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This is one of the best, most actionable, insightful, articles I have read for a long time. I am conscious of overwriting here, so instead of telling you about it in depth I am going to include some of my favourite lessons and snippets from the article instead. There’s also a YouTube version if you prefer to watch than read. These are just some, I strongly encourage you to read this article regardless of your business type. There’s no such thing as “passive income.” (Defi

As mentioned in the previous point, it takes an average of 20 sales emails to your audience to sell them on something. Here’s a 2-part strategy and full automatable 20-email sequence anyone can implement to increase their sales. While different leads should be treated differently, a former client is quite different to someone who signed up to your email list, this sequence is a good (albeit generic) starting point. Let’s dive in. Part 1: 100% Education These emails are inten

"People need to be reminded more than they need to be told” - Samuel Johnson I genuinely believe people have the answers, they just need to be asked the right question. In line with this philosophy, the most valuable ideas and information are rarely novel. While an introduction to a new concept can unlock huge growth, much more often huge growth only requires a timely reminder of a concept you’re already familiar with. I like to apply this to business in three key ways: I kee

A tip I regularly tell clients is: Think beyond a 5-star service. One of my favourite exercises, and an exercise that often leads to the extremely useful insights among my clients, centres around identifying what we would do if marketing was no longer possible and we had to rely solely on referrals. What would a 5-star service look like? How about 6-stars? I first learned about this some years ago in a podcast episode from Masters Of Scale with Reid Hoffman (founder of PayP

I was recently at a family gathering and got chatting to my sister-in-law about a business opportunity. She works as an accountant, and hates it. However, she is a talented seamstress and designer and would LOVE to do more work around that. She says there is just one snag: the market is oversaturated. This is a common objection I hear from people who say they want to start a business. While it is almost never actually the problem - usually people say that to mask a lack of se

Nothing stays valuable forever. When I started my first business I spent almost all of my energy doing the things I thought I should do. Failing that, I spent my energy on what I thought was the best thing to do. It was a rookie error. I spent so much time trying to identify what was best, that I didn’t do as much as I could. An idea is great, but execution is where true value exists. I found that sometimes it was important to accept doing something that is simply okay. Swi

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all” - Peter Drucker People spend a lot of time doing things that shouldn’t be done, both in their personal and professional lives. They often become the best person at a job they hate. Or reach inbox zero. Or spend a lot of time and energy doing something for someone that then goes unappreciated. Why? Was that the best use of your time? Personally, I like to take this to an extreme. I take tim

When we first started together my client, Benoist, complained that he worked a lot but felt like he got nothing done. A few months later he was able to take a whole month of holiday knowing his team would handle everything, has started paragliding again, and hardly touches his emails. Benoist had a team, but it felt like he was constantly fighting fires, treading water, swamped, surviving but not thriving. His business was stagnant and it was frustrating. He worked so hard, w

This short article from business influencer Tiago Forte was super insightful. He includes some behind-the-scenes numbers (such as his customer lifetime value, “CLV” ) and nice graphs, but some of the biggest takeaways for me were found between the lines. A few things really stood out to me: He seemed to have tried to solve the wrong problem His CLV is low, only $720 per customer. For context, my average CLV currently sits at $46,545. We are in similar niches. He explicitly s

This is a truly excellent guide for first time closers , and a good refresher for seasoned pros. It covers the fundamentals My favourite snippet from the article: “Your job isn’t to “make them buy.” Your role is to empower them to make a buying decision and to get clear on their next steps—whatever that may be.” Many people hate selling because they are doing it wrong. They try to convince people to buy. I like to approach things slightly differently. I don’t try to sell any

Calvin had a problem: his client hadn’t done the work required of them for an event happening at the weekend and Calvin was concerned (and frustrated) that their failures may ruin his ability to deliver on his promises. In a short conversation together, we uncovered why his client hadn’t held up their side of the bargain and we then built upon that insight to adapt our offer. This offer adaptation has since gone on to help us add $3k profit per customer. You can watch the 20

"Founders often hold too tightly onto solutions and too loosely onto problems. The problem, i.e. the market, is the real opportunity.” - Taken from a lecture on “ The real product-market fit ” by Y Combinator What do Airbnb, Stripe, Coinbase, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Twitch, HumbleBundle, 9GAG, GitLab, Product Hunt, Zapier, and Reddit have in common? They are all Y Combinator companies. When Y Combinator speaks, it is sensible to listen. This quote reminds me of somethi

This Stanford business school experiment may completely change how you think about business. I know it shifted my perspective when I first read it years ago. In 2009, a Stanford business professor named Tina Seelig split her class into groups and issued a challenge: Each group had $5 and 2 hours to make the highest possible return. At the end, they'd give a short presentation on their strategy. Now, let me tell you that the results of this experiment were fascinating. BUT b

Imagine you have a child who will go to university for the first time next month. Imagine this child will be living on campus and, for the first time in their life, they will need the type of household tools and supplies that were readily available to use at home. Now, list 20 things your child will need to buy to be ready for "adulting". (Take a minute and try to think of 20 things before you continue reading) I'm willing to bet that this simple exercise was more difficult t

Long story short: Simple offers sell better, even when they seem to provide less value. Ghayth was referred to me by his friend who was a client of mine, Mousa. Ghayth ran a “full-stack” Social Media Marketing Agency (SMMA); he did everything for clients - content creation, analytics, posting, channel management, everything. He had a team of 3 fully remote employees and 7 full time employees in his office in Jordan. And Ghayth was stressed as fuck. At the time, he was making

One of the most common complaints among entrepreneurs (and those they surround themselves with!) is that it is difficult to “switch off” from their business. I have seen this myself numerous times - working 40 hours straight over one weekend when I first started my brewery years ago, or not really being “present” for family moments when managing my international teams with Global Digital Week. When I finally realised that it was time for a change - that I didn’t need to feel

"Not having heard of it is not as good as having heard of it. Having heard of it is not as good as having seen it. Having seen it is not as good as knowing it. Knowing it is not as good as putting it into practice” - Xunzi The ad reminded me of this quote - as, in my opinion, the ad only achieves the first step - but this is something I see all the time with clients. Sometimes, I “consult” - I answer questions directly, I tell clients exactly what the right course of action i

This ad was sent to me by a friend and fellow entrepreneur, Charlotte. A short watch (2 mins), but worth it. I like it for two main reasons: It uses humour to engage. This ad is so good it is like native content, increasing the desire to engage and share. Though that might not be what made it go viral… It really helps the customer to self-diagnose. Often, people don’t actually know they have a problem. This ad gives examples of the pain their solution solves. Now, the importa

Monday was the first day of Q3 - the third quarter of the year. Splitting the year into quarters can really help us to get major projects completed quickly, and break up the year into manageable chunks. However, I like to take this concept a step further… Ever struggle to regain focus after something "knocks you off balance"? Unexpected problems arise, but they don't need to completely wreck your day. This is a problem that ties into my post last week about being the best ver

This might be contentious, but I truly believe this is the best way of using guarantees. How can you offer a guarantee when you cannot 100% control if a client gets the results or not? What do you do if you know 90% + people will get the result you guarantee, but 10% might not for various reasons? Below are two clips from a more consulting-style session I had with a client recently where we discussed how to use guarantees in his business. A guarantee probably isn’t what you t