and something has resonated with you, I hope that you'll like double down and commit to doing things your own way. I named my podcast On Your Terms because I feel really passionately about people doing things their own way, you know, and being like, yeah, I never really liked the way everybody else was doing. I'm going to go ahead and do my own thing. So this is your note of encouragement, let alone your permission slip to go out and do that.

And if anything today has resonated with you, I would encourage you to order my book wherever books are sold. When I start my business, I'll be happy. Come say hi to me on Instagram. I'm at Sam VanderWielen. Let me know you heard me here. And obviously you like listening to podcasts. Come over to On Your Terms and listen there too.

Amanda Northcutt (41:07)
and

Fantastic. Thank you so much, Sam. And again, we will link everything you mentioned up and a little bit more in the show notes and YouTube description for anybody who's interested and definitely go by Sam's book. I mean, you want practical voice of reason. Like you listen to our podcast and you're listening to me. You will want to listen to Sam as well and hear everything she has to say because we are so, so deeply aligned. So thank you for coming back again. I think we will have to make an annual tradition about a view coming on to the Love Look Creators podcast for sure.

Sam Vander Wielen (41:40)
you

I'd be honored. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Amanda Northcutt (41:53)
Thank you. And to our listeners, time is precious and we are grateful you've spent a little bit of yours with us today. If you are a subject matter expert looking to build a fully customized business in a box with five figure MRR guarantee, head over to [MRRAccelerator.com](http://mrraccelerator.com/) to learn more and follow me, Amanda Northcutt on LinkedIn for daily consulting insights. That's it for today. We'll see you next time on the Level Up Creators podcast.