Do you want to grow a profitable content business? If so, join 25,000 readers. I share daily insights about personal brand building, writing online and growing a profitable business. It's for creators, coaches and business owners.
I’m a slacker… are you?
|
Hi Reader, I woke up 30 minutes after my alarm went off the other day. After wolfing down some porridge, I dropped my five-year-old son off at a karate sports camp at a school across town. He says he’s training to be a ninja. Back home, I made an Americano, opened my MacBook, and… I spent the rest of the morning watching the women’s and men’s triathlon races in the Paris Olympics. I’m training for an Ironman in Portugal later this year, so I wanted to pick up some race tips! While I watched the race, I faced… No emails from an angry boss or unhappy client. No toxic social media comments. And no urgent Zoom or Microsoft Teams meetings. I can only do this because I’ve built a writing business that works for me rather than the other way around. If I had slacked off like this back when I was an in-house corporate copywriter, my boss would have fired me. That won’t happen today. You see… I’ve set up systems to ensure my business runs even when I’m slacking off! Two employees work on the business. They maintain my content websites, manage my email, and schedule content across social media for me. I thought about hiring more employees to scale up, but I want to keep my operation lean. Now… I still keep a checklist of my daily must-dos. These are the things I can’t or don’t want to outsource. Here’s an example:
This afternoon, I spent just two hours working through my checklist. Then, I picked my son up and enquired about his ninja pursuits. It helps that Summer is a quieter time for coaches and consultants. At other times of the year, I could spend the day working through my checklist. But if I follow my daily checklist, my business runs even when I take time off to watch the Olympics. I work like this because only 20% of what I do drives 80% of my business’s results. I’m all for working harder, but why waste effort? My daily checklist represents that 20%. If I’m going to push like an Olympian, it’ll be on that 20%. (Triathlon training taught me to conserve my energy for when it matters.) So why am I telling you this? Well, you can build a business like mine by sweating your 20%. Then, ditch everything else. Here’s an example:
If you need help putting your coaching and consulting offer together, reply to this email with “Slacker”. I’ve three spots open right now. Write on, Bryan Collins |
Letters From the Desk of Bryan Collins
Do you want to grow a profitable content business? If so, join 25,000 readers. I share daily insights about personal brand building, writing online and growing a profitable business. It's for creators, coaches and business owners.
I tested Google Gemini’s content creation capabilities. I wanted to see how it stacks up against ChatGPT and Claude for creating business copy. Google Gemini offers two interesting “gems” (think custom GPTs) for content creators: Copy Creator and Writing Editor. Copy Creator helps write taglines, mission statements, and social media posts. Writing Editor focuses on fixing grammar and improving content structure. I put both through their paces using content from my daily newsletter. When I fed...
Your existing content is like an untapped gold mine - most creators keep digging new holes instead of mining what they already have. I’ve spent years writing online, It can easily become a full-time, low-paying job if you keep digging. One method for getting around this problem is building a content library of your greatest hits. It’s easier to repurpose content if you have a library that you can draw from. Another method is tracking a few key weekly stats across each channel so you can see...
I spent years obsessing over niche selection. When I was a Forbes columnist, branding myself as “the productivity and leadership guy” seemed like a safe bet. I covered topics like time management, leadership, and getting sh*t done at work.I mapped dozens of hot niche-specific topics in a spreadsheet and published articles like: The Fastest Way To Accomplish More This Week How To Use The 4 Ds Of Time Management 4 Common Mistakes New Home Workers Make I wrote about these topics not because they...