Josh Spector’s Post

Want to scale your expertise-based business? In my new podcast episode, Ryan Deiss shows you exactly how to do it. (Without doing everything yourself!) 10 things you'll learn: 1. The 3 elements you need in your business operating system. It's at the 2-minute mark. 2. How to map your entire business on a few sticky notes. It's at the 5-minute mark. 3. How to make sure your content is connected to your business. It's at the 8-minute mark. 4. How to create a scorecard to track the progress of your business. It's at the 12-minute mark. 5. How to scale a single person's expertise into a bigger business. It's at the 21-minute mark. 6. How to separate your business from yourself. It's at the 24-minute mark. 7. A surprising answer to the personal vs. business brand dilemma. It's at the 28-minute mark. 8. Examples of personal expert brands that evolved into business brands. It's at the 31-minute mark. 9. The biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make when hiring. It's at the 36-minute mark. 10. Why you should stop looking to hire "A Players." It's at the 39-minute mark. QUESTION: If you could only listen to one of these highlights, which would you choose?

3 things you can do in the next 10 minutes to get more newsletter subscribers: 1. Publish a post on your social channel teasing what you’re going to share in the next issue and inviting people to subscribe to get it. 2. Go look at your email inbox and find one person you’ve had a recent email exchange with who would like your newsletter but isn’t subscribed yet. Reply to your email chain and ask them if they’d like you to send them the next issue. 3. Reach out to someone you know who has a newsletter that reaches a similar audience and ask if they’d like to do a simple cross promotion. Say you’ll promote their newsletter in your next issue in exchange for them doing the same for yours.

It’s hard to walk away from an opportunity when a negotiation doesn’t go your way. But remember this: The thing you walked away from wasn’t actually what you wanted. That’s why you walked away. So you didn’t actually “lose” anything. You can’t lose something you never wanted in the first place.

6 Keys To Consistently Publishing A Daily Newsletter: Based on what I've learned writing one for 35,000 subscribers. 1. Keep it short. A daily newsletter is a big commitment - for readers and writers. The longer the format, the less likely either is to stick with it. Mine is a single paragraph and often a single sentence. 2. Eliminate all fluff. Cut anything that's not absolutely necessary. You don't need a 3-sentence summary of an article you're linking to when a single sentence will do. You don't need an intro. You don't need most of what you're writing. 3. Write it like a LinkedIn post that appears on a platform with no algorithm. You know the posts you'd like to publish with links but don't because you know the algorithm won't show them to anyone? Send them as a newsletter. There's no algorithm to punish links in email. 4. Repurpose your social posts. That awesome LinkedIn post you published? Link to it in your newsletter and drive your audience to it. You don't need to settle for LinkedIn only showing your post to 10% of your audience any more. 5. Share your old content. And even valuable stuff you didn't create. Most of your email list hasn't seen it - or doesn't remember they saw it. About 50% of my emails feature content I originally shared years ago. No one's ever mentioned having seen it before. You don't have to constantly reinvent the wheel. 6. Keep the design as minimal as possible. Every little issue-specific design element you add to a daily email will 5x your workload. Want a custom image in each issue? Congrats, you just committed to coming up with 5 images a week. In most cases, it's not worth the effort. And has zero impact on the success of the newsletter. ----- Want to see how I write my daily newsletter and why so many subscribers love it? Hit the link on my profile to check it out.

"Creators" is the most overrated (and misunderstood) target audience around. 90% of them have no money to spend because they're not generating any money. It's a HARD market to build a business in. But it seems like an easy market to those who don't know better.

What would you do if you had to... Reduce your customers/clients by 50% and increase your annual revenue by 50% at the same time? For example: If you currently earn $100,000 per year from 10 consulting clients, what changes would you make to get to $150,000 per year from only 5 clients?

5 Things You Need To Do With Your Newsletter (If you want it to grow your business.) 1. The value your newsletter delivers needs to align with the value your business delivers. If your business helps entrepreneurs generate sales, don't write a newsletter about work-life balance. 2. Publish at least two newsletter issues per month. Ideally at least once a week. If you only send monthly, you're only taking 12 shots a year to grow your business. That's not enough. 3. Pay attention to who clicks what. The links people click in your newsletter reveal what those people want. That can - and should - influence your messaging, marketing, products, and copy. Your audience is literally showing you what they want. 4. Your newsletter needs to be about your audience, not yourself. A newsletter isn't a promotional tool. It's a value-delivery tool. 5. Don't write ABOUT the "thing" - help readers DO the "thing." Ask yourself a simple question about anything you share in the newsletter: What can my readers DO after reading this that they couldn't do before? The way a newsletter grows your business is by helping people take meaningful action toward their goals. Not just by giving them stuff to read. ---- Want to see how I use my newsletter to grow my business? Check it out at the link in my profile.

7 Ways I Grow My Newsletter Without Spending A Dollar 1. Word Of Mouth The best marketing tactic in the world is a valuable product. My newsletter is awesome. So readers tell others about it. Seems obvious, but most creators spend more time looking for "growth hacks" than they do improving the newsletter itself. 2. Optimized Social Bios My Twitter and LinkedIn bios are designed to drive people to subscribe to my newsletter. There's a clear call to action in the bio and the link takes people straight to my newsletter signup page - not the home page of my website. 3. The ConvertKit Creator Network and SparkLoop The best newsletter recommendations tools around. 4. Pre-Promotion Of Upcoming Issues On Social Media It's fine to promote your newsletter after it comes out, but it's more effective to do so BEFORE it's published. Teasing it with the specific value people will get from reading that issue gives people a clear reason to subscribe so they don't miss it. 5. Signup Forms and Links Everywhere If you read one of my blog posts (old or new), it's impossible to not know I have a newsletter. There are forms at the bottom of every post and mentions of the newsletter with links to my signup page within the content of most posts. 6. Cross-Promotions The single best way to get new subscribers for free is to find someone with a similar audience and offer to promote their newsletter in exchange for them promoting yours. When a cross-promo works well, do it again a few months later. And again a few months after that. 7. My Podcast and YouTube Channel Just like with my blog posts, it's impossible to listen to my podcast or watch the episodes on YouTube and not know I have a newsletter. Most importantly, the topics of my podcast are in alignment with the topics of my newsletter. If you listen to my show because you're an expert who wants to grow their business... Chances are you're going to be interested in my newsletter which is about... (You guessed it!) Learning how to grow your expertise-based business. Speaking of which... If you haven't checked out my newsletter yet, you can do so at the link on my profile. It's in my bio. 😉

Do you publish a newsletter? I just shared a ton of tips about how to grow and monetize your newsletter on SparkLoop's Send and Grow podcast. 9 things you'll learn: 1. How to grow a newsletter if you only have 10 minutes a day to spend on it. It's at the 4-minute mark. 2. The one newsletter metric I'd track if I could only track one. It's at the 9-minute mark. 3. The small change that makes a huge impact on your clickthrough rate. It's at the 15-minute mark. 4. The one question to ask yourself before you buy a newsletter ad. It's at the 23-minute mark. 5. The one lever I'd pull if I had to double my newsletter revenue in 3 months. It's at the 26-minute mark. 6. A simple way to use link click data to surface business leads. It's at the 30-minute mark. 7. The one thing that drives the biggest jump in my ad sales. It's at the 34-minute mark. 8. Should your newsletter also have a podcast? It's at the 39-minute mark. 9. The one thing almost every newsletter writer does wrong. It's at the 46-minute mark.

Delete your intro. Whether it’s your newsletter, LinkedIn post, blog post, podcast, or videos... Your intro is weakening your content. Throw the audience right into the action. Like a James Bond movie. Those don’t start with James telling you how he’s about to have a car chase. They start with him being chased. PS: Notice I didn’t start this post by saying I was going to give you a tip about how to write a stronger introduction? I just told you to delete your intro!