Coffee With Dan

[Never give up hope]

A story of success that involves my Dad, a deadline and a single one pound coin…

Now before I go on I’ll pre-frame with the fact I may of shared this to some in my past, but it’s pertinent for many of you to read this story NOW

Hence sharing this with you today

So, many years ago my dad – aka the goat – was in sales and I believe at the time he was a sales rep for a UK stationary company

It was during the 90’s recession and yours truly was just a little boy

(I only learned of this story last year)

Times were tough

Even though my dad was, and still is, a fantastic salesmen

We didn’t have much back then

I was always loved
I was a happy boy
I was never hungry or without books or a dog or toys

But times for many – as they are now – were hard

My dad isn’t by his own admission isn’t academic – but he IS determined and he IS relentless

He is also a provider

Hence the thought of him NOT being able to provide was something I knew that drove him from our chats in the last years

Anyways to the story

My dad got a lead

A company that he had been chasing down for many, many months gave him a call

If he could get to Cardiff?

The deal was his

Now I live in Somerset, and if you don’t know we have a big old body of water called the Bristol Channel between us and and wales

You can go up and around but that takes a few hours – and he would of missed the meeting

So he needed to use the bridge

The bridge back then cost £1

Problem was, he didn’t have any money

Now i don’t have a family

One day, I hope to

And if I do, my mum and dad have provided me with – in my opinion – a ‘blueprint’ for what being a good mum or dad is

Mum taught me to be kind and empathic, to look out for those who can’t look after themselves and to not complain about your lot in life

But to simply crack on

Dad?

That’s where I get my tenacity, people skills (different from mums) and sheer bloody minded relentlessness from

Now I can’t quite imagine how that felt

Knowing that the answer to your problems…

To the deal that would put money in the bank…

And food – literally – on the table…

Knowing all your problems could be solved by one fucking pound that you didn’t have I imagine would of felt brutal

For many?

Hope would be lost

What he felt – is for him and him alone – but he didn’t give up hope

From what he told me he went through every drawer…

Every suit pocket…

Every nook and cranny in his car…

Looking
For
One
Single
Pound
Coin

After coming up blank, he started turning the soft furnishings literally inside out

And after literally removing the lining of true sofa

Nestled amongst she lint, crumbs and things you find in the crevices of sofas…

…was a single, shiny, golden £1 coin

With barely enough petrol to cover the journey he set off

– made the meeting with 4 mins to spare –

And closed the deal

Got the commission
Paid the bills
Was there for his family

He didn’t lose hope
He kept looking
He refused to quit

I’m sharing this now as – for many – at times it might feel hopeless

No idea what to do
No idea who to turn to
No idea if you’re going to be ok

If you let your thoughts run wild?

You will he paralysed by fear and you won’t do your equivalent of ‘tearing up the sofa’

Now if your are reading this and you are 100% fine, more power to you

But with everything I write, I’m always mindful there could be those reading this that are fucked

I say this having come from no material privilege

All I have?

I worked for and earned myself

Yes I’ve had help from others

But you know who got my ass out of the shut?

Me

When it comes down to to IF you have a few people you can TRULY rely on?

You’re lucky

There’s times – more than once – I’ve felt completely hopeless, a week or two away from ruin

I remember having to sneak into work early when I was 19 to have a teaspoon of cereal from the boxes the consultants kept on the kitchen shelf…

I remember hiding in a corner behind a skip waiting for the manager of Pret to throw away the gone-off sandwiches that I would happily harvest after he closed door and before the motion sensor alarm was activated…

I remember walking 6 miles a day in a summer heatwave in london with multiple shirts (that I had to change in McDonalds toilets and wash/clean/iron every night) and a bundle of CV’s I printed off from the job centre handing them out for sales jobs…

I remember it all – and many more – clear as day

How I felt is BURNED into my mind

Because as depressed, beaten and emotional battered as I was?

Like my dad all those years ago – I didn’t give up hope

Somehow, I found a way

Fuck, I’m only here now because I’m a spiteful little arse who refuses to stay in his lane and knowing that I have a duty of care to my sister in years to come

If you’re in the suck right now?

I implore you: don’t give up hope

Yes, it may not be easy – it might be far from that – it might be fucking brutal

But do what you need to do

Call in favours…

Swallow your pride…

Get up early and go to bed late..

Do
What
Needs
To
Be
Done

This won’t last forever and I’m telling you there ARE opportunities out there

They might not be exactly what you want

When I lost it all?

I certainly didn’t want to be working in a strip club being belittled and spat on (literally, more than once) by bankers

But I did what needed to be done until I could shift to what I wanted to do

I did the work
I got paid
I fed myself and paid my bills

Had fuck all else

But I got through it and it made me who I am today

You WILL get through this

No idea when, or how but if you don’t give up hope and you don’t quit

You WILL find your own £1 coin

Yes you’re gonna have to be relentless
Yes you’re going to have to do some things you don’t want to do
Yes it’s not going to be easy

But one day it will be!

You just have to grind through this

So send the pitch…
DM every old client…
Leverage your network..

Hit the digital streets and knock on those digital doors one by fucking one and don’t fucking quit on yourself

One day YOU will be looking back on this and you will be PROUD that you didn’t quit when every fibre of your being said

‘I’m done’

Flip the sofa cushions

One day?

You’ll find that £1

Good luck

And it may not feel like it..

…but you got this

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Selling Through This Shit Storm

It’s the last post from the peeps in my world, you heard from her other half (Martin) this morning

And now you hear from Sarah Jolley-Jarvis (who along with Martin Jolley-Jarvis I have been mentoring for newly 2 years now!)

She is all about SALES

The content is pretty simple but that’s the point

It’s not hard IF you keep it simple

Read and go do!

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Let’s face it, for some people their business has evaporated over night.

If you are one of those people I’m not about to tell you that you should be sell sell selling what you do…that would be dumb

But if you need (and want to) you can sell your skills during this crisis, some of the skills might need transferring

Or the internet favourite word at the moment ‘pivoting’

To make them work and still add value remotely right now…

but people ARE buying and there IS demand there for the right skills.

So what are the right skills and how can you package them?

I’ve done over 20 calls with people who are struggling to find a new direction…every single call without fail comes back to the same thing…

Who is your ideal customer?

what is going on for them right now?

What help do they need?

First of all let’s deal with the worst case scenario: your ideal customer still needs what you sell but you can’t sell what you do because it can’t be done under lockdown conditions:

that sucks…you might have to look for alternative income, what other sellable skills do you have that people might need right now?

As far as maintaining contact with your ideal customer how might you be able to add some value, enough to maintain your relationship and keep at the forefront of their minds?

I’ve seen great examples of this with sports therapists doing tutorials on how to self massage, nurseries sending out activities to do with your kids, adding value with zero expectation or ability to sell.

However if you can sell then do!!

If you have something of value then why shouldn’t you be paid for it?

Don’t devalue your skill set, or your profession by doing things that SHOULD be paid for free of charge: I spoke to a client who was super frustrated; she does online yoga classes and has been doing for over a year prior to this all kicking off.

Her local competition decided to go online and are doing a class every morning for free…you can’t be undercut lower than that!!

We worked through her approach to sell against this, fortunately she has a fantastic reputation, some great USPs and a back catalogue of over 100 classes to differentiate herself and justify her monthly subscription.

If you are faced with something similar, look at where you can differentiate and add more value to justify the cost.

The likelihood is that your ideal customer still has the same needs as before…but their priorities might have changed.

Speaking to past and present clients, understanding where they are at and how their needs might have changed can really help you to figure out how you can still meet your customers needs.

I spoke to one person who has a fantastic loyal following and is normally booked up for months in advance, since the lockdown began every single client has cancelled: they simply can’t prioritise the money right now to pay for his services.

With little time to organically target sectors who can afford to prioritise money for their services he went back to his audience, found out what they could afford to invest right now and provided a scales back version of their normal services that fitted their budget…they put the offer out and it sold out organically in less than 24 hours.

Understand what your customer needs right now…and provide them with a solution that meets that need at a price that they can afford and just as before this crisis began they will buy!!

Finally…you have an audience but you can’t sell to them what you would normally provide but does your market need what you can provide for a different reason? Can you meet their needs in another way?

For instance I spoke to a lady who runs a face to face tutoring business for children (mostly for exam prep etc)

Schools closed, exams got cancelled and demand disappeared. Quickly though enquiries started coming in for tutoring for kids who are learning at home: parents who didn’t want their kids missing out on learning. This wasn’t something she had done before.

But Was totally within the skill set of her tutors, she got them set up online and within day’s was able to offer appropriate tuition for kids of all stage of education in lockdown.

This was a simple ‘pivot’, she increased awareness of what she had to offer organically using social media; providing decent value content to her growing audience and within a week she was at full capacity and in a position to look for more tutors to meet demand.

If you are desperately searching for your next sale start by reconnecting with your ideal customer, understand how what they need and how your skills can help them meet that need…

And then don’t be afraid to let them know that you can help them: you are doing them a disservice not telling them if you can truly help them during this time.

Corona Crisis or not always keep your communication honest and authentic: don’t pretend to be someone you aren’t, don’t ‘put on a brave face’, be human, be you and you WILL attract and convert those ideal customers you enjoy working with.

Happy selling 🙂

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Back to Dan

How straightforward was that eh?

If your honest, smart and act quickly you can crack on during these weird as fuck times

And if the idea of sales scares you?

That’s normal for some!

Sarah is a great sales coach (she also does sales training for corporates and groups as well)

Again lemme know if you want an intro

Right that’s it from me ‘leveraging’ my peeps, if you got something from any of the posts?

TELL ME

The guys and gals happily gave up their time to create it, would be nice to give them some feedback

Anyways that’s it from me

If you celebrate? Happy easter!

If not?

HAVE A DAY!

😘

Dan

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9 paid traffic tips that anyone (even me!) can use right now…

So we are coming to the close of the week of leverage (aka my team and mentees to write my posts for me lol…we allllllll need a break from Dan from time to time… even me 🤣)

Now Martin Jolley-Jarvis is one half of the JJ’s, aka my mentees for nearly two years

His other half – Sarah Jolley-Jarvis – is going to be here later with all things sales

Martin?

Well his domain is paid traffic

⁃ he’s rather good, hence the above image to show you coz it’s easy to talk le shite online –

Now this content IS epic and deeply actionable, there’s only one thing I need to give you a heads up on..

My man Martin – as you will see – LOVES an emoji…more than me!

Lol

Right over to the man himself…

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😲9 takeaways from $346,400 profit in 6 months with Facebook Ads.😲

The surprising truth you’re about to discover is making paid traffic work is as much about your business as it is the ads. 🤯

The reality is paid ads are a powerful way to scale any business, especially when you’re hitting mid 6 figures going onto 7 figure revenue.

Sure it’s a slightly different skill set going from $1000 a month to $1000+ a day in spend.

Yet the principles are the same…

These takeaways will help whether you’re at $1k, $10k or $100k monthly revenue.

Essentially my learnings and insights from a webinar and free book funnel build with facebook ads run at our agency.

✅Takeaway 1: Know your audience✅

Know your audience… Sounds like a basic marketing 101 💩.

It’s scary the amount of people who don’t know their audiences well enough.

For years they’d struggled to make paid traffic work. 😢

Like most they had a fair idea who they were targeting. Yet still hadn’t clearly defined it.

When we dug deeper it became obvious there were two very different avatars.

The guys who had loads of skin in the game, and were looking for the one or two gems that would really accelerate their businesses. 🤔

These guys had total belief, but thought they’d seen it all already.

OR

The beginners who were just looking to get started and need hand holding to make it happen.

These guys knew other people were doing well in the niche, but did not have the self belief or technical knowledge to make it work. 🤯

The problem was all their marketing had been aimed in between the two avatars.

Which meant that the advanced guys thought the info was a little basic and the inexperienced guys didn’t have the self belief or confidence to feel they could achieve it.

We totally reworked their messages having two distinct messages that spoke exactly to the avatar. Not pitching it mid-way between. This meant their ad CTR went from <0.5% to <1.5% average.

Yes it’s basic marketing 101, but amazing how many people skip this step…

Even businesses running multiple 6 figures in revenue.

Changing this allowed us to much better direct the copy on the sales funnel we built too.

✅Takeaway 2: Products✅

Get your products ready for scaling…

Don’t just build a thing and expect it to sell. Most successful businesses (and products) are iterations built over time and experience. ⌚️

To make paid ads work and any funnel profitable you need a good suite of products that sell! 🥳

From low price point entry level to high ticket consulting.

When we started working together they had the high ticket consulting and sales were good for offline activity (in person events etc). They just couldn’t make online work. 🤷‍♂️

Thing is with products, if you’re making sales organically and people are willing to buy, then you’re likely to make sales with paid traffic.

If you can’t sell a product to your market organically then chances are ads won’t improve that.

We knew people wanted their product because they were making sales. 😎

The problem with this client was they didn’t have any lower price point offers.

So it was a steep jump – cold traffic to $10k min, which they’d previously tried to bridge through local events.

So we work with them to test two lower price point offers…

➡️FREE Book (&P&P) Offer.
➡️Webinar To $127 Entry Level Course.

This dramatically dropped the CTA while bringing in money to pay their ads back and getting more people into the pipeline for their mastermind.

I see a lot with entrepreneurs starting out, they have a webinar to a single product.

If that product price is too low, it’s hard to make profit from your ads…

If it’s too high then you have to be a good high ticket closer.

Getting that balance is essential, especially having lower price points for entry level so you can recuperate some of your ad costs upfront.

✅Takeaway 3: Test & Measure Everything✅

It’s so important.

There’s lots out there about split testing.

Testing and optimising ads should be a given. If you’re not doing it then you’re literally letting profit slip through your fingers.

Testing the process is sometimes overlooked!

Not the pages (e.g. headline 1 vs headline 2).

I’m talking about the actual process.

We tested two distinct front end offers.

Free book VS webinar to $127 course

➡️The Free book killed it on CTA $15.83
➡️The CTA for the course was $150.60

On face value the book is cheaper 10x less acquisition cost.

BUT

Both were running at a loss…

The problem was getting people to convert straight off the book was more difficult. Jumping from a $4.99 book to an $10k package was a sizeable leap for most people.

Whereas the $127 course made a slight $25 ish loss.

Yet was STILL PROFITABLE

Because we had a $647 upsell which converted around 17% of people.

Meaning they were immediately profitable $86.99 per sale on average.😍

This was the principle component enabling us to fund scaling rapidly from $95 a day to $1080 in 3 months. 🥳

✅Takeaway 4: Retarget Like A BOSS✅

Most people retargeting and there are many different ways to do it.

Here’s how we do it…

We retarget the same offer (in different ways) across multiple audiences on the front end.

✔️All Website Traffic – (anyone who’s visited your site or funnel)
✔️New Leads – (anyone who’s given you their contact details)
✔️Video Views – (anyone who’s watched your videos)
✔️Add To Carts – (anyone who’s looked to buy or book a call)
✔️Completed Registrations – (anyone who’s bought or booked a call)
✔️Engaged Facebook Page – (anyone who’s engaged with your page)
✔️Engaged Instagram Profile – (anyone who’s engaged with your Instagram)
✔️Engaged Ad Or Post (Facebook)
✔️Engaged With Ads Or Posts (Instagram)

Not only that, we do it across multiple timelines 7-14-30-60-90-120 &180 days!

Here’s the thing…

We represented the webinar to page visitors who didn’t sign up for the webinar – this retargeting audience generated leads at $7.56 vs $10.38 on average for cold.

We retargeted all webinar sign ups with the $127 course as a limited time offer.

We downsold too…

If they didn’t buy the $127 course in the time allowed we down sold them to the FREE Book offer.

This simple retargeting downsell cost JUST $10 a day…

We attributed over $30k+ in high ticket sales from this book offer because of post purchase follow up sales calls.😲

✅Takeaway 5: Have a suite of ads….✅

If the foundations are right then your ads will be a success.

Assuming you follow the right process.

Hammering people with sales ads ALL the time is the fastest way to turn off your audience.🤦‍♂️

You want that will presell your prospects so they’re ready to buy.

⚠️We used a suite of ads ⚠️

➡️ Testimonial ads,
➡️ Customer story ads,
➡️ Product walkthrough ads,
➡️ FAQ ads,
➡️ Content lead ads

All designed to establish social proof and credibility
So when they saw the sales ad they were already bought in.

Meaning the prospect was WAY more likely to buy the course AND improved the high ticket conversion rates too. We don’t have exact figures on the increase – sorry.

It also means there were multiple touch points before purchasing.

As you’ll hear time and time again testing is SO important.
We tested hundreds of ads to find the ones that work best. 🚀

One tip for rapid testing is to use dynamic creatives (if you’re not already).

Facebook will test 5 headlines | 5 main body copy | 10 creatives and 5 buttons to bring you the BEST combinations.

It allows you to rapidly discover the ad combinations that are working best. 🙌

You can test a lot of creatives & copy at once for faster results.

You can then dupe the winning combinations out and test more variants around that theme.

Doing this meant we found winning combinations of ads that, once duped out, generated thousands of likes, comments and shares each! 👊👊👊

✅Takeaway 6 – Work On Writing Good Copy Or Hire A Copywriter✅

Copy with your ads is a very important element.

When you’re building funnels and pages then copywriting is an incredibly important skill.

Good copy does take a while to learn.

Over the last 2 years we’ve invested heavily in 1-2-1 training with world class copywriters and it’s paid dividends for our business. 😎

If you don’t have time to learn or writing isn’t your thing then hire one.

We tested straight to a high converting clickfunnels order form Vs longform page copy and the results were obvious.

High converting order form = 11.7% conversion rate
Long Form Sales Page = 23.75% conversion rate💥

That’s insane.

They literally doubled their money and returns from ads.

From this one subtle difference.

Making a HUGE difference to their front end ad profitability.

✅Takeaway 7 – Sales Follow Up ✅

Sales are the lifeblood of any business.

The ones that really do well with paid ads have a team of salespeople to follow up.

At a minimum if it’s just you, get good at selling, then bring on a sales person.

A good high ticket closer is worth their weight in gold. 🏆

This client had a team of 4 sales people, that could follow up all leads and purchases and upsell (even fastrack) to high ticket mastermind or private client.

⚠️ In the first month of running ads one person bypassed the entire funnel (after the webinar) and went from lead to private $30k client. ⚠️

This started with JUST one phone call. 📞

It’s a subtle mindset shift that I see with all clients, like this, who are really making paid ads work.

The ads aren’t the panacea to fixing your business sales problems.

They are a proven and scalable way to feed your business so you can make MORE sales.

Invest in sales training or staff so you can serve the leads that are coming in.

Ads are only ever as successful as your ability to close.🤷‍♂️

✅Takeaway 8 – Know Your Numbers ✅

Knowing your numbers is essential.

When we first started working together their numbers were um… a little sketchy.

Daily tracking of their ad performance meant that we could accurately assess metrics and predict the numbers using Geru.

Tracking & attributing sales was much more difficult.

They had money coming in from paypal, BACS, stripe, cash.

It was a nightmare to track. 🤦‍♂️

Worse… midway through they swapped CRM too, which further added the complexity of attribution.

We used facebook offline events to upload as much data as we could and attribute it wherever possible, including manually. But ONLY for the last 3 months (we didn’t do this before because we didn’t have access to the data.)

If this was an ideal case, the tracking of numbers could have been MUCH better.

The most accurate figure we can get on the back end according to their sales manager is 4.4x ROAR. 🔥

Which is a decent return on top of the front end profits.

Almost everything we could get access to was attributed.

Sadly we didn’t have visibility of everything. The figure could be a lot higher, we have no way of knowing. 🙄

The big learning from this is to use systems that’s easily trackable and one or two method of taking payment (your account might also love you or it).😉

Understanding the data is what drives decisions and when you’re scaling big numbers small decisions can have dramatic impacts on results.

✅Takeaway 9 – Learnings ✅

If I had to do it again, I’d definitely do a few things differently, the tracking above was huge learning.

The other key takeaway was hiring our own creative team. 👩‍🎨

It took longer than we wanted to get creatives off the client and so we hired a creative team in house to build us out more creatives for testing.

This allowed us to test hundreds of creatives rapidly without ever having to wait for the client to send stuff over. 😎

Allowing us to dramatically speed up testing and get results much faster.

This was a big win and we’ve kept the creative team on so we can test lots of creatives without constantly badgering clients in the future.🥰

That’s it…

Hope that’s been useful.

Martin

P.S. I was going to shoot for 10, but didn’t see the point creating one more takeaway just to hit a round number. 🤦‍♂️

**********

Ya know what?

I was legit impressed with that, my man MJJ knows his stuff

If you ever need a) paid traffic run for you OR b) you would like to know how to do it yourself?

Let me know and I’ll make the intro or just DM him

They ain’t cheap, but you really do get what you pay for in this space

Plus – because such things ARE important – he’s got a bank is screenshots of ad accounts for proof

No bullshit on this boy eh?

Right, last one coming later from Sarah JJ

Hope y’all enjoyed the week so far!

D

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Stand out on social without sucking serious sausage

*********$

I do feel sorry for my team at time’s you know

This week I’ve tasked all of them to deliver me an item of valuable content

They never give me the subject line or opening but…

…so I feel I HAVE to to fuck with them a little bit eh?

Anyways today is all about creating eye-catching, pattern-interrupting, thumb- stopping images and graphics for your social media

Hence I hand over to my head of memes – yes that is his real job title – Mr Chris McCluckie

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Do your social media images need a helping hand.

Are you looking at other peoples graphics and wondering, how can I do that?

Here are some tips to help you stand out and be more unique.

Some are practical and some are psychological.

But they will help your social media images stand out and get more attention

Especially now that everyone is using their social media to take their offline businesses online

Here are 10 easy wins to help you stand out

1. SOCIAL MEDIA IMAGES ARE USED TO SLAY ZOMBIES

I keep going on and on about this, but it’s so important.

People turn into zombies when they are on their mobile phone.

They lose their sense of time, where they are and all but the basic brain functions turn off while they surf social media.

You go into a trance and zone out – it’s what this type of media is designed to do!!

Our job is to recognise this and provide an image that is different to the standard, boring images that people use.

Different always gets noticed.

Getting noticed slaps people in the face and brings them out of the trance long enough to read your post.

And that’s what we are trying to achieve – get their attention in and around the noise of social media

2. USE BIG BLOCKY TEXT IN YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA IMAGES

0.5 seconds is what it takes for someone to flick past your post.

Don’t have some font that requires effort to be read as people will make an instant unconscious decision that it’s too much effort to read it.

And they will flick past you quicker than you can blink.

Go for the unsexy, big, chunky and blocky font.

3. USE CAPITAL LETTERS IN YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA IMAGES

Capital letters are easier to read at a glance.

This is why newspapers use capital letters for their headlines, especially for the front page.

We have already talked about how quick people decide to read your post or not.

Around 0.5 seconds.

Capital letters stop them thinking as they are easy to read at a glance.

So use them.

4. THINK OF THE WAY YOU DISPLAY TEXT – IT HAS A HUGE EFFECT ON THE OUTCOME

Look at these examples

THINK OF THE WAY YOU DISPLAY TEXT – IT HAS A HUGE EFFECT ON THE OUTCOME

THINK OF THE WAY YOU DISPLAY TEXT
IT HAS A HUGE EFFECT ON THE OUTCOME

THINK OF THE WAY
YOU DISPLAY TEXT
IT HAS A HUGE EFFECT
ON THE OUTCOME

3 different ways, which one feels the most comfortable to read??

5. DON’T USE TOO MUCH TEXT IN YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA IMAGES

We are not trying to write a novel, or sell with our images – that is not their job.

It’s so easy to keep adding text so your readers can “understand you better”

The images job is a pattern interrupt plain and simple.

No more and no less.

It’s there to stop people long enough so they come of of their trance and read your post

This is where you can write a novel and sell your stuff, not the image.

6. MARK YOUR TERRITORY IN YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA IMAGES

I used to put up my social media handles on my images, and it worked well.

But I decided to experiment with putting my website address on.

I never thought it would make a difference, after all I was just marking my territory, right?

Page views went up massively over night and I was able to attribute it to the extra traffic coming on google analytics.

7. PATTERN INTERRUPTS RULE

This is the job of a social media image.

It’s a pattern interrupts job, to take people from the unconscious autopilot that is zombie mode and snap them back into fully conscious humans that are able to read your post.

Look at what your competitors are putting out, then do the opposite.

Most people copy the big guys in an industry, the problem with this is everyone ends up looking very similar.

They end up blending into the social media noise.

8. BE LAZY – HAVE TEMPLATES YOU CAN CHANGE FOR YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA IMAGES

There is nothing more soul destroying than staring at a blank screen and waiting for inspiration to strike.

Templates are a lifesaver as 50-60% of the image is prebuilt and just needs text and an interesting pic to make things happen.

9. PEOPLE READ LEFT TO RIGHT – TOP TO BOTTOM

In the western world we read from left to right and from top to bottom.

Because of this I like to put the important info on the right hand side of all my images with the contact deets (remember – mark your territory) directly below this.

It makes it more comfortable to read and less jarring to look at.

So the image is generally on the left – text on the right with contact deets below.

10. IF IT’S SHIT, YOU CAN ALWAYS DELETE IT – BE BRAVE

There is nothing more likely to stop creativity dead in its tracks than fear.

Does this look silly?
Is this professional enough?
Does it make sense?
Is this rubbish?

Social media half life, the amount of time your posts disappear from your feeds and stop getting likes and comments is really quick.

A few days on facebook? Same on insta and Linkedin?

So if you design something and its shit, which happens to us all.

You have 2 choices – delete it or ignore it and know that in a few days it will have disappeared from your feed and be forgotten about.

I hope you manage to implement some of these and see the rise in engagement on your social media.

More engagement means more eyeballs.

More eyeballs means more sales.

If you want to learn more or have me create graphics and templates for you please reach out to me on chris@nolimitsmedia.uk

Thanks for reading

***********

Believe it or not that’s the trimmed down version…it was 2500 words long to start lol

Chris?

Knows his stuff

His images have = made me a fair few quid

And if you follow his advice (or give him some dollar to do it for you/show you what to do?

Y’all be ahead of the other boring buggers on social

Anyways hope you enjoyed that, few more to go

#wedontstoptillthejobisdone

And my job for the rest of the day is mainly memes…gotta stay sharp

Lol

Hope y’all had a good week!

D

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It’s all about the PP Train…

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Today it’s my man Tega taking over the digital reigns, and he is talking about the importance of having an epic PP train

Where ‘PP’ stands for

PODCAST PRODUCTION

(What else could it mean?! 🙃)

Man T is a GENIUS at this – he he’s ‘behind these scenes’ for a few podcasters

Hence today’s post….enjoy!

**********

Hey Hey Hey peoples,

I trust all is well with you in your quarantine holes.

Today is all about “The podcast production train”

One of the more Prominent ideas/topics I have seen from Gary Vee that stuck with me is the idea of producing more and consuming less a touch generic but when applied to what you are doing to grow your authority or your business it rings true for me.

So as I talk about getting on the production train, this is what I am talking about.

You see the message more and more, although granted it is not as prevalent these days, I imagine a side effect from the current global pandemic, that message is you HAVE to be everywhere and you have to be “omnipresent”.

But what I dont see anyone talking about is how to be “omnipresent” when peopling is not really your thing

(read a little on the introverted side)

Being introverted I find it so much easier to interact and socialise with a few people as possible; so conversations with 1 person are a dream come true for me.

And I have found that nothing comes close to Podcasting when it comes to 1-2-1 virtual interactions.

SO today, I want to give you some tips on getting started with a podcast of your own and give you ideas on how you can take what Carl wrote about on Tuesday and repurpose the recordings of your podcast and distribute
it so you can start being “omnipresent”

To save both our time, I am going to assume you know what a podcast is. If you don’t go to google and search for The Tim Ferriss Podcast or the Joe Rogan Experience that should get you up to speed.

I am also not about to tell you how to launch a podcast that will change your life or business in XX number of days. I am not doing that becasue It is not something that I have done or have any control over.

What I have done though is help a few people manage their podcasts – My team and I take care of everything that needs to happen
behind the scenes for a podcast to run smoothly. So things like Editing, creating shownotes, uploading to pocast host e.t.c

The easiest way to describe this is that when my team and I are helping with your podcast, all you have to do is Record and upload
the audio file, and everything else is taken care of for you withou you having to worry about anything.

I have also helped a few people setup their podcasts.

So it would be fair to say I know a thing or two about podcasts and managing them.

SO How do you start a podcast?

Before I get to that let me talk briefly about the elephant in this email…

It is important to understand that starting and maintaining a podcast can take a lot of time and energy to put together. SO if you are thinking of starting one, you have to commit to being consistent with it as podcasts need consistency to develop a listener base.

What I will talk about is some of the equipment that you need to get started, and how to plan your show.

Planning Your show…

1. Plan your show

You need to have a sound plan putting into consideration all the factors such as purpose and budget.

For instance, you can start a podcast for fun, to promote products/services or share content. This means that you have different target audiences depending on the purpose of your podcast.

After knowing your target audience, you will have to plan the way forward by researching the topics, images and other resources that will help your podcast gain traction.

The final thing you need to consider when planning is value.

You should add value to your listeners in one way or another so that they can continue following and interacting with you.

Therefore, do a thorough research on the topics or the things you will be sharing to avoid misleading or sharing wrong information.

2. Name your show

How you name your podcast can determine whether it will be successful or not because the name can help you gain more listeners or lose them.

When it comes to naming a podcast, you can use any of the following approaches:

i. You can use a clever name

You can be creative and come up with a clever name for your podcast. However, the name should be simple and easy to write so that people can search and remember it with ease. Remember, even though it is a clever name, you can include a description to help listeners understand
what the podcast is all about.

ii. Use a descriptive name

When you use a descriptive name, it should not be very long because it can be hard to search or remember.

It should include the products, services or the content of your podcast for it to relate to the purpose.

iii. Use your own name

This is not recommended when starting a podcast because it can mislead a lot of people. For instance, if your podcast is mainly for business and you use your own name, some people might think that the podcast is to discuss personal life or other things e.g. fitness.

Therefore, unless you’ve good traction and established an audience, it is advisable not to use your own name first.

3. Plan your episodes

As we have discussed earlier, you need to be consistent to have an impact and have followers. When planning an episode, consider the following:

• The length of a single episode
• Episode topics
• How many episodes have in a day?
• Will you have visitors?

When you’ve got a good plan in place, you will not run out of ideas or create a bad episode because you will be following a laid plan.

However, you may shift a few things from time to time depending on how your audience’s response and traffic to ensure you maintain your listeners.

Also, having surprises and using different styles is important to avoid being repetitive.

The length of an episode is determined by the content you are sharing and your audience.

However, your episode should not be very long to avoid repeating ideas or boring your audience.

On the other hand, it should not be very short to avoid leaving your audience hanging or with a lot of questions.

You should also plan how often you will be releasing episodes (how many episodes in a day?).

Here, your audience, content and strategy will play a big role when deciding. Nonetheless, you should not just release podcasts to meet the deadline because you will lose the audience.

The content you share should be beneficial, well researched and professional because that’s what your listeners will consider before being loyal followers.

4. Episode titles

Your episode titles should be good, easy to search and descriptive to make it easy for your followers to search and follow them.

Remember that you will have numerous episodes and you need your audience to follow each one of them. On the other hand, when a new listener starts following you or finds one of the episodes, he or she might start following you and searching for other episodes.

Therefore, avoid naming your episodes as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… because no one can search and find such content! Instead, have descriptive titles.

The equipment you need

So with your show planned to the best of your ability let’s talk about the gear you will need.

If you are just starting then the last thing I want to do is overwhelm you with choices, so I am going to keep this as simple and as pocket friendly as possible.

You will need a microphone one that is not too cheap but then you also don’t need the most expensive either.

The key thing here is to pay attention to your recording environment.

Make sure it is actually quiet enough to record and there are as few distractions and background noise as possible and you can use household items as basic sound proofing.

You need something to record to, in the interest of simplicity you can use your phone’s voice recorder and then upload the recording to your podcast host.

Which brings me to the host.

Your podcast host is the service that will syndicate the audio to all the major podcast platforms.

It used to be that you would have to use a service like Libsyn or podbean.

Then Anchorr came about and disrupted things. With anchorr you can have your podcast setup and ready to be syndicated in under an hour.

Depending on the type of show you are creating, you may need to edit or clean up the audio recordings if this is the case you will need audio editing software the 2 big ones in the marketplace are

Audacity and Adobe Audition unfortunately I can’t go into too much detail as we would be here all day talking about audio editing.

You can minimise the amount of work that needs to be done on the edit by making sure your recording environment is as sound proofed as it can be.

By speaking clearly whilst you record and being aware of filler words and phrases as you may not be aware you use them as much as you do till you listen back to the recording.

Filler word are the ummsss, ahhh, so, like. I actually think there is a pandemic of people using like ALOT when then speak myself included and it is something I am making a conscious effort to minimise in my speech.

If you have and aware of the things I point out then you are ready to go with podcasting and your very own podcast.

So looping back to earlier in the post, I mention getting on the production train…

By starting a podcast and putting it out consistently you move yourself from being a consumer to being a producer and if you produce consistently you build yourself a bank of assets that you can repurpose and use more than once, so your efforts can be leveraged.

Here’s the juicy bit…

As well as releasing your podcast as a podcast, you can take interesting and intriguing bits from your show and create audiograms which you use as micro content or to promote your podcast or product.

You can take a statement or quote from your episode and create quote post. If you have no idea what this is just go have a look at
Gary Vee’s Instagram feed, they are hard to miss.

You can take the entire audio recording and turn it into a video that again you can use to promote yourself, your podcast, or your product.

To get a few more ideas on repurposing, I suggest you check out Wednesdays post from Carl as he went really in-depth on the practice of content repurposing and even have a blueprint on what you can with it.

As you build consistency and grow your show, you can then implement some of the systems that Lianne mentioned in her post yesterday to make your podcasting process and journey as smooth and painless as it can be.

And that ladies and gentlepeeps of planet Dan is a 3000 foot view on how you can get started with podcasting and get on a podcast production train.

Given the medium via which I am delivering this lesson( I think that’s what this is?) it can be a little tough to convey all the nuances
that you will no doubt come across.

In an effort to coney those nuances I am writing a mega blog post that will cover EVERYTHING my team and I do for clients to help them start a podcast.

If you want to start a podcast and this email has given you food for thought, then make sure you are friends with me on Facebook or
at the very least following me so that When the post is ready and I start marketing it, you will have a chance to see it and read it and
then hopefully get started with your very own podcast.

That’s all I gotta for you lovely people today, till we speak or converse again, stay safe and keep hustling.

Piece.

**********

Aaaaand beardy boy is back

#luckyyou lol

Teggles is a bit of an ninja genius at this, if he can help you/your business personally?

You can email him at tega@coffeewithdan.com or hit reply and I’ll forward your request to him

Hope you enjoyed that and got value from it, plenty more to come

😘

Dan

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[From overwhelmed to awesomeness, a ‘how to’…]

**********

As I mentioned this week, content take over from my team and mentees

– I hope you have enjoyed the first two from myself and Carl Price –

Today we have the lovely Lianne-Carla Savage who’s going to help you get shit done the only way she knows how…

*********

Hey guys Lianne here,

Taking over for this post to drop you a little something to help you power through the next few months.

Ever said to yourself…”I need things and stuff but I don’t know what things and stuff or how to do them”?

You’re not alone.

In fact most entrepreneurs I speak to have been left confused and overwhelmed with all the information and tools out there.

They usually find themselves following one of two paths.

Path #1 The path of misfiring action

They join the lists and webinars

They make the investments

Try the tools

Pick up the courses

Bouncing from idea to idea and guru to guru with nothing ever quite clicking.

In their wake a pile of downloaded PDFs cluttering their hard drive, courses and tools still being paid for month after month and nothing but a few small wins and a whole lot of disheartenment to show for it.

Why?

Well they are getting tangles up in tech and tactics before finding out what works

Essentially creating a system for failure.

Path #2 The path of avoidence

Often the better path to start with.

This is because it bypasses the quicksand on the other path that gets people stuck.

Instead of doing all the things and getting tied up in knots, those on the path of avoidance stick to the basics and take meaningful action that gets results.

The problem with this path?

It only goes so far

Once you reach the end of the path you have to change paths if you want to go any further.

Otherwise you’ll walk right off the cliff edge and fall into a pit of burnout and collapse.

You have to get some systems and structure in place at some point along the journey before you reach that point.

BOTH of those options used to give you enough to get by although there was always a hidden limit in both.

Emphasis on USED TO

Times have changed

And if you aren’t

1. Nailing your message
2. Being completely focused
3. Dominating your chosen platforms
4. Showing up CONSISTENTLY
5. Generating a solid flow of leads
6. Pitching them in the right way with the right offer at the right time
7. Following up every single one enough times
8. Looking for opportunities to increase average order value and length of retention
9. Reactivating past customers

….and more besides

You’re going to leave yourself vulnerable

Big long list?

Yup

There’s a lot there and there is a lot you need to do.

And, it’s not “one and done”

Most of these things you need to keep working on again and again and again.

This is why you need to bring defined systems and processes into your business.

Why defined? Well, you already have systems in your business – even if you think you don’t.

There is a way that you do things that you typically follow unconsciously every single time.

Problem is, that unconscious half-baked system is costing you time, leaving you frazzled and spinning far more plates than you need to.

People think of systems and they think of things being complex and scary.

They should be the opposite of that.

Your systems should ALWAYS make your day to day life easier

Otherwise there is no point in them existing.

Systems are there to simplify what happens and how it’s done so you can manage the massive list of all the things you need to get done.

There’s one small step you need to take first.

When you start to get organised you shouldn’t be trying to automate everything and arm yourself up to the teeth in tech.

You need to find out what works.

How your audience tick.

What they want.

How you can reach them.

How you deliver your results and what can be achieved.

Once you’ve got that nailed THEN you can start systemising it.

Because that way you are creating a system for success rather than a system for failure.

Make sense?

Before I head off and leave you, I’m going to walk you through the 3 phases I take clients through during my 2.5hr systems and strategy calls.

That way you can take this process and run through it yourself for your own business.

You’ll want to block out at least a day for this.

Because I know the tools, the tech, the options, the offers you could make, funnels and launch process you could use – I already have the answers

If you’re doing this yourself you’re going to need to do a fair bit of extra ground work and research on this on this

1 solid day plus a few focused blocks throughout the week should do the job.

Let’s get into it

Step 1: the braindump

First thing you’re going to want to do is brain dump everything about your business so that you can get a complete picture.

There is no order or logic to it. Just drop everything out of your head and onto paper.

Who do you serve

What do you offer

Why do they buy

How do they buy

Where do you find them

Which marketing methods have you used, how much have you used them and what results have they got

How do you deliver what you offer

What works

What frustrates you

What has never worked

What would you love.

Get it all out of your head. I like to use a big A3 sketch pad to note things down.

Helps me to see it all laid out and connect the dots.

A standard notepad is my second choice.

Handwriting this gets the brain flowing much better than typing.

Step 2: the investigation

After the initial brain dump it’s time to go over it all once again and get greater detail.

I have a series of questions I run though to fill in the gaps.

What you want to do is go through each area of your business one by one and drill down into it.

What happens.

What should happen but doesn’t always.

What works.

What doesn’t.

Where are the opportunities to show up in a stronger way

What can be offered to prospects and clients to bring them the next step of their journey.

Which products and services work best together and how they can be bundled in different ways or offered in certain orders to increase sales.

This step brings into focus the kind of things you need to do, things that are needed to be brought in and things that should get dropped.

Step 3: the strategic action plan

This is the final step

The strategic action plan takes you from stage 2 where you figured out what you need to do

…to stage 3 where you know *exactly* what you need to do to get it done.

This is where you get complete clarity on

What steps you need to take

Which tools you need to use

How it needs to flow together.

E.g.

You know you want to reach out to clients who haven’t bought from you for 3 months with a special offer to bring them back into the fold

So

You need to have a way of populating a list of clients so you know who you’ll be wanting to reach out to each month, you need an offer to bring them back plus a basic template for outreach.

If you have a mass product then you’d be sending that email out to a list. If you serve a smaller number of higher ticket clients you know well, you’ll want to have some key points about the offer and then do tailored outreach to that list.

This turns client reactivation from something you do very occasionally when you remember to reach out so someone

…into a system that is baked into your business bringing you a boost of revenue month after month that you never would have seen if you hadn’t reached out.

That

Is the difference of having a strategic action plan and the systems that power it.

Whilst you can’t implement every little thing on day 1

Having the complete picture and working through a plan to implement everything step by step will give you a manageable set of tasks

So you can build out what you need without getting tangled up in all the tech or paying out for more things than you need.

Block some time out now and then get to work

I trust you’ve found this useful.

Would love to know your thoughts and any questions you have on this so feel free to drop an email to lianne@systemssavage.com

Lianne

**********

(Back to Dan now)

That was a BEAST wasn’t it!

Properly proud of Lianne; as well as become a complete asset in my world – she really does know her stuff

I hope you found it useful

😀

Coming up content wise we also have:

⁃ podcasting
⁃ Sales
⁃ Paid traffic
⁃ Content/imagery/getting noticed online

Plus waiting on a few more too

I’ve got a BEAST of a training this Friday 12-2PM UK time in the group

Myself, Lianne and Tega are going to talk to you about all things FB groups and online communities

(We are fairly good-ish at this…😉)

We will be covering topics such as:

– Growing a FB group
– Engagement strategies
– Launching a group (if you haven’t got one/want one)
– Monetisation and launching methods – without being a total plum

And plenty more

All I need from you to get involved is:

1. Block out 12-2PM UK time tomorrow and

2. Show up

See ya then?

D

PS please take time to thank Lianne for this; she spent ages putting it together and I think it’s fab

read more

Get out out and get it everywhere…

As promised, I’m getting you some very useful content from my team as well as my mentees this week

⁃ Little bit of a break from hardCore Dan lol –

Today I’m handing you over to Carl who handles all things behind the scenes

He’s very talented but very awful about telling people how good he is

So I’m doing it

Today is all about content repurposing and ultimately being able to dominate your niche with your organic creations

(That sounds worse written but I’m leaving it because it amuses me…)

Anyways, over to the man himself:

***********

Yo! Carl here.

Dan’s asked me to show you a bit of what I do, in a way you can action it yourself

So we’re on Content Repurposing & Syndication today

You can do a bit or all of it – it’s up to you and the time you have available plus the skills you’re willing to learn

Basically it’s about putting in the effort once and yielding multiple results, in this case content, across as many platforms as possible by leveraging it for all it’s worth

Organic Social Media is an eyeballs and earballs game – you want as many people to see your stuff as possible, as often as possible

Not many have the time to sit down and create multiple pieces of bespoke content for multiple platforms every day

Not many can create the illusion of ‘Being Everywhere’, to quote Dexter

But we’re going to have a crack at it

So – we start with a video

Technically you can start with written, but it’s much easier to start with video. If you go the written route, you have the risk of reading it out during the video and coming off like a script reading robot

Ideally I’d recommend starting with a Facebook Live, as FB loves to push those out for you – to the point of actually informing people you’ve gone live to push engagement asap

This is where most people stop – they do a live, and then down the feed it goes never to be seen again unless someone really goes digging

So, do your live. Use post it notes for points you want to cover, but use them as discussion points or you’ll run into the wooden script reader problem again

Engage with people, build relationships and authority that way by informing, entertaining and answering any questions – but keep it in the back of your head that to keep on track you could always answer all questions at the end rather than going off on a tangent halfway through

You can go live straight from your phone, or if you want to use your laptop/PC/Mac, I’d recommend using StreamYard – free plan is 20 hours of streaming a month, it’s easy to use, and it looks good

Use a good mic and webcam if you can, do without if you have to – the important thing is getting out there in front of people

About 10 minutes is good – YouTube rewards those who meet the 10 minute mark…

Once the Live is over, download it – from StreamYard if you can, from Facebook if not

Edit the video – this full version is going on YouTube and LinkedIn – I’d cut the crap out, sweeten the audio, fix the colour and add a branded intro/outro

So now you’ve covered 3 platforms by going live once

Since we’re talking about editing, while we’re in there, why not strip the audio and edit it into a podcast episode? No, it won’t be THE highest quality if you’ve just gone live from your phone, but we’re working with what’s easiest and consistently repeatable here after all

Again, up to you – you could edit the crap out, clean up the audio and add a beginning and end explaining what the episode is going to be about

Easiest way to get started with a podcast? Anchor. Create a profile, make a thumbnail in canva, upload your audio and let them do the submitting to different platforms for you

So far we have a Facebook Live, a YouTube video, a LinkedIn video and a Podcast episode – all from 10 minutes of livestreaming

Once you’re happy with that, get your video onto something like Zubtitle (This is what I use, MUCH less painful than broadcast type subtitles like most editing programs are built for)

Zubtitle will transcribe your videos audio and allow you to add that as subtitles, so that people can see what you’re saying even when their phone is muted (which most peoples will be when scrolling)

It will also let you reformat the video to be square – we want this. Then you’ve got room on the bottom for your subtitles, and space up top

You can add a headline kinda thing to the top of the video as well, to grab people’s attention (or if you’re like me, leave this bit until later and add a fancy animated timeliney title)

Now, with some planning, you can really get the most out of Zubtitle – you can get 10 videos transcribed for $19 a month for example (Downside is once again, the AI functionality meaning you’ll probably have to go through to check accuracy, not sure if they support SRT uploads if we already have one from Rev for example)

The max length is 20 minutes

So if the video is under that, we’re golden – upload it, get it transcribed (difference here and between otter/rev is that transcription for text and for subtitling is different, subtitles have to know when to be on screen) and then download the .SRT file as well

Upload that .SRT file to the YouTube video we did earlier (obviously, make sure the one you’re getting transcribed is the youtube version you uploaded, editing wise) Now your video has accurate, manual subtitles. YouTube likes that. (And tags, Short titles, Custom thumbnails etc)

Now, time to take some juicy chunks out of your live

Find some really good, short sections – 1 to 3 minutes ideally

(You’ll need to have some video editing software for this)

We’ll be using the Zubtitle square version we made earlier – ie already square, already subtitled! Meaning we’re making the most out of that Zubtitle subscription, chopping up the video AFTER it’s done some heavy lifting for us)

Grab those sections, export them as separate videos – add a new headline if can, to differentiate between videos

So let’s say we have 3 awesome snippet videos – we’ve now got these polished, subtitled, mobile optimised versions to share! (I say mobile optimised because square video takes up a lot more space on a mobile feed)

So you can put them on Instagram, Linkedin, Facebook again, Twitter etc after your live, and grab those people who weren’t there for it, or re-engage those that were!

And then there’s stories

Zubtitle will let you change your video format to portrait so you can upload some quick subtitled stuff there as well, so even more Instagram and Facebook coverage

Want more video type content from that?

Audiograms – You get a nice quote from your audio, create an engaging image, and add an audio wave effect for your speech, and some subtitles to it – theres a service called Headliner for this that makes it nice and easy for you

Good for promoting that podcast episode we made earlier!

There is one more video type thing, but that ties into what’s to come below

What next? Well, what did you say during your live?

Apparently the average words spoken per minute is somewhere inbetween 130-150

For me, I’m a Yorkshire lad, so probably 100 xD

So during a 10 minute live we’re looking at probably 1500 words spoken

Ever heard of Rev.com? Otter.ai?

Upload your audio to them (Rev is $1.25 per minute, but humans do it, very accurately. Although they are now offering $0.25 per minute AI stuff. Otter gives you 600 FREE minutes per month, but is AI based and less accurate, ie you’ll spend a lot more time correcting it)

You’ll get a transcription of your video from that – this is DIFFERENT to the zubtitle thing, which is tied to the time of the video.

So, that’s a 1500 word blog post done for you – you can either clean it up and have it as a blog post, or add your youtube video embed and then include the transcription below so that people can choose how to consume it

Blog post on your website? May as well create a Medium account and upload it there as well – if paying members read it, you can even earn some money from that

Now dig into that transcription and find some nice short quotes

Use canva to create some engaging square images with the text on them

Facebook, twitter, linkedin, instagram, all good, might be worth trying on YouTube as well, because that’s now a thing. Google my business too, if you have one. You can upload images/video to that as updates, which you would hope the SEO gods may smile upon (I don’t know, but worth a try eh)

And then some portrait ones for more stories!

And that’s before we use that original blog post, cleaned up, as a written post with an engaging image on Facebook and Linkedin

Grab some 280 character quotes out of it and you’ve got some sweet tweets too

Got a nice quote but too long to fit on an image? Two options. Carousel post, or animated text video of it (Nice, quick, flashy, engaging, add branding etc) Or both, why not

If you want, you could use Powerpoint to make a little presentation about what you spoke about to use in pitches or as lead magnets

Then use those slides for Slideshare on LinkedIn too

And of course, if you’re putting stuff on Twitter & Instagram, use the right hashtags

The right tags on YouTube

Linkedin/Facebook…Use hashtags if that’s your thing?

So, from all of the above, starting with one 10 minute video, you could potentially have:

1 facebook live
1 linkedin video
1 instagram video
1 youtube video (subtitled)
1 podcast
1 blog post
1 medium article
3+ square, subtitled videos
3+ portrait videos for stories
3+ audiograms
??? Instagram text images
??? Facebook text images
??? Linkedin text images
1 Facebook written post
1 Linkedin written post
??? Tweets
??? Facebook Carousel posts
??? Instagram Carousel posts
??? Animated text videos
Pitchdeck/Leadmagnet/Slideshare content

I’m putting ??? because I have no idea what you personally can get out of each video – that’s on you and what you say during

In summary, you can get a lot out of one simple video

It comes down to thinking a bit differently, and effort

Hope this helps! 🙂

Carl

**********

Back to Dan

Carl is a very clever little sausage, and should you wish to?

You can pay him money to do the a) things and b) stuff above

Contact here if of interest and let him know your from me, if that makes sense:

carl@smallbearmedia.co.uk

Dan

P.S. we are doing a training all about FB groups & online communities on Friday if you haven’t seen

Everything from growth to monetisation to engagement and creating them in the first place

If you are interested in coming along?

Head on on to the pinned post and leave us a comment – will then be able to tag you in tomorrow when we go live innit

TTFN

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Why copywriting is one of the most useful skills to level up on NOW

As you are probably aware – content consumption is through the roof right now, with people reading and watching more than ever

Thats why this week?

Im going to (as of tomorrow) bring in some of my team to ‘guest expert’ on the emails to share with you how you can (ethically) capitalise on this by giving people what they want

Because if not you, it WILL be someone else

With that in mind, being able to convey your message effectively is going to be more important than ever

Hence todays email is all about one of the most valuable skills you can ever have.

A skill that can boost your success during the highs & keep you afloat during the lows – A.K.A. right now.

Transfers to any business you run.

& even help you land a date.

And that skill is – probably fairly obvious right now – copywriting

There’s an old saying:

‘A good copywriter never goes hungry’

Because if you can write persuasive copy?

You can sell.

And if you can sell?

You can make yourself money – either by selling someone else’s product or your own

If you can:

– Cut through the noise and capture attention

– Inspire strong emotions that lead people to action

– Present your offers in a powerful way that persuades

You’re always going to be able to create income and opportunities in your life right?

If you know how to write or speak in a way that is more influential, connects with people deeper, captivates their attention (and thats fucking hard nowadays) AND helps them bond with you on a deeper level – why wouldn’t you learn this?

In fact when I polled the group last year on what people wanted to learn – Copywriting came up again and again and again

So here’s my balls deep blitz on the key things you need to tap in to so you can elevate your copy immediately and create more impact and sales with your words.

(And for those of you who want to skip the wait entirely and rapidly transform your copywriting skills, theres something you can get your hands on at the end)

But for now – let’s kick things off with 7 universal principles of copy you must get right every time.

1 – Why the fuck do they want to read this?

Your copy could be absolutely banging but if it’s of no interest to them, it ain’t getting read.

Simple as that.

The job of your headline is to get them to start reading

And the job of the hook is to get them to keep on reading.

Do it well and you’re in with a chance.

Otherwise you’ve lost people before you’ve even really begun

You always want to be thinking about what’s in it for them

Why do they want to read this?

How can I capture their attention.

And most importantly, how can I keep it?

Getting stuck on headlines?

Here’s a few winning formula’s for inspiration:

Result Focus: How To Get [Result] [Quickly] [Without Risk]

Pain Focus: How To [Eliminate Specific Pain] [Without More Pain]

Situation Focus: If [Specific Emotional Hot Button Situation ls Happening] Then [Worst Fear Might Be True]

Action Focus: What To Do If [Specific Hot Button Situation]

Approach Focus: Why [Common-Sense Approach] Doesn’t Work And What To Do About It

Customer Focus: 10 Mistakes Most [Customer Description] Make [In Situation] And How To Avoid Them

Magic: How To[Turn Problem][Into Benefit]

Use them to get you started and remember – nothing is set in stone.

Get cracking write your copy and then swing back around to the headline and the hook.

Sometimes once you’ve got the rest out of your head and onto paper – that perfect headline and hook leap out at you and instantly create much more impact.

2 – If you try to speak to everyone, you speak to no-one

The #1 way to guarantee yourself a piece of wishy washy copy that doesn’t sell is to try and write it for everyone.

It creates bland vagueness that doesn’t draw anyone in.

It rolls back to point number 1 – why the fuck do they want to read this?

If you don’t know who “they” is then how can you expect to write something they want to read.

And please for the love of God don’t make your audience “Women over 18” or something so equally wide because then you might as well have not bothered picking anyone.

Think of your ideal person and get into their head.

What do they love?

What do they hate?

What is the most important thing in their world right now?

How does solving the problem you solve impact their lives?

What happens if they don’t solve it?

What could put them off from taking action?

What are they scared of?

Why could they fail to get results?

When you know this, you can make your copy relevant to them and their lives.

They can put themselves into the picture and take a test drive in their mind of what it’s like to buy what you have on offer

And

You answer the questions they have before they even come up – these q’s are conversion killers if you leave them lingering.

3 – A confused mind never buys

You want people to take action and buy.

That means you need them to make a decision and be able to act upon it.

ANY confusion about what you have to offer and how to get hold of it means they need answers before they can take action.

A few will ask the question.

Respond quickly and clearly and you may save the sale.

Delay or further confusion and it’s game over.

But that’s the tiny tiny fraction who actually ask you.

The rest?

They’re out of there.

Don’t have the time to ask you.

Not interested enough to bother asking.

Don’t know how or where to ask you.

And more often than not…

Don’t want to look foolish by needing to ask the question.

All those people are lost because you didn’t make the offer clear and easy to buy.

You know exactly how things are and how they work.

Your reader doesn’t.

Any places of confusion…they’re gone.

Giving it the once over yourself is great.

Getting an outside pair of eyes is even better

Sure, for certain things in certain industries there’s a level of sophistication and in-speak that an outsider wouldn’t understand.

For most you, you need anyone to be able to understand what you’re saying, what’s on offer and how to get it.

4 – Irresistible offer or meh, whatever?

I don’t care who you are

You can’t out-write a shitty offer.

You can however out-offer shitty copy.

If your offer is good enough, it can speak for itself and sell at least a little even with the weakest copy in the world.

Improving your copy then ups your conversion rate so you can sell more with less effortAnd

If you’re paying for ads

You’ll spend less to get each sale upping your profit margin.

An irresistible offer is all about value

And it’s NOT about dropping your pants and reducing your prices down to nothing.

Especially when you do the IM bullshit of “This is valued at $9,995 but for today only you can have it for $97”

Complete with a fake ass countdown timer that rests every fucking day.

Want to make an irresistible offer?

Demonstrate the value.

If you’re going to add bonuses – make them relevant!

Deadlines? Sure if they are real

Above all else you need to be showing the RESULTS they will achieve and the PAIN they will endure if they don’t take action.

That’s where the value lies.

That’s the difference between the guys out there who can come out the gate and confidently charge the same rates as seasoned pros.

Which is exactly what I did when I launched i am the fitness copywriter.

Your value.

Know it.

Show it.

5 – Use stories to make an impact

Stories are powerful things.

They are the #1 way to retain attention and deliver information.

We live in a fast paced world where no-one has any attention span…apparently

Yet we’ll sit and watch films and binge watch series on Netflix

The reason?

Stories

In the social age storytellers are kings.

Problem is, the moment the topic of story’s comes up self doubt creeps in for so many of you.

You don’t have stories

You don’t know how to tell them

You’re no good at them

…and other lies you tell yourself

How did you get into doing what you do?

How did you discover your method?

How did someone else make a discovery that you use e.g. scientific research, a method you learned from elsewhere, a unique ingredient.

You can tell the story of the experience of working with you and what their life will be like on the other side.

You can tell the story of your past clients the challenges they faced and the results they achieved.

All you have to do is say what happened and the more you tell your stories, the stronger that “storytelling muscle” gets.

The stories place your reader into the experience.

It encourages them to keep on reading.

Transforming your offer from a cool thong to have into something they can see transforming their life.

It builds credibility and social proof which does a lot of heavy lifting for you.

Start using stories now.

6 – Limp dick CTA’s sell fuck all

Some of you are scared of making sales.

It shows the moment your reader reaches the close

You’ve been big and bold.

You’ve talked about all the wonderful things your product can do.

The fabulous results people have had.

How awesome you are and what the experience is like.

And just at the moment when they’re about to reach out and grab their credit card

They come to your soft-sausage (dry clam?) CTA.

All the confidence has vanished.

You fail to perform at that crucial moment.

All that effort winning them over comes to nothing

Do you not believe in what you have to offer?

If so you have no business offering it.

If you do actual deliver value then why aren’t you making sure they know about it and leading them across the line with full enthusiasm?

If you’ve got a meek ass “if you might possibly think that you may like to get access then click buy now…or don’t. I don’t want to pressure you”

Drop that shit NOW

If what you sell can change lives, or make someones pain go away ETHICALLY?

Its (as Dan Kennedy liked to say) your duty to offer it to them.

7 – Your head plays tricks on you – so do this.

Ever read something that just felt clunky?

The words don’t quite flow right.

As you read it you stumble over the words wondering why they wrote it that way.

Truth is – they don’t write it that way.

Not in their head at least.

When we write, we speak in our heads and our brains automatically fill in the gaps because we know what we’re saying.

To us, it sounds fine.

It’s only when you go back and read it out loud, those clunky parts rear their heads.

What seemed to flow brilliantly in your head fumbles when it comes out of your mouth.

And this happens to everyone.

When your readers come across it, they will stumble over those parts.

It distracts and breaks the flow of the copy.

Because they don’t know what’s coming next so their heads can’t fill the gaps yours did.

A simple run through helps you catch these parts so you can quickly edit them before publishing your copy.

It also helps you spot any bits that don’t really make sense or feel a little weak.

Only takes minutes to do but has a tremendous impact on your copy.

And there ya have it

Those seven things are key to writing words that sell AND they make up a quick and dirty check list to run your future copy through before you hit send.

You can use what’s been posted above and INSTANTLY go off now and use it to write better copy.

In fact, I challenge you to do that

Is it everything you need to know?

Fuck no.

That can’t be crammed into an email lol

But it’s exactly what you need to give yourself an edge and make your next piece of copy just that little bit punchier and nudge a few more sales across the line

The more you practice, the better you’ll get.

Looking to go a little deeper but pennies are tight?

Here’s a list of books is what I class as a perfect starter pack for copywriting

1 – Ben Settles Big Book Of Business
2 – Doberman Dan’s ‘Rookie Copywriters Survival Guide – Make 6 Figures With Little Or No Experience
3. The Boron Letters
4. The Adweek Copywriting Handbook
5. Words That Sell

Those five ^^^ will give you a solid foundation so you can boost your income.

Want to bypass baby-steps and go all in?

Then the Copy Course is what you need to rapidly up your game.

This is for anyone who wants to take fast action and start selling more right away.

As with everything I do – it’s all about giving you guys the simplest actionable advice so you can get what you need and go do.

If you’ve invested the time reading this post, you know that upleveling your copywriting is a key step you need to take to grow your income and impact.

The above?

Useful AF!

Wanna get there quicker?

This is what we cover

-Writing a Headline (and getting attention)

-Understanding People’s Wants, Desires, And Needs (Once You Get Humans Life Becomes A Lot More Fun)

-How To Tell A Story Which Moves To ACTION

-Crafting An Irresistible Offer (Which People You To Take Your Money)

-Getting Good FAST

-How To Make Money As A Copywriter (If You Actually Use This & Don’t Get Paid… You’re Dumb lol)

And, so much more…

I also invited some of my good friends and some of the best in the game to give you a few lessons as guest experts

We’ve got everything covered…

Whether you’re looking to improve your own copy, or start offering copywriting as a service, the copywriting course has all you need to get up to speed fast.

If ya want it? Its £495 (or 3 x £195 split pay)

www.coffeewithdan.com/copycourse

If not

DO ME A FAVOUR

Print the above out, save it – wherever – but ACTION it first and foremost

Its useful stuff AND IT WORKS

Anyways thats it from me today, hope y’all doing well

Lockdown is kinda the new norm eh?

(NOT forever, but you know what I mean)

You’ll see post from the rest of the team (via me) that will cover:

– podcasts
– FB ads
– sales
– content/video creation
– systems/hidden cash

PLUS

I’ll be announcing the training that I have planned for you in CWD tomorrow

Y’all having a good week so far!

D

P.S. I have two peeps who have been ‘in the shadow’ that I have been mentoring in copy for quite some time

If you have any copy work (sales pages, email marketing or launches), critique or strategy needed

Let me know, I can hook you up

Plus I’ve got those who are epic with paid traffic if you need more eyeballs

Occasionally I do some copy projects too so if you have something extra tasty for me to get my teeth into I might have a play myself 😉

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REASONS TO JOIN EWD post #2 of 4

I’m not gonna twist anyone’s arm to get in there.

If you want in?

Cool

If you don’t?

Also cool

I’m just gonna use these posts to tell you something about EWD every day this week until Friday and you can make up your own mind

After that?

Ain’t saying a thing about it for a long time

Today, I wanted to tell you specifically what is happening over there in the next 3 months stating next Monday

First up

The team and I have put our heads together and come up with:

‘The 90 Day Extra Care Package”

Obviously, I can’t tell you how long this current shit storm is gonna last

But, it seems like 3 months is a good place to start

That is why, if you join now you only have to commit to 3 months, (not a year like normal)

After 3 months?

You’re more than welcome to stay on a monthly basis, or, if you want, you can leave.

No hard feelings

And that is why we’ve put together this 90 Day Extra Care package.

So that YOU know from the outset that everything you need is gonna be freely available for you

You’ll know that we’ve got your back.

So as well as all the “normal” EWD good stuff

We’ll be doing Hot Seats twice a month (live coaching) and Zoom calls twice weekly

My team have all been prepped and are raring to go, above and beyond the norm (and the norm is pretty fucking good anyway)

See, the plan is not just to help you survive this.

The plan is to help you THRIVE

The second thing that’ll be happening shortly, will be ‘The Virtual ExtravaDANza’

Every year, we have an in person event, last year was the extravaganza down in Brighton

This year we had planned to do something similar in or around Bristol

I was going to call it the ‘ExtravaDANza’ coz #notrightinthehead

But guess what happened?

We all get grounded for 3 months.

So sometime toward the back end of April/start of May we will do my take of a virtual summit (aka better and more fun)

If you’re part of EWD then you will get access to the event

It’s gonna be RIDIK

A whole day of experts giving you their best stuff

And you don’t even have to leave your living room?

An online gathering of hundreds of people in their pants.

But maybe not as….unusual as that sounds!

PLUS

When this viral fuckery has ended there will be an IRL event

Not sure when or where yet, but it will be a chance for us to all get together, get shit done, and have a bit of a party.

Even if you decide to leave before that happens? As long as you sign up to EWD now, your place is booked.

So there you have it, a couple more reasons to be in

And if you want a link to join?

It’s on the pic

If you want a more personal touch?

Send me a DM and I’ll send you a link

😘

D

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