If you’ve ever caught yourself wondering whether the thing you’re pouring all your time into is actually building something that’s yours, keep reading. Or if you’re ready to just hit play, listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Pandora.
Here’s what nobody really tells you when you start a business in this era. Most of us are building on rented land. Instagram owns your audience. Some algorithm decides who gets to see you on any given day. And overnight, the visibility you spent years earning can just kind of evaporate without warning. The whole thing is borrowed.
So when I first heard Kate Kordsmeier, the founder of Success with Soul on a podcast, it was one of those episodes where I paused, rewound, and thought, okay, this woman is speaking directly to my soul. In 2021, Kate did a 30-day social media detox. She really did think it’d just be a short break. But thirty days became sixty, and at some point she stopped counting, and four years later, here she is. She runs a six-figure business, works about twenty hours a week, and she still hasn’t posted organically since.
Her business grew 165% after she stepped away.
In this episode, we unpack why stepping back from social might be the smartest business move you have not considered yet, what is actually happening with AI and search right now, and the practical steps you can take to start building visibility that does not live and die with the algorithm. If you have ever wondered whether you could really grow without social, this conversation is for you.
Listen to the full episode: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora
The Biggest Lie Entrepreneurs Have Been Sold About Growing a Business
I asked Kate straight up: what is the biggest lie we have been sold about how to grow a business? Her answer was not a surprise, but the way she said it stuck with me.
“The biggest lie is that you have to be on social media in order to have a successful business. It is so not true. I’m definitely living proof. You don’t have to dance on reels to build a company. You just need a business model, an email list, and the right people to find you. If you love social, it can be the icing. It should not be the cake.” Kate Kordsmeier
Deep down, I think a lot of us already know this. Social media can feel like being stuck at a party you can’t leave. You know the vibe. The Uber’s not showing up, everyone’s watching to see what you do next, and you’ve got this nagging feeling that if you step outside even for a second, you’re going to miss something important. Kate gave us permission to just walk out.
Here’s the three-question test Kate uses before she’ll invest more time in any platform:
- Do I actually enjoy this?
- Is it working (can I directly connect it to leads or actual sales)?
- Is it aligned with what I value?
If you cannot say yes to all three, it might be time to look at other levers. And there are a lot of levers, social is just one of them.
What a Business Without Social Media Actually Looks Like
Here’s what I love about Kate’s whole approach. When I rattled off everything we actually do to market the Goal Digger brand, the list was long. The podcast you’re listening to. Paid ads. Our email list. Social. Pinterest. SEO. AI-generated search content. Kate’s response? Her business looks basically identical to ours. She just skips the social piece entirely.
For visibility beyond search, Kate focuses on partnerships, not posting:
- Aligned podcast interviews (exactly like this one)
- Joint venture collaborations and affiliate partnerships
- List swaps and high-leverage visibility that does not require a daily posting schedule
None of it requires showing up on Instagram every day. All of it builds an audience she actually owns. If you are trying to figure out where to focus your energy, read more about building an email list from scratch and why I believe it is the single most important asset in your business. That post is a good companion to this conversation.
Why SEO (Not Social) Is Now Your Most Powerful Marketing Channel
After I heard Kate on Amy’s podcast, I immediately bought her course and brought my team into it. The reason? SEO answered a question that social never could: how do you create content that keeps working after you step away?
I know what some of you are thinking. Is SEO even still relevant now that AI is changing everything about how people search? Kate addresses this directly.
The foundation of both SEO and GEO is the same: create helpful content that answers the questions your audience is actually searching for. Whether someone types into Google or asks an AI chatbot, the principle does not change.
What makes search-based content so different from social? The intent.
When someone finds your content through search, they were already looking for exactly what you do. Kate calls it invitation marketing. They RSVPed. They showed up because they wanted to be there. Social media is interruptive marketing: you have to stop someone mid-scroll, earn their attention in two seconds, and somehow get them to click away from the app. The difference in conversion quality is not even close.
I proved this to myself firsthand. I posted a reel that went viral: 3.2 million views. Total profile clicks? About 600. Measurable sales? None. Meanwhile, a Pinterest Pin I created two years ago quietly sends qualified traffic to my site every single week. That is the difference between reach and results. (If you want to understand how Pinterest fits into a search-first strategy, I break it all down in there).
The Evergreen System That Replaced Social: How Kate Earns Without Posting
Kate took a six-month sabbatical and did zero marketing. She worked less than five hours a month all while her business made almost six figures during that time. Nobody was posting for her. No one was running campaigns. People found her through content she had created months and years earlier, and her automated systems did the rest.
I think about this a lot. The work that feels worth being away from my kids is the work that lives on longer than the day it was published. A blog post that answers a real question, a podcast episode that someone finds through search two years later, an email sequence that nurtures someone at exactly the right moment in their journey. That is the only kind of output that actually feels worthy of the time it costs.
Kate built her entire business around this principle. Every piece of content she creates is designed to move people onto her email list. From there, automated sequences do the selling. She has a shop with 50+ products, and every Friday an email goes out promoting one of them with a 24-hour coupon code. She wrote 52 of those emails once. The system runs itself.
I have seen this in our own business too. Automated emails generate roughly three times more revenue than one-off sends, because they reach people at the exact right moment in their journey rather than blasting everyone at once. The entrepreneurs who are all in on social often do not have the bandwidth to build these systems, because they are too busy keeping up with the content treadmill to step back and think long-term.
Followers Are a Vanity Metric. Here’s What the Numbers Actually Show.
Before Kate left social, she had 7,500 followers. She is direct about it: those 7,500 followers did not translate into $7,500 in revenue. Not even close.
The metrics that matter are not visible to anyone else: subscribers added, leads captured, sales generated. Likes are public. Conversions are private. When you optimize for the public number, you are spending real time and energy on the wrong thing.
Kate runs a social media audit with her clients before they make any changes. The exercise is simple: add up how many hours you spent on social media last week, then ask how many email subscribers or direct sales you can actually attribute to that effort. For most entrepreneurs, the number is startling.
How to Start Growing Your Business Without Social Media
If you are ready to explore a search-first strategy but do not know where to start, here is what Kate recommends. And I want to say: we have been doing this ourselves over the last six months at Goal Digger and it has changed how we think about every piece of content we create.
1. Start with the questions your audience is already asking
Use ChatGPT to generate your content roadmap. Tell it: “I help [describe your audience] go from [pain point] to [desired outcome]. What are 25 questions this person is actively searching for?” Then write a post or record an episode that answers each one. You do not need to publish every day. Two solid, searchable pieces of content a month will compound over time in ways a daily Instagram story never will.
We have been doing this at Goal Digger for months now, going back through past top performers and optimizing them alongside creating new search-first content. It has completely changed the energy of how we create.
And don’t forget: you don’t have to go “all in” right away. Even publishing one or two helpful, evergreen posts each month can compound into a steady stream of leads that outlasts any viral moment on Instagram.
2. Lead with the answer, then support it
For both SEO and GEO (showing up in Google results and getting cited in ChatGPT or AI Overviews), put the clear, concise answer in the first one to two sentences of your content. Then use the rest to support and expand. Format headings as questions where it makes sense. AI tools pull Q&A-style content because that is how people are actually searching now.
3. Lead with lived experience
This is what AI cannot replicate, and it is the thing I have always believed most deeply about content creation: real stories from real people who have actually lived it. Kate publishes monthly income reports with real numbers, screenshots, and honest context about what worked, what did not, and what was happening in her life. That specificity is what gets cited, shared, and trusted.
Your personal stories and case studies are not a detour from good content. They are the point. (I wrote about this in depth when it comes to podcast content specifically.
4. Repurpose before you create from scratch
Probably the biggest aha I had from Kate’s course was this. Most of us are sitting on years of searchable content we’ve literally never bothered to optimize. Old coaching call transcripts. Past blog posts collecting digital dust. Email sequences. Any of it can become a fresh, search-optimized post if you know what you’re doing.
Kate uses a custom GPT she trained on her own SEO and GEO framework to turn a podcast transcript into a real first draft in under thirty minutes. That GPT comes included in her Anti-Social SEO course, and honestly, it’s one of my favorite parts of the whole thing.
We’ve actually started doing this ourselves now. We go back through old Goal Digger episodes that have strong search potential and turn them into optimized blog content instead of always starting from a blank page. And the wild part is the content was already there. We just hadn’t surfaced it yet.
Frequently Asked Questions About Growing a Business Without Social Media
Can you actually grow a business without social media?
Yes. Kate Kordsmeier has not posted organically on social media since 2021 and runs a six-figure business working 20 hours a week. Her business grew 165% after she stepped away. Her strategy is built on SEO, email, evergreen funnels, and podcast partnerships, none of which require a daily social media presence.
What is the difference between SEO and GEO?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is how your content ranks in traditional search engines like Google and Bing. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is how your content gets cited by AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google’s AI Overviews. The foundation is the same for both: create clear, helpful content that answers specific questions your audience is searching for. Structure posts in Q&A format and lead with the direct answer in your first two sentences.
Is SEO dead now that AI is changing search?
No. As Kate puts it, SEO grew up and got a new partner: GEO. ChatGPT and other AI tools pull from search results, particularly Bing. Content that ranks well in traditional SEO tends to perform well in AI-generated answers too. The main shift is toward conversational, question-based content that leads with clear answers. Keyword stuffing is gone. Helpful, specific, experience-based content is more valuable than ever.
How do I start with SEO if I have no experience?
Start with questions. Use ChatGPT to generate 25 problems your ideal client has. Write one blog post that answers each question. Lead with a concise answer in your first two sentences. Include personal experience and specific results. Publish two to three times a month rather than trying to produce daily content. That cadence, sustained over six to twelve months, builds a compounding traffic engine that social media simply cannot match.
How do I grow an email list without social media?
The same way Kate does: through search-first content and strategic partnerships. Every piece of content she creates is designed to move someone onto her email list. She uses blog posts, podcast appearances, joint ventures, and affiliates to drive traffic to lead magnets and opt-in offers. From there, automated email sequences do the selling. Email is the backbone of her business and everything else is just a path to get people there.
Hi Jenna, I really enjoyed this episode. In it you referenced an app that helped you reduce your social media scrolling. What was the name of the app please? I seem to have missed it.
Yes! Great question! It’s called Clearspace: https://www.getclearspace.com