Addictive stories and embarrassing tell-alls from the front lines of online business. Written by reformed girlboss who learned a better way. Read by 10K+ consenting adults.
Whale pods, chaos mavens, and what buyers really want
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The internet is getting exponentially weirder, and I’m here for it This morning I paid €1500 to join a whale pod. The seller was not a name I’d heard before. I was not following her on Instagram, and definitely not looking to join another group program. I just started a 4-month grief tending certification that’s quite demanding time-wise. Plus I cleared some commitments I’d previously made to other programs that no longer align with the season I’m in. I was making space, but I didn’t know what for. A whale pod, maybe? Let’s talk about how (and why) this happened. The way programs sell online is changing, especially to the market I serve, which is mostly women entrepreneurs and coaches. People who use their businesses as the vehicle for doing their soul’s work. The way those people buy has changed. And what they buy has changed. No one wants that 5-step client-getting formula — not only because we don’t believe it, but also… …it’s fucking boring. I fell asleep writing that sentence! Can we please get back to whale pods?! Here’s how the journey to whale pod happened for me: Coming home from hosting my monthly grief singing group Dark Wings last night, I flicked open Instagram while standing at my kitchen counter, shovelling almonds and concord grapes into my growling stomach. (I never eat dinner before leading a circle. I sing better on empty.) I slowed my scroll to read a really beautiful poem, in carousel format. Gorgeous! I shared it with two friends, and made a note to read it at my upcoming retreat Song & Story. The last slide talked about something that sounded like a program name, Echo & Bone. I clicked through to a DIY Canva sales page via the link in bio. “Yes!” my body said. “Of course your singing instruction should come from whales.” But I’m not an impulse buyer, so I texted the link to my song leader group chat, put my phone down and went to bed. I woke up thinking about whales, and emailed the program creator Oonagh O’Sullivan at 7:30am with a question about the lineage of her work. I was fishing for red (and green) flags. Mostly I needed some human interaction, assurances that I wouldn’t be sending money into space. “I was called by the whales and salmon to create this space,” Oonagh told me. She told me about her connection to spirit, land, and ancestors, and to the keening women of Ireland who are called “mná caointe” (pronounced roughly "mnaw KEEN-cha"). Green flag city.* I handed over my deposit via the plainest possible multi-currency Stripe checkout page, and added all the calls on my calendar, which, miraculously, had zero conflicts. So the funnel, if you can even call it that, looked like this: Whale call If you had asked me in a business coaching context, “Tarzan, do you think this will work?”, I would have said, “Zero chance, Reader!” It’s not easy to sell directly from social. People need nurturing and trust-building, and in business you have to play the long game. All technically true. But then this isn’t the first time I’ve seen some other magic swoop in and take over people’s offers. A few months back I nearly impulse-purchased a business program called Chaos Maven after reading an Instagram post about how to AI-proof your livelihood. Maybe you say it too? I was saved by one of my Golden Rules of Purchasing, which is to sleep on it at least one night. But still, a lot of people did purchase. The lesson here isn’t “go viral on social” — though my client Lisa Kilgour has done it repeatedly and can tell you the formula. You still need all the infrastructure holding up your business. Boring stuff. Emails, landing pages, onboarding flows, blah, blah, blah. And you need to do repetitive stuff, like pitch for speaking gigs, ask people for favors, find the right software stack, spend countless hours on the minutiae. But while you’re doing that, you should also remember to add a dash of wild. People don’t want normal. They have normal. And thanks to AI, normal / average / predictable content is hurtling at us at warp speed, in larger amounts than ever seen before! We are all longing for a pattern interrupt. Everywhere I look people are pivoting. Sometimes because what used to work doesn’t anymore, but more urgently, we are longing with all of our hearts and bodies for a cultural course correction on a scale we have not seen in generations. We want to turn this ship around, whatever it takes. I don’t know what you’re doing to turn the ship around, but I hope it’s something awesome and unpredictable and totally fucking weird. I’m signing up to learn from whales, and putting aside long-standing and profitable income streams so that I can, hmmm, let’s see here… …start a choir that exclusively sings songs written by Kanye West in his Jesus era? Or something weirder. Still waiting for that part to be revealed. But if you know what your cosmic orders are, please reply and share. ~ Tarzan
*I also purchased knowing that, when someone goes viral and suddenly gets a whole bunch of new customers, all their systems break and things get administratively messy. My guess is that Chaos Mavens lives up to its name in all ways. I’m prepared for bumps and hiccups. Know this if you find yourself in a similar situation.
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Emails, but better.
Addictive stories and embarrassing tell-alls from the front lines of online business. Written by reformed girlboss who learned a better way. Read by 10K+ consenting adults.