5 links that made us think this week
Smarter Substack Weekly Recap | May 31, 2026
Smarter Substack delivers three curated Substack resources to your inbox every weekday.
This week, 1,360+ creators are becoming Smarter Substackers.
🏅 This Week’s Top 5
How Coaches & Experts Can Use Substack to Win Clients — Social media builds visibility; Substack builds the relationships that fill your calendar. Every platform feature explained, plus the system that turns readers into paying clients.
3 Things Top 1% Substack Creators Don’t Do — The fastest path to growth is cutting the behaviors quietly stalling your progress. Three habits that separate the top 1% from everyone else.
5 Substack Tactics That Don’t Work (I Used Every Single One) — 7,000+ subscribers and £100K in income — not by following the standard playbook, but by quitting it. Here are the five tactics to cut first.
Why You Can’t Describe Your Substack Without Sounding Vague — If your pitch makes people nod politely and move on, you haven’t answered the one question underneath it. Here’s what that question is.
Cool Color Palettes for Your Substack Homepage — Colors are the first thing readers feel before they read a word. Real examples with exact hex codes to build a palette that actually works.This Week’s Top 5 is sponsored by WriteStack.
WriteStack helps you automate your Substack growth and save hours of work every week.
This Week’s Top 5 is sponsored by WriteStack.
WriteStack helps you automate your Substack growth and save hours of work every week.
👉 Claim your free 7-day trial
🔥 Hot Growth Advice:
You don’t need more free subscribers. You need the right free subscribers — people who already see the value in what you do and are one good reason away from paying.
Most creators focus on growing their list and assume paid conversions will follow. The Free-to-Paid Playbook flips that logic: it walks you through how to attract subscribers who are already primed to upgrade, and what to put in front of them when they are.
👉 Get the Free-to-Paid Playbook
❓ One Question:
🤔 Food For Thought:
Most creators wait until they feel ready before they commit to a niche. But clarity doesn’t just come from thinking — it tends to show up after you’ve started and done the thing enough times to know what your thing actually is. Are you waiting to feel ready for something you could just start?
Hit reply and tell us!
Enjoy your Sunday, and see you Monday.
 | A guest post by
|
 | A guest post by
|
"clarity tends to show up after you've started" is the most useful thing in this whole issue and it's buried in the food for thought section 😭
bc most people are optimizing their niche before they've done enough reps to know what their niche actually is. the doing is the research. the starting is the answer.
the @Derek Hughes piece is the one I'm reading first.... 7K subscribers and £100K by quitting the standard playbook is exactly the kind of counter-evidence this space needs more of 🤍
the "right free subscribers" reframe is also the one that changes everything. I've been thinking abt quantity when the whole game is resonance 😄
and @Jari Roomer, @Andy Bitay, and @Sinem Günel.... I've been documenting for 81 days now how genuine conversations in comments build what posts alone never can. relationships, trust, opportunities that arrive without asking.
but there's a flip side nobody talks abt. what posts can do that comments can't. reach strangers, build authority, create the first impression that makes someone want to comment in the first place.
I want to write that piece with you guys. u on the posts side. me on the conversations side. two perspectives, one honest argument.
sent u a DM. would love to make this happen 🤍