Want a more interesting week? Try this:
Watch, read or listen to three things you don’t typically consume this week.
This past week I watched a special about the Great Barrier Reef, a reality show about people shopping for lakefront property, and listened to a podcast about filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich’s childhood.
Were they all great? No.
But they exposed me to new ideas, new stories, and made things more interesting.
Switch it up — you never know what you’ll discover.
Now, on to this week’s ideas…
1. 40 One-Sentence Newsletter Tips
“Don’t confuse a newsletter with email marketing — one’s designed to provide value to an audience and the other to extract value from an audience.”
I’ve learned a lot from years of writing my own newsletters and helping clients with theirs.
In this post I share 40 one-sentence newsletter tips including thoughts about how many subscribers you need, why people subscribe to newsletters, and how to write one that connects with your audience.
Btw, if you find these tips helpful, I’d love if you retweet this Twitter thread to share them with others.
Related: 40 one-sentence writing tips.
2. Six Concepts To Help You Grow Your Audience And Sell Products
“Win people’s time and their money will follow.”
Nathan Latka is an author, podcaster, and investor who employs some creative tactics to build his empire.
Jakob Greenfeld summarizes them in this look at six lessons he learned from Nathan Latka including to build attention first and product second, leverage everything you have, and recognize that anything is hackable.
Btw, I found this link in the Newspackr newsletter.
Related: Double things that triple results.
3. 12 Career Lessons Covering Every Stage Of Your Career
“Even the best jobs are only good 70% of the time.”
This one truly has something for everyone.
Rishad Tobaccowala shares 12 career lessons covering every stage of your career including to find the least sucky job you can when starting out, build your brand during the middle stages of your career, and give back aggressively in the late stages of your career.
Btw, I found this link in Jocelyn K. Glei’s newsletter.
Related: What to do when your career doesn’t match your interests.
4. The Cluster Approach To Reading Books
“Stitch together multiple pinhole views into a unique lens to examine the world — one that no one else will have unless they use the same list of books to stitch together the same lens.”
This is a simple, but clever way to choose books to read and get more value out of them.
Slava Akhmechet shares his cluster approach to reading books which revolves around choosing to read five books on a related subject that combined create a unique lens on a bigger subject.
As he explains:
“Every cluster has a goal of the form ‘study X through Y.’ Study American history through technological expansion, or study failure through one term presidents are just a few examples.”
Btw, I found this link in the How It Actually Works newsletter.
Related: How to read more books.
5. Four Realistic Traffic Goals For Small Blogs
“We analyzed 150 million pageviews of data to set some benchmarks for small blogs (those getting fewer than 10,000 pageviews per month).”
It’s tough to figure out what your goal should be when it comes to blog traffic.
Ryan Law offers some guidance with this breakdown of four realistic traffic goals for small blogs.
The suggested goals include to get at least 6% monthly traffic growth, have 11% of traffic come from organic search, and aim for 45,000 pageviews a year.
Btw, I found this link in the Swipe File newsletter.
Related: How to jump start your blog when traffic flatlines.
This Is How I Use Blog Posts To Get Clients
I put together a seven-page PDF that reveals how I’ve used blog posts to attract clients who hired me as a consultant and how you can do the same to sell your services or products.
Get This Is How I Use Blog Posts To Get Clients to see three examples of posts that got me clients and an explanation of how you can create something similar to sell your own services regardless of industry.
Or, subscribe to This Is How I Do It to get access to that PDF plus 18 more resources on other topics and a new one every week for the next year.
Classified Ads
• Get the Support You Need to Transform Your Creative Biz with the Creatives Roundtable coaching, accountability & community. Registration closes 12/15.
• I’m Alan, a personal performance and leadership coach to successful entrepreneurs, investors, LGBTQIA+ and artists in business. Check me out here.
• Have a newsletter you’re looking to monetize? This newsletter will show you how to do it.
• Can’t justify the costs for a professional SEO tool for your small business? Meet Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to make your website discoverable for free.
• “They used strip club meetings to get and keep customers. How do I fix that?” Rookie CEO : A weekly newsletter about the journey of a 1st-time CEO.
Have something you’d like to promote to FTI readers? Purchase an ad here.
My Final Words Of The Week
Anne-Laure Le Cunff recently interviewed me on a topic that’s dear to my heart: How to consistently come up with creative ideas.
My thoughts on that topic — along with suggestions from a bunch of other experts — are now available in Anne’s new course, From Collector To Creator.
It starts on November 16th, so if you’re interested make sure you act soon!
Have a great week!
Josh
PS — If you dig this newsletter I’d love for you to share it with others who might enjoy it.
Thanks!