FMS FinPub Pro

How to write stronger free & paid financial newsletters.

• John Newtson

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Kim Iskian, the editorial director at Porter Co., joins us to talk about creating editorial that readers want to engage with and are willing to pay for. 


FinPub Pro is produced by The Financial Marketing Summit, the #1 networking and marketing conference for financial newsletter publishers, trader educators, and digital financial media.

John Newtson, host and founder of The Financial Marketing Summit can be reached via LinkedIn at John Newtson

Speaker 1:

All right. Hey everyone, I'm here today with Kim Iskian from Porter Co. Kim, thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me, john. So I'm really excited to talk to you, not just because Porter Co has been on a tear for the last several years and growing like crazy, but you are one of the kind of top of a handful there's just a handful, I think, of truly great editorial directors in the industry and you are one of them and so I'd love to kind of just for everyone who doesn't know you if you can give everyone your background in the industry first, so we can get kind of a sense of everything that you've done in FinPub.

Speaker 2:

Basically, yeah, well, thank you, john, I appreciate that. I think part of it is that I kind of grew up in finance and you know that's kind of my background before I joined the FinPub industry and I worked on Wall Street for a few years after studying history in graduate school.

Speaker 1:

And that's like a perfect combination for FinPub yeah.

Speaker 2:

No, no. I grew up in Spain and I studied Latin American history, uh, and I went to wall street just around the time the Latin American stock markets were taking off and I was the one person on the desk at a mid-tier investment bank who, uh, who spoke Spanish, which was occasionally a? Uh, a useful skill, useful skill, um, uh. And then I wound up, um, well, through a an early career shift, I went to a central asia and helped build a stock market just after, um, the end of the soviet union, um, in uh, kyrgyzstan, which kind of borders the northwestern border of the northwestern part of China, you helped build a stock market.

Speaker 1:

That's cool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's not a normal resume item.

Speaker 2:

No, no, the US government was at that time, very concerned about communism rolling back and they said well, there are all these privatizations and all these 15 Soviet Socialist Republics. Why don't we all, and all everybody, had vouchers? Vouchers were, in essence, shares of these mostly worthless post-soviet companies. And uh, uncle sam said let's build a stock market so people can trade these. And I was part of the uh, one of the people who, uh, who was given that job, and it was, yeah, it was fantastic, exciting, and um certainly gave me some insight on a different angle of finance. Um, and then from there, I went to Moscow, uh and um, I was a sell side analyst for a few investment banks. I was head of research, um, I knew just enough about finance, spoke enough Russian, um, um, and I did that for a while and then, a few years later, um ran a hedge fund in moscow. Uh, my timing was uh, extraordinarily awful.

Speaker 2:

I joined in early 2008, right before everything fell apart, and it fell apart here in the us, but it fell apart in a much bigger way in a lot of emerging markets, including Russia, and fast forward a few years. My dad was a long time not a long time an early Alliance subscriber to Stansberry Research and I'd read some of his stuff. And after Russia, well, I had gotten married and we lived in Armenia, lived in Sri Lanka, moved around quite a bit, and I got in touch with Porter and said, oh, I think you need an emerging markets newsletter and then I wound up getting a job. I worked another job. I worked for a political risk consulting company in DC for a few years, left the country again and then I got back in touch and Porter said, fantastic. So I wrote a pub for Stansberry Research that was focused on investing in international markets really obscure places. So I traveled all over the place, went to Venezuela and Iran and Hong Kong and a lot of places that were more fascinating to write about than they were really investable venues. But, uh, but it was a lot of fun, um, and then Stansberry Research said hey, we'd like to uh start something in Asia. Uh, uh, do you want to go to Singapore and build a? Uh, build an investment newsletter company? Um, and I said, fantastic.

Speaker 2:

So I went to Singapore and in typical ready fire aim manner, I all I knew about the industry was what I had kind of picked up from two years of writing, um, global contrarian, which was the pub that I wrote, and uh, um, global contrarian, which was the pub that I wrote, and, uh, and so I was uh throwing the deep end and had to learn a lot by myself. Um, with some, some support from stansberry research, uh, over time, over five years, we built something that uh, we reached a peak of 18 million dollars. A lot of it was on the back of the crypto boom. Eventually, stansberry Research said great, let's declare a victory, we'll absorb your subscribers and why don't you come back? And then I wound up writing for a different Stansberry Research pub.

Speaker 2:

For a while, I also helped out with editorial at the Agora's UK subsidiary editorial at the uh, agora's uk subsidiary. Um, then, uh, a little while later, I joined porter in july of 2022 to help build up uh order and company. I was, I think, the fifth employee and uh been here been here since nice, nice.

Speaker 1:

That's a. That's a wild set of experiences. Then there was a period of time in I think this was back in the 90s really in FinPub, where a lot of the newsletter editors were just recruited because they were good writers and, like we can teach you how to analyze stock, it's easier to teach you how to analyze stocks than it is to teach them to be a good writer. And that trend has definitely changed quite a bit. But to have as much finance experience as you've had coming into an industry that a lot of finance people don't respect, right I mean honestly, because we're talking to retail investors how was your experience kind of making that transition to this industry and were there a lot of like issues that you had with like the? I mean, you were writing a newsletter to begin with and so there's an editorial style, then there's a copy Was that an interesting transition for you? Style, then there's copy Um, was that an interesting transition for you?

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, john, uh, I always I kind of backed into finance. I didn't study finance in college or grad school. Um, uh, I didn't, uh really like working on wall street which is full of blazing assholes. Uh, and I, for a long time, I'd always liked writing. In eighth grade, my English teacher said you know what, you're a good writer. And somehow that stuck with me and I said I'm a good writer, I'm going to do this.

Speaker 2:

And I viewed myself for a long time as just a well-paid writer who happened to be writing about stocks in Russia. Um, I did a lot of freelance writing on the side, because if you're a sell side analyst and you're writing for, um, you're writing for global institutional investors. It's a very cut and dried sort of format. It's really soul destroying after a while. Um, so I did a lot of writing on the side, um, just to, because I love to write and to keep my sanity.

Speaker 2:

So when I had the opportunity to write about finance which I really do enjoy, but write about it in a way that wasn't so rigid and where I could tell the stories, that was for a long time I thought wait, you're paying me to do this. So much fun, that's awesome. So it wasn't. You know it wasn't that difficult a transition. It takes a while to work out. I see it in a lot of people who wind up working in the industry. It takes a little while to work that jargon out of your style and it also takes a while to learn how to speak to the level of the subscriber where they are and not in a way that they're not going to understand. Yeah, I remember I talked to an analyst, for I think it was Fundy who was working for it where they are and not in a way that they're not going to understand.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I remember I talked to an analyst for I forget which fund he was working for, but they sent out a note and he's like the way he was telling me he was trained was because it was like the most like I couldn't understand what he was saying, not because of the finance stuff, but because of like, how complicated the sentences were. Right, like it would be like a sentence was this long? And he's like, no, the the point of writing it so dense and complicated is you want them to know that there's something there, but you want them to pick up the phone and so the objective is not to communicate an idea.

Speaker 2:

It's right, exactly. I read sell side investment research or even buy side investment research, and it's just so. It's. It's so unpleasant to read and it's, and no one reads it. That's the thing. The whole idea is that, um, you know, kind of like like your guy said, you want people to know that you're there and you want them to call you if they want something or if they need some interpretation, but otherwise it's just like.

Speaker 1:

It's like a business card for the bank, working for it's that was the the whole thing with mifid in europe when they came, when they passed those rules, and it was like all these people were getting these subscriptions to, to all this research that was being paid for through their, you know, refunded commissions or whatever, as kind of a hey, we're going to give you this thing. And then, when it came to like you can't do that, you can't use soft dollars and you have to pay for it yourself, everyone was like I don't really want this, I don't really need it exactly.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, uh well then um, let me jump. There's a bunch of things I want to ask you about your background, but let's do it within the context of kind of some of the maybe more formal questions about when you're putting together an e-letter Like I think this is a big one because there's a lot of different ways to do an e-letter how do you look, how do you view like constructing a new e-letter, like what's a good e-letter? What?

Speaker 2:

are the components of kind of the I guess the overarching approach, versus just simply the individual articles. Well, I think let's step back a moment and say, okay, what is the objective of the e-letter? Right? What are you trying to do? In my mind, what you're trying to do is you want your subscribers your free names as well as your paid names to engage with you. You want them to uh, know that you, you want to show that you have something interesting to say. You want them to come back every day. You want them to appreciate, uh, and be educated and entertained by what you're saying. Um, so then, out of that, you have to back out. Okay, so how do we do that? Uh, and well, when I was in Singapore and I was a one-man band for a while, I would write an e-letter every day and I would pick something that I found interesting in the world of finance that was going on, and I'd put a different spin on it. Try to make it as engaging as possible, and that was how we built up the list for a while At Porter Company. We launched a free e-letter just a few months ago. That was Porter's initiative. So he said, okay, this is what we're gonna do now and I think it's evolving into really something fantastic because it involves, it has something about what's going on today, latest data, all of that kind of reinforces the bigger picture macro theme that we're talking about all the time. It has a lot of charts and graphs. It has a main piece, which Porter usually writes, which is something thoughtful, something insightful about markets, sometimes about politics, about investing. It has some sort of unique angle and take and Porter, of course, is the master at that. So he does that extremely effectively.

Speaker 2:

And also, let's not forget that the point is to sell. We're not doing this for fun. So we have sprinkled throughout somewhat subtle ad notes and we say we're talking about NVIDIA's results and we say, oh, and, by the way, if you want to know more about this, you know we have a whole report about this and click here and that goes to a promo. We don't have spads, we don't have space ads, at least not now. We want to make it feel much more kind of user friendly.

Speaker 2:

Nobody likes having these big old ads in the middle of the narrative. It kind of disrupt-friendly. Nobody likes having these big old ads in the middle of the narrative. It kind of disrupts everything. So I guess, to go to your question, john, you want something that's engaging, entertaining, kind of unique and unusual and actually does add value and where someone wants to open it and isn't hit over the head with all the ads. I think maybe the most difficult part is to find something really interesting to say, because there's so much content out there, why is someone going to open your email today to hear what you have to say?

Speaker 1:

Right, and on that I'm going to step back for a second. You mentioned kind of things within kind of your macro theme. So is that how you guys are working, where you have a handful of large macro kind of viewpoints and then everything falls underneath those, or is there a little more kind of a catch as you can, kind of storylines?

Speaker 2:

Um, there are a lot of catches. You can storylines, um, and there are promos that go in different directions, um, and certainly reports that go in different directions and certainly reports that go in different directions. But you know, we do have a handful of big-picture ideas. One of them is capital efficiency. Investing in capital-efficient companies is, over the long term, the best way to grow wealth. The long term this is not unique to Portland Company, of course. The longterm this is not unique to Portland company, of course. The longterm, um, sort of uh challenges that the U? S and the dollar U S dollar face and the danger of the debt, uh, federal debt deficit and debt that's another theme, um, uh, and just a handful of other things that are kind of touchstones and they're part of the ongoing narrative. And we go back to and say, hey, we've talked about this before and you know we might have a biotech investment advisory and you know that's not really capital efficient but it you know you can bring in a few other themes that it is linked to interest rates. You can bring in some other themes and also, you want a little variety.

Speaker 2:

People don't only want to talk about capital efficiency. Okay, that's, that's fine, but I'm not going to just invest in these boring capital efficient companies. Give me something a little bit sexier. I think it's very if people can come back to you and they have some sort of notion of where you're going. I think that's reassuring. Uh, you know the wall street journal and you have a decent sense of the tone, the structure, the approach, what they're going to be writing about. If one day you open the wall street journal, um, and they talk about something, uh, completely different, in a different tone that you're unfamiliar with and it just doesn't really fit, you're going to say what something? There's some sort of incongruency here that I don't. I don't understand. That's how people. No one likes surprises like that, especially our you know readers of our demographic. So I think it is important to have a few overarching themes and you want to keep the tone kind of similar all the time. Yeah, Then.

Speaker 1:

So I like that. You have kind of a. It's almost like you have kind of. They're not I wouldn't say like they're full blown guardrails, that we only talk about these things, but you have these handful of through lines that you're always kind of coming back to and then you're looking for just for whatever, whatever, whatever else is interesting out there, but from an investment in the story standpoint, that fits for the day.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, sometimes you come up with something that doesn't really fit the narrative and it's not like you're only going to be writing about. You know, if there is some good news on employment or on you know, whatever it is, um, it's not like you're gonna ignore that because it doesn't really fit your narrative, right. Right, you got to be be fair and balanced about it, but it is, you know, like in a, in a promo, you have the golden thread, uh, sort of the team you come back to and that's what kind of keeps people following you along, following along with you. Um, I think, very broadly speaking from an editorial perspective, it helps to have a few golden threads like that yeah, no, I think so too.

Speaker 1:

That's and that's um. My question, I guess, is more about how far do you take that um, because you know there's a tendency sometimes, okay, there's a golden thread through the editorial. Does that apply to all the products for one editor, to the whole franchise? Like you said, you have um a biotech franchise. That doesn't necessarily fit. Some of the narratives might fit some, but not all the all the threads um, do you want to have kind of a the dose? I guess I should ask it this way Do those threads pull through every level of product for, say, porter or a different editor?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean not necessarily. You don't want to make handcuffs for yourself, right? There are plenty of ways that you can kind of bring in references to a biotech product when you're talking about the macro environment, and no, and you know, it's nice to have the narrative, but you still need to have enough products to sell and not everybody like I said, not everybody is going to want to buy your capital efficient company's product. So yeah, not necessarily.

Speaker 1:

And then does the products that don't fit kind of like the initial narrative. I'm assuming, then, that each of those are going to develop their own kind of golden thread yeah, exactly, and you might say hey, you know what.

Speaker 2:

You might even say in a, in a promo, in in somewhere. You know, this is really much more speculative. We talk we usually talk about capital efficient companies. Here we're talking about something that's, you know, much more speculative. We usually talk about capital efficient companies. Here we're talking about something that's much more speculative, and you frame it in those sorts of ways so that people say, okay, I understand that this is a slight divergence. I think what you don't want to do, though, is suddenly something we would never do is say, well, guess what? We have this new options product and we're going to recommend buying uh, buying uh calls and puts something. Um, I don't know.

Speaker 2:

Those sorts of products, in my mind, are often irresponsible, and how they're presented, the track records are abysmal. Simply because buying options is is, by definition, a loser's game. Um and uh, if sort of your golden thread is, you know, think carefully about what you do with your money, and you go and say, hey, this is the casino, you know, and there's no, there's minimal analysis with our, for example, not to bring up our biotech product again, but we have one of the best biotech guys who is extremely plugged in, does incredibly in-depth research, explains all the science and you know he winds up being right and it's fantastic. But something that's um, something that I think a lot of thin pubs overlook or not let me reframe, not overlook, but they don't really take fully on board is that if you blow up your subscriber, he's gone. You sell him an options product and you know he gets a couple of options that go to zero. He's not coming back and you might have made your. You know your quarterly target. You might have made your. You know your quarterly target. You might have gotten yourself a bonus for this year, but for the long-term health of the business, that's, that's poison. Um, and something that I always try to do and this is very much important is you think of the, the customer experience. What is the customer experience when they read this product, when they receive this email? And if you take a holistic view of that um, you want everything to be consistent in tone, in character, in messaging, and you know.

Speaker 2:

If you walk into a Walmart, and you know you, you have a pretty good sense of what's coming up in the aisle, what's next, how people are going to treat you. If Walmart starts selling Rolexes, you'll be like, wait a second, this doesn't belong here, it's jarring. And in the same way, if you say you know what. You got to be careful with your money. You have a long-term perspective. This is how you diversify yes, we have these kind of fun little things, but don't put too much money in those. And then if you say, guess, what we have is options, product, um, it's, maybe the roll it's in the walmart is a bad analogy, uh, but it's just something that just doesn't fit. And you say, but wait a second, this, this doesn't work. And that's how you, I think, over time, how you lose people, that's probably it's not as bad as blowing them up, but it's over time, it ranks up there.

Speaker 1:

That's a perspective because, you know, one of the things we have seen in the industry is that the active trading side of the industry has grown quite a bit.

Speaker 1:

There's people who are, you know there's, a lot more active. I would say, if you told me here there's a new publisher out there and they're doing X you know right now brand new to the space and I know nothing about them. Brand new to the space and I know nothing about them, I would guess more likely that they tend to fall in that active trading with their options or some other form of very active trading. That seems to be where all of not all, but the majority of the new businesses are coming up. That's separate from kind of the people who are doing their sub-stack newsletter businesses, right, but like the ones who are doing paid media and growing. We see a lot more energy of people kind of coming in there and I think one of the reasons is it's a lot harder to write good editorial um than it is to send out trade alerts, um, right, yeah, and but that it's also an interesting thing that you know I've been in the business since what? 2005, in one form or another. Every time I've talked to anybody who has interacted with their customer base and have and I know you're not trying to gather, you know, just for any regulators listening, they're not trying to gather information about the AUM of the clients but for whatever reason, they get some kind of insight, where somebody sends something in and their testimonials always seem to have people, whether they use them or not, but the feedback people who have six, seven, eight, a hundred thousand, a million, million, five, in their portfolio, those groups, those testimonials, almost always come from people who have an investing product. Right, they have people who have money and they're actually investing. And then the people whose most common thing is hey, I have $5,000 in a trading account and I'm going to use half of it. It's all I have to my name. I'm going to use half of it to buy your product and then I'm going to hopefully become, become, you know, generate a full-time income off of the $25 that's left.

Speaker 1:

Um, those are very super active trading clients. It's much more biz, oppy, and there is space in the middle, right, but it is interesting to see that you have a very different customer, um, in a lot of these cases, and there's a lot of people who are thinking of like they're going to become a professional trader somehow. Whether that can actually happen or not is an argument for another day. But it is very interesting to me that the one that you see a lot of new businesses coming in selling much more active trading, a lot of options businesses. Two, that the client is very different, it's much more biz-oppy.

Speaker 1:

And I can't think of and I'm sure someone will tell me I'm wrong, I cannot think of a option-centric publishing business that has grown beyond kind of the 30 to 40 million maybe when things are booming size. Nobody's ever gotten much bigger than that, not that everybody wants to, but it's a really interesting dynamic in the market. And you know, I think the editorial piece in the investment analysis piece takes so much more time that there's fewer entrance in the market on that side. Maybe I don't know. Um, do you find it's much harder to find people who can do good analysis and write well?

Speaker 2:

I think I mean just well, just to go back to your point, john, I think that there is, you know, there are a lot of not to you know crap on options in general. There are plenty of conservative, very well-structured ways that you can sell options and generate income, and, I'm guessing, a lot of the kind of services you're talking about sell options rather than buy. I think there's a huge distinction between those, and I think that, well and to to your question, it is difficult to find. You know, you have people who are good at finance and you have people who are good writers. Uh, rarely do the two intersect, um, so then it's always well, do you find the good writer and train him or her up in finance? I don't know. Do you find a good finance person and just pair them up with a good managing editor, so that you know the gobbledygook that he would be writing is translated into english? That's, I think, the path that most people wind up taking, um. I think, though, the bigger problem is finding those gurus who.

Speaker 2:

I don't like the word guru, um, it just sounds to me bogus uh I I think of, like you know, a yogi sitting on mountaintop or something like I hear that word, but your real person with some real financial and investment background and context and real financial and investment background and context and success. If, a lot of, if they're approached by, I think, a lot of companies in our industry, they would look at some of the product and they will look at the marketing and they say I don't want any part of that. That's, that's schlocky, that's come hither, that's, you know, one of the, the enduring challenge to our industry is sort of slickness, excessive slickness of the marketing. When you reference this, sometimes people don't want to join the industry because of that. Uh, so then, who you wind up attracting as your quote unquote guru? I mean, maybe you get somebody like that, or maybe you say you know what?

Speaker 2:

We don't have the marketers in charge of everything and instead we have people are really focused on content and you know, mr or Mrs, big time guru, we're not gonna, you know, boil you down to buy these three stocks to make 10,000% by tomorrow, but we're going to let you be your own voice and we'll nudge you, we'll encourage you, but we're going to let you write what you're going to write and we're going to hook you up with a marketer who is going to try to market you in a way that is consistent with how you want to express yourself. Um, that may or may not work, uh, but I think that sometimes, when it does, then you have, uh, you have, a product that virtually sells itself because you have a bonafide financial investment. Uh, investment expert, um, expert, who's not degraded by the marketing of the products. It sounds rude. I think that's true.

Speaker 1:

I think a lot of editors who would say that degraded is the right word for what they've had to say in copy at times.

Speaker 2:

Um, yeah, on the wrong end of that, I had in singapore we had a fantastic uh uh editor who said you know what? I don't want to go to the boat club and have my friends say, hey, I just received this email from you in your name, and what are you doing with these people? And, and you know, we could either scale back our marketing dramatically or they left and they left. And I think there is, you know, a lot of. Everybody has to write lift notes that attract attention. You have to write promos that attract attention. But what kind of promises do you make?

Speaker 1:

I think a lot of it and I think that goes to the the. The issue with, like active trading and I'm not bashing active trading, I think there's a lot, there are some great trading publishers out there, um, but the the way that people are talking about them habitually has been basically, it's fast gains, right. It's about and this is where the FTC had a lot of issues right, it was very gain centric, it was very income centric. It's like you know, hey, this went up, this amount, this stock went up, you know, like the class X pattern kind of stock promos where I'm going to show 35 parts charts of stocks that went up 3000% at some point because something triggered it and that's how I'm going to sell it, versus a much more dense storyline about the investment opportunities that's there, or it's something that, like you know, one of the things that has been interesting to me about Porter Co has been that over the last several years, when the market I mean it was a bad few years in the industry for a lot of folks but whenever there was a promo that was doing well, it invariably was coming out of you guys, um, and I thought that's really interesting because you, you know, I know porter porter is, he's a unicorn.

Speaker 1:

I mean, let's be real, he's a unicorn. Um, I mean, let's be real, he's a unicorn, um, great editor, um, great copywriter. Uh, he has gravitas when he speaks and you know what I mean. Like he just comes off really well, uh, but he's also you guys are also hitting themes very like topically, that seemed to resonate really strong promo, able to sell much more investment, focused, thoughtful kind of product at scale, which not a lot of people can do, and so there is some kind of magic over there that I think is not, is easily replicatable, unfortunately, and kind of getting at what that is is hard. How do you see that? Because, um, yeah, you've, you've been, you've been in the center of it there. So how does your prop, your copy process then work, like you said that you have the copywriter working with an editor and trying to find it. But what are you guys doing? How does this? How does this look internally?

Speaker 2:

I think the well yeah porter is is is so unusual that he's fantastic at the different dimensions of the business instead of being really one of them, uh, or even two of them. I think that, um, one of the things that that uh porter says is that the best copy is editorial. The best editorial is copy, uh, and in a lot of order and co's um promos, there are big chunks of editorial that find their way into the copy and they're you know, they are, they're edited, they're modified, um, but if you teach somebody, they want to keep listening to you. And I think that all too often, a lot of promos, a lot of marketing in the industry is so much centered on the gains Instead of let me tell you this cool story and you'll learn something along the way. And we send out lift notes that are, you know, in Word, they're four, five, six pages long, and they tell the story. They say let me explain this to you, and at the end, oh, if you want to learn more here. And a lot of those lift notes are pulled almost directly from our editorial Because it's you know, people are learning stuff.

Speaker 2:

No, I'm not a copy, I'm not a a copywriter, I'm not a marketer and I'm sure there's a lot more that. I know there's a lot more that goes into it. I've tried to write some marketing copy and and, uh, uh, the copywriter completely slices and dices it. Um, and there is the. You know you need the lead. Uh, right, that's it's not gonna. And there is the. You know you need the lead. Uh, right, that's it's not gonna. You always need that.

Speaker 2:

I think one of the things that stands where research did very well and that Portland company does very well also and I know a lot of other other uh companies in in the industry do is have a lead. Um, for your pubs, uh, where you have the full story, you have the full lead and you tell the story and that's how you draw people in and that's one of the things that sell side investment banking research doesn't do right, they just hit you with all the data right now. It's boring, right. And you know, to a lot of people, finance and investing is not inherently interesting people who aren't, you know, just like, if I'm a plumber, I find I hopefully find plumbing inherently interesting, but I'm not. So if you want me to listen to something about plumbing, you better dress it up you better. You know, take that broccoli or cheese all over it, and I think that what we do in this industry is we're appealing to plumbers and doctors and lawyers, obviously, and all sorts of people who find what we do is inherently not particularly interesting.

Speaker 2:

So we have to dress it up and, you know, a powerful lead or an interesting lead really brings people in. And um, it's such a cliche to talk about the importance of the story, um, but you know, that's how Bill Bonner, I think, has created Agora by telling the story. It's something that sometimes we forget in the industry and we look for the shorter way, the quicker buck, rather than, okay, let's really take a step back. And how can we really engage with our customer? Well, you engage with someone, you keep someone by telling them something, helping them learn something, rather than that they don't already know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that point. I think of um, a fantastic copywriter, um paris lampropoulos, who was, you know, one of the near nigh unbeatable copywriters in the direct mail kind of world, and he's still um. I remember he was saying one time about how in a direct mail piece you have sidebars which you can't. We don't really do anymore, but I have all these old magalogs right, I still have a bunch of files of them and you would see that in the first several pages every single sidebar was purely educational right, and so they're really interesting. And it wasn't until you got, like I don't know, maybe halfway in that they started to become a little bit more promotional until they're finally, like you know, full blown promotional. Um, but that was always a, a pattern that he uses You're always making the, the marketing piece itself, um, valuable right by having an education piece in there. Oh, exactly.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's to me that's so central and I think that's sort of the quote unquote secret sauce that's on display for a lot of promos that really work well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think, I think I think you can see this problem and I think some newsletters too, because it's like oh well, you know, I have to have an e-letter. So the important thing to me is to get an e-letter out versus this has to be an engaging letter out versus this has to be an engaging, interesting piece from the customer's perspective that they're going to be interested in. And so you see this, a lot of people are like they're like I'm doing a newsletter, I'm just going to, you know, throw some links in, just a bunch of other stuff, and here it is. It's not that interesting, it's not that not that much effort, not that much effort is put into it. I feel like, versus something that's very story driven.

Speaker 1:

And when you talk about stories, you know we all, I mean there's a lot of different types of stories, like what do you find? I mean, where are you going to find stories? Um, are you using? I mean, is every email or every lift or every but every article? Like Brian Hunt said in his perfect newsletter editor article years ago, like a perfect newsletter editor opens every article with a story, a personal story. Do you find that? That's the kind of stuff that you guys are doing?

Speaker 2:

We do less personal stories. We actually have one of our managing editors is an absolute master at finding these stories, and what we usually wind up doing is you're talking about stock ABC, right, and it's in this particular sector, it has this background, it has this context, and if you can find some sort of story that's a step removed, that you say, well, this is the whole story, and maybe it's historical, maybe it's about the founding of the company, maybe it's some sort of the technology that's involved with the company, maybe it's, um, you know the country where this particular company was, uh, was founded, but there's something that's a step removed and, uh, it does take research, because you have to first understand the company, understand some of the different strands of the narrative of the company, of how it came to be. Then you say, okay, where else, what is something interesting about this? And it's not easy. And Liz, who's fantastic at what she does, she spends a lot of time finding these and sometimes it'll be some sort of story that's kind of two steps removed. So say but wait a second. So we're talking about, you know, mushrooms in China and the thing that we're selling or not that we're selling.

Speaker 2:

But the topic of the. The actual investment idea is you know, chicken wings. How is that? That's too far, but, um, if you can bring a little bit closer um and uh, instead you talk about how, uh, the chicken wing industry was somehow cornered by this one guy, which was actually this is a real life example. We recently wrote about it uh, something like this. And then it's like wait a second, that's really interesting. So you're drawn in and it's not this big jump, um, from the lead to the you know the company you're talking about to the investment idea.

Speaker 2:

Um, so I guess the short answer to question is you first have to understand enough about the company and then you just have to spend some time thinking about it and exploring different avenues and some work, some don't and then you have to tell the narrative. You have to spend some time thinking about it and exploring different avenues and some work, some don't and then you have to tell the narrative. You have to tell the story. You know this is the story of this. And where do you start on that story? Do you start, like you know, when the guy was born? No, that's going back too far. You start with what's relevant and you start with some sort of the first five lines or something that draws you in it. But it does take time. Takes time, um, and takes talent. It takes a lot of skill and um the personal, you know I personal narrative. You can do that, but only so long, right. How many stories can you tell about yourself and your background before someone says, oh boy, this again, you know this guy.

Speaker 1:

And then the danger is that most people's stories are, let's be honest, kind of boring um, yeah well, I was thinking about when you were, when you were um writing your first um emerging markets letter. You were on the ground in all these different places, and so I would imagine that that kind of lends itself much more yeah, that is different.

Speaker 2:

What I would often do is say, well, I'm in bangladesh and I'd start with some story about that, and I think you can do that. But if you're writing about I don't know a chicken wing company, you know, you say, well, I went to the local mall and I was okay. You know how compelling is that. Um, then you know, if you're writing about, um, you know a lot of the companies that we that all of us you a lot of the companies that we that all of us you know a lot of companies in the world. They're not necessarily you know what's your personal angle to that Um. Uh, I think that can be, that can work sometimes.

Speaker 1:

But not all the time. So it's not just a story, it's gotta be a good story too.

Speaker 2:

Good story too. And then and then, I guess, just going back to the trading services, you know people don't buy trading services for the stories. They buy them quick idea, right now, right, and if you try to put a lead on top of that, you know, just close it down. Well, that's, you know. Walking into walmart and seeing the rolex display, you can say what the hell is this?

Speaker 1:

fair. Fair, that's a really interesting approach. Or to think about um, so what are the kind of come out from a more of a charlie munger angle, where what was what was his thing, one of one of his many models was how to do something wrong. You know, if you understand how to do something right? Like, how would you write an e-letter if you were going to guarantee that it was bad? Like, what are the kind of common mistakes that you would see? Like, um, you know how would you do that? Like, if you were going to say I'm gonna write the worst e-letter in the world. That is going to be completely useless.

Speaker 2:

Like what. Like what's that look like? Uh, you would, um, repeat the conventional wisdom in a way that's boring and unengaging. Um, you would be more focused on selling stuff than illuminating ideas. Um, um, yeah, I think you know if you don't really have any sort of insight, but you try to share it. Well, I don't care what you it's you know. Ask me about something I I know nothing about. If I start writing an e-letter about cars, well, how am I going to say I don't know anything about cars? Oh, if I share that, you're going to say, well, I'm not learning anything here. Why am I reading this guy? Same thing for investing. You get someone who doesn't know anything about it and they try to pretend that they know something about it. It's last long.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, how do you feel about the sorry?

Speaker 2:

go ahead and describe I know I was going to go into. Uh, it's funny. Before our conversation I had a charlie munger quote in mind about incentives. Um, and this is more from the and he said show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome. And I think that in our industry this is e-letters, but more broadly, you know, you give people who work for you the incentive of getting as many subscribers on as soon as possible. They're going to you know, they're going to write that crappy lead because I got the guy in. Now I just have to monetize them and then I'm done.

Speaker 2:

Um, I think if you put that incentive, you flip it over on its head and say you know what? You're not going to get paid for bringing the name in, you're going to get paid on the renewal revenue. And it's like oh, wait, a second, what do you mean? I got to make this guy, this new subscriber, stick around. Well, how do I do that? Well, you have compelling insight. You have great leads. You have a way to make them stick around and make them want to renew. Right, it's almost obvious, but it's something that I think so often in our industry, people are incentivized by the wrong, wrong things.

Speaker 1:

It might be right for them in the short term, but for the business or long term, it's very detrimental. Yeah, I've definitely had many conversations now with folks about compensation structures and the damages that different types of compensation has caused different businesses. It's definitely an issue. It's a really good point that and I know porter's been huge on this lately, I think the last few years especially um, kind of, yeah, you want to compensate people based on the business actually doing well, not on some, like you said, the. If you're compensated on just the front end sale, then it's very, very motivating to over-promise and under-deliver. Bring the name in Yep, exactly, yeah, yeah, so that's a, that's a. I feel like that's a big conversation that I don't know that we'll ever have, because to or in order to have the full compensation conversation, we'll have to talk about a lot of different, very specific things about a lot of very specific businesses. I don't know that anyone really wants to do that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, and I think internally it's very difficult to make that sort of change because it requires a change in mentality and it also entails probably a decline in income for a lot of people in the short term.

Speaker 1:

Right, yeah, no one likes that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no one likes that. Yeah, I don't like that, that's hard sell.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, but um, I forgot where I was going to go with that because there was the on the where, where we're at we're talking about stories.

Speaker 2:

Um, I tried a lot of your thought there, charlie munger, yeah, I like that invert thing.

Speaker 1:

That that's what I was gonna ask you was the. You know a lot of things that I've seen. Now the e-letters are kind of there, and this is again maybe more trading focus, but their e-letters are kind of becoming more and more just it's market commentary, like okay, here's, here's what's going on today, which is what you get on. The news is what you get. In most places there's a there's a lot of places now to just go get market commentary and it can be engaging for people who are engaged with you. But that's not the same as having here's the story of what's going on. And so I know you talk about topical things, like you said. You talk about, you know, maybe the unemployment numbers are out or whatever, or how do you look? How do you approach this intersection of um, more researched, more thought through angles on stories and just kind of like the constant flow of economic news that's out there? Um, are you guys you're not really reporting the news so much as contextualizing it, or how do you think about it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that's. That's. That's really it. You contextualize it. You know opinions are like ass. Yeah, I think that's really it. You contextualize it. Opinions are like assholes right, everybody has one.

Speaker 2:

And do our readers really care what we are thinking about? The market yesterday? The kind of dirty secret is that nobody on earth knows why the market did XYZ yesterday. Everybody can point at certain ideas, everybody has a theory, but you know there's so many. Why are you going to, are you going to open up my e-letter Because I have this particularly compelling insights on what the market did yesterday? Well, maybe, but you know, they're not that many people who can draw in readers just on the of what they think about what the market did yesterday. What is difficult, what's the cliche about there being so much information but no real insight, something to that effect.

Speaker 2:

If you can contextualize it and say, okay, this is this piece of data and this kind of fits into what we were saying earlier, the golden thread of what we've been talking about. And if one of the golden threads is, you know, us markets are massively overvalued, you say, well, look at the percentage of global market cap that is US markets. It's been going up and up and up in Japan and the EU have been going down and down and down. Huh, that's interesting. Oh, look at all this. You know the inflows of into ETFs that invest in us stocks over the past X years versus everywhere else. Wow, look at that. Diversions. And, uh, you know, you have all these individual data points and it is this narrative. It's ongoing. Um, and you might say, well, and yesterday markets just did this, but that's not really your focus. You're not talking about why markets moved yesterday. You're talking about specific data focus. You're not talking about why markets moved yesterday. You're talking about specific data points you're putting into this.

Speaker 2:

Markets are mosaic, right, at any given moment, we just see some little pieces of it. But if, as a reader, you can help me understand this little corner of that mosaic, or you can put in just enough pieces all around it, so I say, oh yeah, I see that picture. And then, of course, I'm going to go read somewhere else. I'm going to go read the wall street journal or the FT or another fin pub. Okay, those are a few more. But the day that somebody comes to you and tries to fill in that whole mosaic and thinks that they know all those different pieces. And boy, you got to listen to me. Nobody can do that, um, but if you can just make that little piece of it kind of come to life for me, so I understand it. And if that's the little chunk of the mosaic that I associate with you, well, that's your real estate.

Speaker 1:

That's pretty powerful yeah, and I, I like, I like that. I think that the the idea of bringing clarity to, you know, kind of the mass confusion of markets, um, is a really powerful thing that is overlooked because it's not just the reporting of hey, this happened, it's like.

Speaker 2:

This is what it means.

Speaker 1:

Um, and if that can then lead to some kind of investment decision, even, wow, that's amazing. Um, but the how then? But how then would you say so you're not making picks necessarily in your e-letters, right, because that's saved for the paid product? Is that the primary difference between your paid and your free? Is that there are going to be actual picks in here and so we're going to go into the stories of the picks more, or is there a different editorial approach as well?

Speaker 2:

That's a big difference. We sometimes talk about some of the picks in the e-letter Um, we recently started to. You know when, when a pick hits a hundred percent, we talk about it in the free e-letter. Um, we sometimes talk about the things that have turned out. Well, you know, if you, yeah, the stock goes up by 80 and you tell your free readers about that, well, no one's going to be upset. You're paying subscribers aren't going to say wait a second because, hey, you got in 80 ago. What are you concerned about? Right, that? You know it creates a little bit of FOMO. It also helps, um, that'll help sell. Oh, you know that. They obviously, or they appear to know what they're doing if the stock went up this much. But, um, uh, in general there are always exceptions, but in general, yeah, the the really in-depth stories and the stock recommendations are for paid subscribers and we're happy to tell everybody about the successes in the portfolio and we also.

Speaker 2:

I think what's also important is that we explain where we went wrong, and we've had a lot of. We do a fair amount of, where necessary, falling on our sword to explain why this particular stock didn't work out. I think all too often in the industry. It's very easy to say, oh, that didn't work, sell, sorry, you're down 60%. You know tough shit Better next time. We told you you should have. You know you should have raised cash and this was a risky pick. But I think there is a lot of utility to explain. Well, this was our reasoning, this is where we were wrong and you own up to it, and that builds trust with a subscriber and it also shows that you know we try to learn from our mistakes.

Speaker 1:

I don't know how I got onto that after your question no, no, no, that's, that's that's great Cause the owning mistakes and and kind of building a real relationship. It's building a real relationship right it's, rather than just a hey, you know, beating our chest. We're amazing kind of marketing approach where it's like we only talk about our winners and it's like your customers know that they didn't make money on that stuff they're very aware, and so to not address it and leave those kind of elephants in the room, uh, is definitely a mistake.

Speaker 1:

um, it seems to me that and this is this is maybe just a strong opinion of mine that maybe is true, maybe it's not is that a lot of what we're doing basically in the industry, and especially on the other side, is is you're you're building investment theses and you're selling an investment thesis in an interesting way, and that could be a micro thesis on a company, it could be a macro one, but like it is kind of having this you an essential investment thesis on what's going to happen in the market on a large scale, and then you're going to break that down on kind of a small scale. Do you think that way? And the reason I ask is I think there's a. How do I put this without being a jerk to people? How do I put this?

Speaker 2:

without being a jerk to people.

Speaker 1:

Well, cause I'm, when I was a copywriter I was I was absolutely a victim of this myself. And it's this idea that, like the copy, the copies over here and the editorials over here, the copywriter drives, like you know, we're saying in a lot of places, the copywriter drives the ideas, rather than the editor driving the ideas. A lot of copywriters, when I talk to them about their editor, like if you ask them, well, what's kind of his market, what's his thesis, what is he? You know they have no idea what his basic view is, but they can tell you about all these different promos and it's like, well, there's this separation between what the guy's recommending on not just an individual level, but like broadly his perspective, in what the promos are saying.

Speaker 1:

Um, and so all that to say that I feel like there's this like missed opportunity that is very core to what finpub is um, of understanding that, hey, what you're, what you're really doing in your marketing, in your editorial, is you're building, you're building an investment argument, investment thesis for, and so you should understand what that is before you even build the argument. And so I'm not sure what the question is on that, other than me ranting, other than to say do you feel like? I mean, whether it's copywriters or new editorial folks this idea that you have to actually have an investment thesis and be able to articulate it in a way that's interesting is kind of core to what we do. Or is it just in some cases and not others? Um, you thought about it, oh yeah, no, that's absolutely essential.

Speaker 2:

I mean, you need your narrative, you need to be able to explain okay, this is what this pub is about, um, and it has to be consistent. You have to have that golden thread. And from a copy perspective, you know, I've never worked at a place where I've heard about this, but I've heard enough. So I suspect it's not apocryphal that the copywriter says, hey, you know what? This is my promo, these are the stocks. Mr editor, write about these stocks, recommend these stocks.

Speaker 2:

Um, which is wrong on so many levels. Um, I've heard this happens, no idea when, where, how, but what in my mind, what I tried to develop in in business in singapore, and certainly it's just, it's like in the DNA of some companies. The copywriters just immerse themselves in the actual content and if the editor is doing his job, then those themes will become apparent and it's just a question of digging around a little bit more to find the sort of underlying theme for a promo. Um, but yeah, you need, you need the, the kind of big picture idea, uh, that has to drive everything else, and then you need the editor to really have a clear vision of that um, and that's.

Speaker 2:

You know, not everybody does that. Not everybody can do that. It's not necessarily on the one hand, it's it's, you know, not everybody does that, not everybody can do that. It's not necessarily on the one hand, it's, it's simple, but it's not easy, right, um? And then you need the copywriter, who is more than just a wordsmith but can actually understand the financial concepts, because, to me, the whole point of copy is to educate and entertain. Maybe not in that order, uh, but if you don't understand the concept yourself, how are you going to explain it to somebody else? And yeah, and that's how you have silos. You know, you have the copywriter who does his magic with words that may or may not actually, um, succeed in educating and entertaining in a way that is consistent with the overarching themes that the editor wants to promote.

Speaker 1:

Right, and so it seems, then, that the the other part of this then, not to always bash, it's not that just hyper, but then the editor, the editor, has to have actual ideas. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely have actual ideas.

Speaker 2:

I'm, yeah, definitely have actual ideas. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not roasting copywriters at all, right.

Speaker 1:

No, yeah, but it's like that's the two wings of the bird, right, you have to have, like, really, you know, you have to have ideas that can be turned into things that that can be marketable.

Speaker 1:

And the to me, a great great newsletters, right, when you read them, like they're, they're like Bill Bonner's a great example, right, like you're just interested in what he has to say and then he'll say things that are really interesting.

Speaker 1:

Right, there's a different, there's two different things. There's like I'll say something in an interesting way and I'll say something that's interesting, and they're not always the same, right, like you can say something that's really interesting in a boring way and you can say something that's really boring in an interesting way in a great newsletter, like ideally is, more often than not, doing both of those things. Like this is a really interesting thing that they're saying and they're going to say in a really interesting way um, uh, and that's art. It's not, unfortunately, it's not something that you can just kind of check a list and say, hey, okay, I did this, I told the story, I did this, you know, um, there's an art to that, um, but I think you have to be in love with the market to a certain degree, like you said yeah, you have to really right exactly.

Speaker 2:

If I don't like, if I'm not interested in cars, you know whatever I write about is gonna be flat and someone who actually knows about cars is gonna say why, why am I going to read this guy? If you have someone who doesn't really know about markets, doesn't really understand investing writing about, whether you're an editor or a copywriter, it's going to come through. That's going to shine through pretty quickly.

Speaker 1:

So what would your advice be to somebody who's like look, I write a new letter, I write product. I want to improve, you know, the quality of what I'm doing. I want to kind of take myself up and it's hard to say, I know, without seeing somebody's actual writing. But like on a general level, like, okay, I'm writing a newsletter. I kind of, you know, I try and put some stories in there. I try and do stuff like what are some pieces of advice that you would have for somebody to?

Speaker 2:

be better at it. Well, I think I would start with the actual. Let's start at the foundation, the actual structure of the argument. How do you explain an investment idea to somebody? Kind of goes back to your thesis on a micro level, right, is it? Are you covering all the bases? Is it interesting? Do I want to read it?

Speaker 2:

Um, often it's. You know I've I've hacked through some stuff and it's like what are you really saying here and why can I not understand it? And if I can understand it, you know pretty good bet that our subscribers will. So you start there. And if you you know, if you can't, if you can't put the bricks on right, there's no way you're going to be able to build a house that that is livable. Um, and I, uh, that's that's the challenge that a lot of people who are actually good at investing, who understand investing and finance, they have a difficult time expressing it clearly. That's where a managing editor comes in.

Speaker 2:

I think after that thing you say okay, what is the stepping back? What is this publication? What is its core idea? What is sort of the investment, the broader investment thesis Is it? Is it, you know, capital, efficient companies that have excellent management and high roi and you know a lot of the other kind of warren buffett parameters, is it? Um, you know markets outside the us are on the verge of going through a, you know, a multi-year mean reversion and catching up with US markets. So these are the sorts of countries and markets and economic characteristics we're looking for in foreign markets. People don't understand how to sell options effectively and there are these huge sort of asymmetric opportunities in options markets where you can sell options and as long as you understand how to do it, you can do it very nimbly, and this is our sort of system for finding it.

Speaker 2:

What is the overarching idea? And if you can't explain that, if it's just some sort of big mishmash, that's a whole lot more difficult to sell and subscribers or readers are going to say, but okay, this, this is just all over the map. What is the underlying theme? Um, and it's the same thing. Uh, you know, if people have sort of underlying themes and ideas, right, they have values that drive them, they have behaviors, they have a way of being and it's more or less consistent across relationships, across time, um, and if one day, you know, a friend of yours shows up and it's completely off the wall. He's behaving, just, you know, in a way that's completely uncharacteristic. You say, but wait a second, what's? There's something wrong. And you know, maybe it's a stretch, but publications have that sort of same thing.

Speaker 2:

Again, back to rolex's at the walmart, right, and you need to have some sort of theme, some sort of way of of talking, some sort of overarching ideas that guide you. Um, and I think that if, to go back to your question, if you don't have that, then you're in trouble. Um, and then so you need to be able to express investment thesis. Clearly, you need some sort of overarching idea or thesis, some sort of unifying idea that brings all the strands together. Um, uh, then, just stylistically, um, can you write in a way that's entertaining and engaging, doesn't talk down to the subscriber, doesn't assume a whole lot of prior knowledge about whatever industry or about investing, investment concepts? Those are more of the building blocks, but that's sort of the next stage of building blocks. And then, yeah, is it educational, entertaining? Do you have a lead in there? Does the lead kind of make sense, does it flow, and is it coherent with the overall structure of that particular piece? That's a lot of insight built in there. That's great, that's fantastic.

Speaker 1:

Well, I appreciate it. I think we're a little over our time, so I appreciate you doing this, kim. This is, this is awesome, and I'm looking forward to having you with us at FMS this year. You're going to be up there on the stage with us, and so I appreciate that. I was looking forward to seeing you in person.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, john. Thanks, that's a lot of fun. I really, I really like talking about this sort of thing.

Speaker 1:

Thanks, thanks. I appreciate it All.