Hi Reader, I stopped doing a few things this year. I bought into the myth of hustle culture. So, I started over-engineering my business. An example? I segmented my email list for a few years. I wrote five and seven-day sequences for different parts of my list. My email marketing software sent groups of subscribers a specific sequence depending on where they opted in. I spent hours writing and testing content in these sequences. After a few months, these sequences dated. If I changed my offer,...
1 day ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Early last year, I hired a video coach. He’d a big viral account over on Insta. Thousands of followers and millions of views. I signed up for a three-month contract that cost $6k. Not cheap, but he helped me with a short-form content strategy for a few months. He taught me about great hooks, how to script the first 3 seconds of a video and retention curves. I followed his advice, and some of my videos went viral. The coach knew his stuff, and he delivered on his big promise but…...
2 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, I started meditating ten years ago. I meditate in the morning and evening for 10 minutes. I use a series of guided lessons from The Way. It’s a new app by American Zen Master Henry Shukman. HeadSpace and Waking Up are both good meditation apps, too. When I’ve more time, I meditate for 20 minutes twice a day without an app. For these sessions, I use a mantra. I picked up this mantra on a Transcendental Meditation course I took a few years ago. Yes, a real, in-person course… not one...
3 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Here are 9 lessons that will change the way you think about email marketing. I’ve run a few different email lists on and off for ten years. I’d hate to do the math but...I’ve sent over seven million emails to my lists. I started my first email list on MailChimp years ago. 12 months later, I realized MailChimp is more suitable for e-commerce providers and local businesses. So, in 2016, I moved to ConvertKit. I change software-as-a-service tools regularly, but I’ve stuck with...
4 days ago • 4 min read
Hi Reader, Want to fix a toilet, cook a roast dinner, or start a blog? Google “How to…” Or YouTube it. The net gives away a lot of stuff we take for granted. When building my writing website, I invested hours and dollars in producing explainers, tutorials, guides, and how-to articles. Topics people type into Google or YouTube when they’re stuck. A lot of this content crushed it (traffic-wise). Some examples of high-traffic value posts? How to Use Scrivener for Blogging The Ultimate Guide to...
5 days ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader, My oldest son learned how to drive this year. Like any new driver, he struggled with using the car’s gearstick. With some practice, he figured out when to shift gears: up to go faster and down to stabilize. The same approach applies to growing a coaching business. Start with a clear offer that converts. In other words, you need a car to help you take clients safely from A to B. Once they’re inside the car, shift gears as and when you need to. The easiest gear to shift is pricing,...
6 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, I was a niche website publisher for a few years. It’s a popular online business model to make money and online gurus praise it as profitable and passive. If you’re unfamiliar with niche website publishing, here’s how it works. Pick a topic you know or can stomach creating content about for a few months. Hobbies like brewing coffee, quilting, or yoga work great. Think of your niche website as an online magazine that people enjoy reading. Use a keyword research tool like AHREFS or...
7 days ago • 5 min read
Hi Reader, I considered myself a writer for years. Now, I run from labels. I blame Steven Pressfield. A few years ago, I read his classic book The War of Art. He wrote: “Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end, the question can only be answered by action. Do it or don’t do it." I read that book with tunnel vision. For a few years, “doing it” meant sitting at my desk every morning and hitting a word count or a deadline. His...
8 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, I worked as an in-house copywriter for an FTSE 100 SaaS company for a few years. I sat alongside a big team of software developers and wrote sales copy about the product they were building. And do you know what they hated? Spaghetti code. This unstructured code doesn’t follow any rules or logical order, much like a messy bowl of overcooked pasta. These black-t-wearing developers preferred clean, well-written, and organized code. They priced for finding and fixing bugs quickly. They...
9 days ago • 2 min read