Email marketing is still king.

I doubt you’ll find any other marketing channel that comes close to getting you a 36x ROI, Yet many of us still ignore this channel.

It’s harder to get started with email marketing because building a subscriber list takes a little more effort than growing a social media audience.

But when each subscriber is worth 10x a social media follower, the juice is worth the squeeze.

If you have a website getting traffic, all you need to build your email audience is a lead magnet. With a decent lead magnet, you’ll be able to collect ~5% of your website visitors’ email addresses.

First of all. If you don’t have technical skills. Ask someone for help. I guarantee you know someone who can do this for you. Lead magnets need to offer value that someone will pay for it with their email address. A discount voucher is the easiest one to set up. – It’s always better to offer a fixed dollar amount. Cold hard cash is more appealing than a percentage.

Other options are:

• Free shipping
• Free product/sample like free seven-day gym trial
• Complimentary service like a free oil change

Next, create an account with an email service provider like Mailchimp or Hubspot.

Then, set up a pop-up form on your website to offer your lead magnet in exchange for an email address. Ideally, your pop-up should appear after 50% of your average session duration (which you can find in google analytics)

Follow up with a great welcome email to kick off your relationship with the subscriber. A good welcome email usually includes the voucher or confirmation of whatever you’ve offered that person for free, introduces you (in short) and lets them know what to expect from you in the future (more emails providing value).

Like best practices on social media, don’t always be selling. Give, and you shall receive. A good rule of thumb is to make an offer with every 3rd email, not every email.

Finding The Root Cause Of Business Problems

Solving specific problems is a job we do a lot of as business owners.

This article even suggests we spend up to 68% of our time problem-solving. That’s probably an exaggeration, but the point is we do it a lot.

In theory, every problem should present an opportunity to strengthen our business.

But that’s not the case when we solve problems at the ‘wrong level‘. We often use surface-level solutions, which are short-term fixes. When we’re better off finding and addressing the root cause of an issue. Which is long-term beneficial and business strengthening.

Many times, you’ll notice that multiple issues are the result of a single point of failure. So we make the biggest gains when we address these.

A tool that can help us here is Toyota’s 5 Whys rule, which says that the root of a problem is usually five whys away.

Say your car won’t start.

Why? — The battery is dead.
Why? — The alternator is not functioning.
Why? — The alternator belt has broken.
Why? — The alternator belt was well beyond its useful service life and not replaced.
Why? — The vehicle was not maintained according to the recommended service schedule.

On the 5th why we’ve found the issue likely causing multiple problems. Solving root causes often kills many birds with one stone. Saving the car owner many downstream costs.

Whereas just replacing the battery will only work short-term until the battery goes flat again.

“Language can become a screen which stands between the thinker and reality. This is the reason why true creativity often starts where language ends.”

~ Arthur Koestler

Where We’re Learning

• Principles for dealing with a changing world order -> In this video, Ray Dalio shares the framework from his best selling book that explains how empires rise and fall. Ray has distilled 500 years of history into 45 minutes in easy to understand terms.

• Advanced time management -> In this thread, a former product manager at Stripe, Google, Yahoo and Twitter shares his advanced framework for time management and prioritisation.

How A Bad Day In Court Created A World Changing Social Enterprise

Like all good startup ideas, Bridget William’s business Bead and Proceed started with a bad day in court.

She returned home that day wanting to channel her frustrations into something more positive and decided to make a necklace. Little did she know, those five tiny wooden beads would be the start of something big.

Like many kids’ favourite extra-curricular activities, Bridget’s was arts & crafts. Her calling, to the reluctance of her Dad, was always the chaos of creation over the semantics of Law.

“But as you get older, we’re told creativity is child’s-play and not a career path“. So Bridget packed her creative side in a box and did what many ambitious young people do today, she pursued a career in Law.

It was two years after that bad day in court, while at home flipping through Peppermint Magazine, Bridget stumbled across the UN’s sustainable development goals. Seventeen goals, represented by seventeen colours that make up a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet. Playing with the beads on her necklace, she had an idea – each could represent an SDG.

“I would tell a few people my idea but didn’t do anything with it because it felt silly”.

One of those people, a good friend, shared the idea of Bead and Proceed to a member of the United Nations Association Trust. “They loved the idea and said I should pitch for funding, which I did and the funding I received paid for the first order of Bead and Proceed Kits”.

Bead and Proceed officially launched in February 2019. Since then, Bridget has facilitated workshops for over 6,000 individuals across New Zealand & beyond.

We got the chance to sit down with Bridget last week. To hear her story and take look behind the curtain of Bead and Proceed read on here.

Next episode: How to Survive a Recession

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