How to Write Notes That Turn Strangers into Subscribers

Everything I told my client before she tripled her engagement with a few honest Notes.

A few months ago, a client came to me with a problem I hear pretty often.

“I’m posting consistently on Notes, sharing smart tips, random moments, my new posts, but nothing is happening.”

When I looked at her Substack, I could see exactly what she meant. Her posts were absolutely fine, but somehow, even after reading a bunch of them, I didn't feel like I knew anything about her. I couldn't recall what I'd read. Honestly, anyone could have written them. And let me say this again: there was nothing wrong with them. They just didn't create a connection between us.

The dinner party problem

Here’s how I explained it to her.

Imagine you walk into a dinner party. You don’t know most of the people there. You could walk around handing out flyers about something you wrote, and sure, someone might take one to be polite. But that’s not how you make friends at a dinner party.

You make friends by telling a good story, or saying something that makes someone laugh, or saying, “oh my god, me too.”

Notes is that dinner party. And most people are walking around with flyers.

My client got it immediately, but then came the next question:

“Okay, but what do I actually write?”

The grocery store Note

I gave her a simple assignment. I said: think about the last few days. What happened to you — something small, something ordinary — that connects to what you write about? Don’t think about your next post. Don’t think about your niche. Just think about a moment.

She came back with this: she’d been standing in the grocery store, staring at two brands of olive oil. One was the fancy one she always bought. The other was half the price. And she stood there for way too long, thinking about how her whole relationship with money had shifted since she started working for herself.

“That’s your Note,” I said.

So she posted it.

The moment — the olive oil, the hesitation, the realization — and she ended with: “Does anyone else have these weird moments where you realize freelancing has completely rewired your brain?”

It got more engagement than anything she’d posted in months. People were sharing their own stories in the comments, and they subscribed.

From a Note about olive oil.

What actually happened (and why)

Those new subscribers didn’t subscribe because the olive oil story was personal. Plenty of personal stories go nowhere.