[UP 001] Letting Go/ Person > Product / How I vs How To

Hi there and welcome to the very first edition of UP: Unrelenting Progression.

This is a place for creators, entrepreneurs, and do-ers who believe in a few things.

1. Personal growth is essential to have a fulfilling life.

2. Entrepreneurship is the best vehicle for personal growth.

3. An audience needs to be there for your entrepreneurial efforts.

So each week we'll cover a little bit on each of these three areas. So without further ado, let's dive in...

Personal Growth - Letting go

I tried a new experiment this week.

I tried listening to podcasts to fall asleep to, to turn down my active mind.

(Results are inconclusive. Testing to continue!)

But the content of the podcast interview between Hal Elrod and Tom Bileyu earlier in the week did make me think.

When starting his morning, Hal said he would run his morning routine SAVERS.

(SAVERS; Silence/meditation, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing/writing)

But what I hadn't heard before was the idea of including a 'letting go' practice every morning.

A simple way to write down the things that to remove that are causing blocks or doubts etc.

After hearing that I decided to include it in my morning journaling. Let's see how my days go after this. (So far, few days in, it's too early to say anything. Again. Testing to continue!)

Business Growth - Person 1st then product

This week I announced that I'd be building in public.

It's a direct-to-consumer brand in the food space and I'll share all the details of the journey right here.

One big shift I'm making is not beginning with the product but rather, the person.

Marketing and selling become a breeze. Only when you know your customer better than they know themselves,

So my progress report for this week has been dialing into my ideal customer first.

• Thinking about where they hang out online the most

• What keeps them up at night

• What transformation would they like to go on

• What's confusing them about the journey

• Where have they failed with it before

Then it's figuring out how my brand and products could serve them on their journey.

So who is my who?

It's me.

Well, people like me. Creatives, Knowledge workers. Males. Builders. Learners. Optimizers. With a sense of humor!

The more specific I can be the better and there is no more specific I can be than describing myself. That's another reason I am my first customer.

And what's the journey?

They want to eat clean in a systemized way. Don't think. Trust the food is complete. Easy to prepare. Helps them stay lean/ build muscle. But it also must be tasty.

I'm looking at launching a range of high protein, low carb/keto snacks.

Yes, it's not a new innovation. Why?

My thinking is I'd rather sell a set of proven products in a new way than sell a new product in a proven way.

Creating new demand vs Taking existing demand.

Also, I want the momentum of sales fast. From there I can innovate later.

Next week I'll update you about my first product deep dives.

Audience Growth - ‘How I’ vs ‘How To’

I decided to make this the year I go all in, get out of my shell and build a personal brand and audience.

It’s going to be a long game. Posts will bomb. Efforts will feel squandered. That’s all normal. I’m expecting it.

I also know that once I start, I'll need a systemized way of producing and connecting. Otherwise, I won't keep it up.

So first, I'm going to adjust my expectations. Focus on consistent posting and connecting.

Then second, I'm going to take a course on audience building to get a lay of the land. Then I'll apply the systems.

First, which platform?

I’m going to start with Linkedin.

Right now, it seems a friendly and welcoming place. Also from what I can see it is rewarding new creators with organic reach.

For sure once I get some momentum there I’ll shift my efforts to other platforms. Twitter & IG will come later down the pipe.

A keynote from Alex

On Sunday I was listening to a keynote that Alex Hormozi gave on Youtube about his content strategy. He is hard to miss these days and I remember seeing his channel around the 60k mark which feels like not too long ago. Now, I bet he'll overtake some of the more established business channels in the space.

Anyway, in the keynote, he made a few points that were interesting. Here are the ones that hit me the most in no particular order:

• Content is the gateway. So many celebrities today are using content to build and nurture their audiences. Then they sell whatever they want. Tequila, cosmetics, services. You name it.

• 10x Volume. When he 10x’d his posting outputs across socials, all his metrics followed. Impressions, likes, comments, follows, and inbound leads. We need to post more.

• Context matters. You can say the same thing on a different channel but in a different way. Now he has dedicated channel editors in place to ensure the context is not missed. And the post message resonates.

• Test and then expand. He said he uses Twitter to see how his ideas hold up in the market. Thread winners become long Youtube videos. Short tweets become shorts and reels.

• Splice in more calls to action. The more you ask, the more you'll get. He would rotate out different CTAs across videos to keep them fresh.

  
  

• All that matters is CTR and watch-time. After listening to Mr. Beast say it, he realized that these were the two main KPIs of the Youtube platform to master.

  
  

But by far the most telling one came towards the end when he shared for those starting out. It's all about the frame from which you speak.

Don't explain and educate your audience with "How to do x,y,z."

You've not done it yet and haven't earned the ability to say that. But that doesn't mean you can't share valuable insights.

Make the shift from 'How to..' to 'How I..'

From this frame, you get to be the documenter, not the teacher. You're now saying what's working for you. What you learned. How the viewer may learn from it too.

Small sift. Big difference.

And with that in mind, it was one of the reasons that gave me the push to start this newsletter. It also affirmed my decision to go all in on documenting online.

Thanks Alex!

So what about you? Are you using the 'How I' frame in your online posts?

And what about the other more tactical content points? Let me know which one of those you found the most useful.

Alright, that will do us for this first edition.

Thanks so much for reading and being here. Have a great rest of the week.

P.S. Dr. Peter Attia released his Magnus Opus, 'Outlive' this week. I'm diving in and can't wait to share what I learn with you in the coming weeks!