Why Commitment Beats Ideas in Business Growth

Summary

Coffee With Cole: The Digital Writing Podcast

Episode: Why Commitment Beats Ideas in Business Growth
Host: Nicolas Cole
Date: September 15, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of Coffee With Cole centers on practical strategies and mindset shifts for business growth in digital writing, ghostwriting, and self-publishing. Cole tackles real questions from community members, exploring why commitment and skill development trump “big ideas” in business success. Through interactive hot seats and live case studies, Cole dissects effective outreach, the importance of focusing on problem-solving, pricing and client selection, operational scaling, and balancing creative fulfillment with revenue.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How to Move From Friendly Conversations to Closing Sales

Timestamps: 02:38–07:09

• Many struggle with guiding warm leads into actionable sales conversations.
• Cole breaks down the misconception of a hard line between “building rapport” and “doing sales.”
  • Quote:
    “There is no imaginary line or wall where you're not doing sales and then you are doing sales. Sales, you should think of it like you are always doing sales because you are never doing sales.” – Cole [03:20]
• The real process:
  1. Identify a small part of the client’s problem.
  2. Educate continually and specifically on that problem.
  3. Build trust through helpfulness and expertise.
  4. Clients will organically ask, “Is this what you do?” once they understand the problem deeply.
• Most people stop too soon or don’t dig deep enough into specifics.

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2. The Skill Gap Between Outreach and Closing

Timestamps: 07:23–11:12

• If people aren't asking about your services, it's usually because you haven’t sufficiently educated or intrigued them—not because of their lack of interest.
• Do real research and go the extra mile for prospects, even “for free,” to practice and build mastery.
  • Quote:
    “Your effort is never a waste. Every single person is an opportunity for you to keep building the skill.” – Cole [10:33]
• Sample outreach: auditing funnels, showing missed CTAs, writing example emails, or sending a Loom video, prioritizing those who engage but not neglecting others if you have the bandwidth.

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3. Outreach Strategy: Quality > Quantity

Timestamps: 12:07–14:31

• Don’t automate surface-level pitches to thousands. Instead, pour real effort into a tiny number you can help deeply.
  • Quote:
    “You would way rather spend an hour pitching one specific person that you genuinely feel like you could help, than spending an hour writing up some chicken scratch and finding an email automation to send to 10,000 people ... The underlying thing that is holding you back is that you still have a skill gap in terms of being able to articulate someone's problem.” – Cole [12:23]
• The leverage in outreach comes from your ability to articulate and surface the client’s unique problem.

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4. Optimizing Client Slots: Pricing, Client Selection & Workload

Timestamps: 14:34–20:03

• When offering similar services to multiple clients, but some require more effort, observe these patterns to decide which prospects to accept in the future.

• Maximize your business by taking clients who:

  1. Pay most.
  2. Have familiar/easy subject matter.
  3. Are easy personalities.

• Develop a decision matrix and learn to say “no” to difficult clients, leaving space for higher-leverage clients.

  • Quote:
    “Congratulations. You don't have this problem in the beginning—this is a problem you grow into... Now it is about building the skill of saying no to certain clients.” – Cole [17:39]

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5. When & How to Hire: Systems Before People

Timestamps: 20:03–24:32

• Don’t hire until you’ve productized your tasks with clear, step-by-step SOPs, leaving no room for misinterpretation.
• Think in percentages: business spending should not exceed more than 20% of revenue.
  • Quote:
    “Before you hire someone, anchor to what are the specific tasks I need help with, create an extraordinarily tangible SOP—literally to the point where … there is no room for interpretation.” – Cole [21:16]

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6. Productizing & Naming Offers (the “Talent Magnet” example)

Timestamps: 29:05–35:24

• Don’t overthink “Trojan horse” offers or complicated funnels.
• Zero in on what you do best and build a business around that—naming and claiming ideas gives you a hook that the market responds to.
  • Quote:
    “Talent Magnet is amazing ... You could build an entire business around just building talent magnets for companies that want to attract talent.” – Cole [31:54]
• Audits are best used as free lead-in assets, not the core offer.

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7. Content Auditing and Up-Leveling Writing Craft

Timestamps: 36:36–46:24

• When reviewing content, focus on:

  1. The type of content.
  2. The hook.
  3. The main points.

• Eliminate subjective or generic terms from hooks (“turn around,” “better”)—be ultra-specific and concrete for impact.

  • Quote:
    “Literally, this ‘turn their profile around’—those four words could be the difference between this post getting five likes and getting 5,000 likes ... Go for tangible, objective language.” – Cole [42:04]

• Write against the grain by listing overused ideas, then challenging yourself not to use them.

• Memorable exercise:

  • “The craft of writing is, make a list of all the things everyone else has already said. Now you can’t say any of them. Now what do you say?” – Cole [45:12]

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8. Purpose, Fulfillment, and Business Building

Timestamps: 48:04–54:27

• It's normal to feel tension between “work for revenue” and “work for fulfillment.”

• Cole shares his own decade-long journey: pausing on fiction writing to master the business and only now returning to his creative passions.

  • Quote:
    “I made a conscious decision ... to give up writing for fulfillment and purpose to figure out how to make money first. Because once I figure out how to make money, I will have all the time and energy and resources to write whatever I want.” – Cole [52:42]

• Honest talk: sometimes you must set aside passion projects to focus on market-driven work.

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9. Niching Down & Branding (The Constellation Effect)

Timestamps: 56:08–59:48

• Serving various clients is fine, but publicly “lead with” a focused specialty—this focuses your marketing while still allowing for organic expansion to adjacent “constellation” niches.
  • Quote:
    “The more you can commit to one direction, the faster you will move in that direction.” – Cole [56:19]
• Aim for highly specific content and value posts that reinforce your stated niche.

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10. Navigating Internal Team Politics

Timestamps: 62:56–67:29

• When internal staff feel threatened by an external hire (like a ghostwriter or strategist), always frame yourself as an ally who can make their work easier, not a threat.
  • Quote:
    “You always want to frame it as, ‘I am your friend, I am not your enemy. I am additive, not subtractive.’” – Cole [63:43]
• Use “sandwich feedback” (positives, then suggested improvements, then more praise/support).
• Ultimately, don’t get emotionally embroiled in company politics—focus on being additive and leave final decisions to the internal team.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Skill Gaps:
  “Your effort is never a waste. Every single person is an opportunity for you to keep building the skill.” [10:33]

• On Commitment:
  “The more you can commit to one direction, the faster you will move in that direction.” [56:19]

• On outreach quality:
  “You want to do the complete opposite [of blasting emails]. It’s a skill gap issue, not a quantity problem.” [12:23]

• On offer creation:
  “Naming and claiming ideas and saying things in ways that haven’t been said before—that’s the game.” [45:55]

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Actionable Takeaways & Next Steps

• In outreach: Prioritize detailed, researched outreach that educates prospects about their problem; quality trumps quantity.
• In sales: Focus on surfacing and articulating specific client problems, build trust by over-delivering.
• In pricing/services: Regularly audit your client roster for effort vs. reward; don’t take difficult clients if easier/higher-paying ones are available.
• In content: Ditch generic hooks and advice—push for specificity and originality; name your frameworks.
• In business building: Master the necessary skills for revenue now; creative work can follow once stability is achieved.
• In internal politics: Always position yourself as a value-add to the client’s current team.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:38] Moving warm conversations into sales
• [07:23] Skill gap in closing leads
• [12:07] Quality over quantity in outreach
• [14:34] Optimizing client slots and pricing
• [20:03] Hiring: systems before people
• [29:05] Naming offers (“Talent Magnet”)
• [36:36] Auditing and improving content
• [48:04] Balancing fulfillment and revenue
• [56:08] Niching your brand
• [62:56] Internal team politics and value framing

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Closing Thoughts

Cole repeatedly emphasizes that true business growth doesn't come from chasing the next big idea, but from deep commitment to skill development, the willingness to do the hard (often unglamorous) work, and an unrelenting focus on clearly articulating and solving client problems. Whether you're scaling, niche-building, or just figuring out your offer, this episode packs actionable advice and inspiration for digital writers and solo entrepreneurs.

“Just pick one of these and implement them.” – Cole [End]

Transcript

[A]

What's up, everyone? Happy Monday. Hello to the army of fathoms as well. This is where the future is upon us. The robots are here. I've got like 87 fathoms in here. This is funny to watch that trend line over the past two years. Just tons and tons of note takers. I love it, though. I'm glad everyone's taking notes. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a great weekend. We have a lot of good questions today, so I kind of don't want to waste any time. I want to just dive right in here. But real quick, before we get started, drop in the chat. If this is your first Monday hot seat call workshop, if this is your first time joining us, I always love seeing who the newcomers are. And for everyone else, thanks for blocking the time and prioritizing being here. I know it's a big ask getting an hour on the calendar. All right, no newcomers. Apparently everyone is a veteran. Everyone's been doing this for a while.

[B]

Okay, well.

[A]

Or everyone's coffee just hasn't kicked in yet. We will see. We will see. All right, well, then let's get started. Rebecca. Do we have Rebecca here? No, no Rebecca. All right, hopefully she joins. Do we have Harshit here?

[C]

Yes, I'm here.

[A]

Hey, what's going on?

[C]

Hi, Cole. First time talking to you.

[B]

All right.

[A]

Yeah, welcome. Happy Monday. Yeah. Okay, so any other context you want to give me on this question? I was. I was reading it before our call here.

[C]

Yes, Cole. So basically in your outreach module, you say that approach people like a friend, approach with a mindset of helping them and strike up conversations. So I'm able to start conversations and people are even happy. Like, they are receptive to my ideas. But then it's very. I find it very difficult to steer that conversation towards, like, getting them on a call or getting them excited about actually doing what I am telling them to do. So those are some of the. The conversation will go forward, and then I'm at a complete loss as to how to take it further to actually, like, start a. Like a sales process. So that's the thing.

[B]

Yeah. Okay.

[A]

This is a great question. It's something a lot of people struggle with. I've actually never explained it this way, so I'm going to try and explain this in a new way and I'll see how this lands for everyone. Awesome. Rebecca, great to have you. We'll chat with you right after this. Okay. So most people think that there's this moment in the conversation where it's like your. Your friends and you're Building rapport. And you're. You're building a relationship, and then there's a big wall and then you start doing sales, okay? That is how most people think that this works, and that is not how this works.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

There is no imaginary line or wall where you're not doing sales and then you are doing sales.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

Sales, is it. You should think of it like you are always doing sales because you are never doing sales.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

It is like one in the same. So let me. Let me explain this in reverse. You get a client to buy. That is the end of the process, right? You want them to buy some sort of service. Okay? In. Let's. Let's go in reverse. In order for them to buy, they have to understand the solution. They have to know, what are you giving me?

[B]

Right?

[A]

What are. What. What is the solution? And the solution is always the product or service, whatever thing that you are offering them in order for them to understand why the solution is so important. What do they have to understand before that?

[C]

The. The problem. They have to care about the problem to care about the solution.

[A]

Exactly. Exactly. Somebody's been watching my content and paying attention and taking notes. I love it. Okay, so they. They can't care about the solution until they first care about the problem, right?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Now, can you usually get someone to care about an entire problem all at once, overnight? Usually not.

[B]

Right?

[A]

So in order for them to understand and care about the whole problem, what do we first need them to understand? Probably a very small part of the problem.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Just like one specific thing.

[B]

Right?

[A]

So one specific thing in that problem, and when they understand that little specific thing in that problem, right. It opens them up to trusting you. And how do you get them to trust you? You have to educate them. And before you educate them, you have to say, hey, I'm a friend. So when you walk through it in the inverse, you realize that you are. There is no line where all of a sudden you go, oh, now I'm selling the person. Okay, so how do you. So now let's. Let's do it from the beginning and go to the end.

[B]

Right?

[A]

How do you get the conversation to move along? You're like, hey, by the way, I just noticed this problem that you have could be on their website, could be in their funnel, could be whatever.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Let me educate you. Awesome. Yeah. Just wanted to help. By the way, not sure if you know more education about problems.

[B]

Right.

[A]

They start to trust you. Oh, yeah. Here's why this problem keeps happening. This is what I would do to fix it. They start Asking questions. Is this what you do? You're like, yes, this is exactly what I do. Let me tell you more about the problem.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

How do I solve it? I can help you. That's. That's literally the. The whole. The whole conversation. So if you're. If you're ever in DMS or in email or whatever, and you're like, I don't know where to go from here, the answer is always, how do I keep making them more aware of the problem? The more aware they become of the problem, the more you educate them on the problem, the more you educate them for free about the problem, they will inevitably land in a place where they go, now I need someone to solve it. Okay, does that make sense?

[C]

Makes. Makes sense. But the point of this conversation is this what you do? I mean, it's hard to get, like, I feel that it's hard to get. Get them to that point.

[A]

That, that is because this, this is a skill gap.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

If they, if, if, if they do not reach a point in the conversation where they ask, is this what you do? 99% of the time, that means that you did not sufficiently educate them on the problem?

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Okay. So. So if, if you're not getting something like that from the person, you have to view it as like, oh, I can't get this person to move forward. No, no, it's not their fault.

[B]

Right. Okay.

[A]

It's for some reason, you. You aren't sufficiently educating them. Now, real quick, here's what most people think. Like, most people think. Well, I told them they didn't have any, like, a good email capture on their site. I don't know. I don't know how else I was supposed to educate them.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Like, they, they tried once, and then they're like, I stopped. And what you need to do is you have to find ways to keep pushing it further and further and going. By the way, I spent some time last. Last night, I couldn't sleep. I was thinking about your business. I went down a whole rabbit hole. I poked around your site. I realized you have all these blog posts. None of them have CTAs. Just want to let you know, like, I looked up your traffic. You're leaving a ton of traffic on the table. This is what I would do.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

So it's. It has to be based on, like, research on their funnel. Like, better research. Better, better. Easier to move the conversation forward.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You have to do your homework.

[B]

Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

I generally start with, like, I sign up for the newsletter, and then I don't even get a welcome email. So I point that out and from there I start. But then I don't do what you're saying, which is something I could do.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you do. I mean, and it's all good. That's why you're here. And, you know, this is the thing to improve. But you do what everyone does, which is, you know, you did it once and then you didn't get the result. I don't, I don't know what else I could do. And really, it's just building the skill of sitting there for five minutes and going, if, like, the question I always love asking myself is, pretend this person paid you $1,000 to, to, to audit everything they do and to tell them what to improve. Just pretend they just sent you a thousand dollars. What would you do? Okay, you would, you would spend at least 30 minutes going through all of their funnels, their website, typing in your email, everything. You'd probably create a notion doc, writing up all the missed opportunities. You might even take it upon yourself to like, write up a V1 of a welcome email. Like, start with that extreme in mind.

[B]

Right. Okay. Yeah.

[C]

So if, if they're not, like, if they're not responsive, is it fine to send them a loom video where I walk through, walk them through some notes, or to send them a newsletter, a rewrite of their newsletter? Is that, is that fine to do if they're not very responsive? Or is, is it a waste?

[A]

Well, first of all, I, I, I reject this idea that your effort is a waste, because it's never a waste.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Every single person is an opportunity for you to keep building the skill, which is only going to make you better and just the ability to create these faster. The, the, the tactical answer is it becomes a function of bandwidth. If you have limited time and two people responded to you and eight didn't, you should prioritize the two who responded to the eight who didn't. But if you have excess time, I would go do it for the other eight as well.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Why not?

[B]

Okay.

[C]

And if, yeah, if no one is responding, which is more or less my case, then I could, I could write like, rewrite the newsletters or, or send them looms. I think that's what I could do.

[A]

Yeah, it's all, it's all this, the stuff we talk about. It's like, yeah, are you, are you doing your homework for each prospect? Are you following up seven times? Are you sending any free work or sample stuff? Are you contacting them on multiple platforms? Are you Doing any pitches in public. Are you, are you commenting on any of their posts? Like, I find it very hard to believe when someone says no one's responding because usually they're not doing all of the things that are required.

[B]

Right. Yeah. Okay.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Makes sense.

[C]

Yeah, Makes sense.

[B]

Yeah. Thank you.

[A]

Awesome. Great question. Thanks for asking, Arshit.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Yeah. And md, if you're low on bandwidth, how do you make your outreach still high value? You just, you trade quantity for quality. I cannot emphasize enough how much the mistake is people thinking the way that I will land clients is I will take a surface level message and I will send it to as many people as possible. I promise. That is the worst way to think about this. You want to do the complete opposite. If you are low on bandwidth and time, you would way rather spend an hour pitching one specific person that you genuinely feel like you could help rather than spending an hour writing up some chicken scratch and then finding an email automation software to send it to 10,000 people. Quality over quantity. And the underlying reason why, and this is one of those first principles things that people struggle with so much, is the underlying reason why is because the thing that is holding you back is not the fact that you haven't contacted 10,000 people via email. The thing that is holding you back is that you still have a skill gap in terms of being able to articulate someone's problem. Because if you can articulate their problem and you can sufficiently educate them, you could reach out to three clients and land all three. And I know because it's like I've witnessed this so specifically in myself. Think about the leverage that I get on my time now. I am so good at this skill that I could reach out to five people and I would probably land three clients. I don't need, I don't need to reach out to 10,000 people because I know how to articulate their problems so well. And that is the underlying thing. Like, everyone wants to skip that because they, they just want this idea of, oh, if I send out 10,000 emails and then people randomly open them and then money falls from the sky. It has nothing to do with that. It is a skill gap issue. So for everyone here, that is, that is why you're practicing what you're practicing. Because the real skill is being able to articulate the client's problem. It is not the pressing buttons and being able to contact the most number of people. All right, Rebecca, let's jam.

[D]

Sorry, I was not able to unmute it all.

[B]

Good.

[D]

That was really epic, by the way. Just the last few lines you said really were helpful. Yeah.

[A]

So you're doing 10k a month. Remember a couple months ago when you thought that was impossible?

[D]

I do. Still trying to. It's still sinking in.

[A]

I'll say. Well, it's. It's incredible. Okay, well. And in terms of, like, a little business review, I mean, you kind of already pointed out the biggest thing, which is this.

[B]

Is.

[A]

This is the client slot to optimize first. But. Yeah, I guess what's. What's the big question here?

[D]

So about that one specifically, or about just.

[A]

Or just. Yeah. What would be. What would be helpful here?

[D]

Well, okay, so one thing actually has come up even since I wrote this, which is how would you think about if clients. So client two and client three. I'm offering the exact same service to client two and client three, but client three takes probably twice the amount of time as client two.

[B]

Yep.

[D]

Because they have way more comments that. It's just. I'm trying to figure out how to navigate them and manage them. But, like, should the goal be like, should my own internal rule be like, I give everyone the same amount of time, or should it be like, I'm just gonna do whatever it takes to make these people happy and keep them? Like, how would you think about that?

[A]

I mean, at this size. And you know, when it's you and you have five. Five client slots, I mean, the name of the game is always, how do you keep everyone happy? The. The. The ongoing game, though, is how do you maximize these five slots? And so really, it's. It's less of a what do I do with this specific client? And it's more, you want to observe these patterns so that you. You come to decisions around how to maximize these five slots. So when a client leaves and let's say you have an open slot, and let's say you're talking to two prospects, and one of them shows signs of being just like this type of client, whether it's personality, whether it's subject matter, whatever it is. And another prospect is showing signs like this client, which is easier subject matter, easier personality, whatever. And you only have one slot. Which client do you pick? You pick the easier one.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I went through the same exact thing with my agency. I was attracting clients all over the board, and I learned it's like if I had a client coming in who was the CEO of a biotech company that was going to take three times more effort than a CEO who just wants to write about productivity tips to have a presence on the Internet. And so over Time we started kind of building just these internal, like our own little decision matrix around when we talk to prospects, like do we actually want that client or no. And so congratulations.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Like you don't have this problem in the beginning. This is a problem that you grow into, which is now it is about building the skill of saying no to certain clients so that you can leave those slots open for easier clients.

[D]

Yeah, yeah. I will say client three, I think has helped me improve my writing more than anybody else. So I definitely see it as a good thing. But yeah, okay, that, that's a helpful framework, I think.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The game is unless you're like, you know, I want to go the full blown agency route. I want to hire writers, I want to hire account managers, I want to build a traffic engine. Like, you know, there's, there's levels of maturity to an agency model. But if it's, if it's you and you have five client slots, the entire name of the game is how do I make all, all five as expensive as possible with the most familiar topic as possible. So like the thing that you know how to write or the industry that you've been in where it's autopilot, you don't have to think about it anymore. That are also the easiest personalities, right. Because someone could be the same subject matter, but they're a extremely difficult personality. And so just just to like, like for everyone, these little three criteria have served me very well. Is most expensive, similar topic, easy personality. If you have five clients all, you know, paying you 5K a month with, you know, the same niche and don't care about money, just want it done. You know, they don't care what it costs. Like you. This is best case scenario, you're living the dream and this is not hard. Like all. There's nothing, there's nothing more difficult about this than what you have set up. The only difference is like having being consciously aware of it. And then as you attract new clients, you're like, okay, someone wants to work with me. But they're really showing signs that they're super difficult. I'm going to actually pass on this one and leave my slot open for a month because I'd rather fill it with someone else. You know, that's the name of the game.

[D]

I guess my other question I'd love to get your input on. I was starting to go through the Velocity curriculum, which is epic. It's so good in terms of kind of first hire feels like a strong word, but I guess that's what it is. Bringing Someone else on to help with something. I have been thinking for a while, oh, it's going to be a VA and then the curriculum helped clarify. It's not just a VA to do admin stuff. The thing to outsource is outreach and you know, like the sales assistant tasks essentially. So is that what I mean? Is that where you would recommend starting and I guess how, how do I make sure I have the kind of foundation before I do that? Like what would I need to have in place?

[A]

Yeah, the biggest mistake with hiring anyone in any one period is the person thinks I just, I need help and that, that like there is nothing more taxing for any business than hiring someone new because it's such an upfront investment and there's so many things that go into it. And so before you hire someone, whether it's a contractor or full time, part time, it doesn't matter. Before you hire someone, you, you want to get out of the mindset of I need help and you want to anchor to what are the specific tasks that I need help with. And then for each task you want to create a extraordinarily tangible like SOP Standard operating Procedure. Like step by step, what do you have them do? It needs to literally be to the point where, and you could almost use AI. Like not that you have to use AI, but use, use it as the extreme is how do you create steps for a task that are so unbelievably clear that there is no room for interpretation? It's literally like, I need you to do my cold outreach. Here's what happens. Step one, you go to Twitter or X. Step two, you type in this search term. Step three, you get this list of people. Step four, you click on each individual profile and find their email. Step five, if their email is not on their profile, you go to their website. Step six, you take all the emails and you put it inside this spreadsheet. Step seven, you take this message that I pre wrote and you copy paste it into a DM to each one of these people. Step eight, you check off the box inside each Excel spreadsheet column until it's done. Step nine, you follow up with every single person 24 hours later. Step 10, like you have to get so incredibly specific where there is not a single moment when someone sits there and goes, I wonder what they mean by this. No room for interpretation.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Does that make sense?

[D]

Yeah. So like super objective instructions.

[A]

Extremely. And until you have that, it's, you shouldn't hire anyone because what are, what are they going to do? They're just going to show up on Monday morning being like, what do you need help with? You're gonna be like, I'm swamped. I don't know, just help me. And then they're not gonna know, and then you're not gonna know, and then you're just gonna light money on fire.

[D]

Yeah, yeah, but I guess in terms of. No, that all makes total sense in terms of like, would you wait until, for example, client 4 is 3K per month? Or like, what, what, what do I need from the revenue perspective for that?

[A]

I mean, technically you could do it now. I, I would think less in terms of hard numbers. I would think more in terms of percentages. So, like, especially if you just use this framework of individual, and you have five client slots, I would, I would try to keep any costs in running your business at 20% or less of your revenue. So if you're doing 10k a month, set a ceiling of, you know, you can't spend more than 2k a month reinvesting in your business. You know, if you're doing 15 grand a month, don't spend more than three grand a month, you know, using like that 20% sort of cap. Because, like, why would you go, you know, hire a bunch of people, you're doing 10k a month and then you're burning like 5 or 6k a month. Like, that doesn't make sense.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So thinking in terms of percentage, percentages I think is helpful.

[D]

And that's for, like, all the operating expenses, like, including, like, software and courses and stuff.

[B]

Yep. Okay.

[D]

Okay, that's helpful. Yeah, I think, I think those are my most pressing things. Andrew and Travis have given me some feedback on, like, the tiers that I'm pitching. Basically, I'm doing, I'm trying to scale the LinkedIn ghostwriting as the main offer. And then tier two is basically a more expensive option, which I'm not necessarily expecting people to take me up on, but if they do, it makes it very worthwhile to do it of, like, LinkedIn, plus some, like, thought leadership, article writing.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I would, I would experiment with it, see, see where it goes. If no other reason, it, it price anchors your core offer, which is nice, but I wouldn't underestimate, like, you're, you're in dreamland if you have 5 clients doing 5k a month. You know, like, it's not, I don't even think you need, you don't need much more than that. You know, you can, if you want, you can keep growing beyond that, but that that is an amazing place to be.

[D]

Yeah, I guess the challenge is I have a lot of people who are asking for the long form content and like, they think that they need to do that. And I know I can't offer everything to everybody, but it feels like a, it does feel like a missed opportunity to not offer some version of that.

[A]

Yeah, that's, that's part of the, the learning process here. There, there's always missed opportunity. I had every sing, every single one of my ghost training clients asked me to do something else. Like, it's just there, there will always be money on the table no matter what you do. But it's, it's not about trying to get all the money because you'll, you'll never be able to. There will always be missed opportunities. It's about how do you maximize the amount of revenue that you're generating and still, you know, have a life and operate efficiently and enjoy your business, you.

[B]

Know.

[D]

So would you, you're saying you would Recommend Just the LinkedIn at 5?

[A]

I mean, you don't need it. You know what I mean? Like, I think oftentimes people ask or, or say they feel like they need to do this out of this like, scarcity mentality. And it's like LinkedIn ghostwriting is literally one of the most in demand services in the world right now. Like, everybody wants it, you know. Do you think that you could have just 5 clients paying you 5k a month to do just LinkedIn stuff? Yeah, you absolutely could. You don't, you don't even need to offer all this other stuff. You know, you can if you want to. I mean, if you want to explore it and go through that learning process, I mean, by all means. But I'm just, I'm just telling you.

[D]

Like, I don't really want to. I just, it's more that I, I guess what I could do is create like a one pager, a loom video or something which is just like, hey, we've been creating all this great short form content. Here's some ideas and thoughts on how you could expand this into long form content.

[A]

Yeah, or find another ghostwriter in PGA and Liftoff who specializes in long form or articles and do like an affiliate partnership with them. You know, there's, there's all sorts of different ways. Like, but I don't make decisions just because a client is saying I need help with this thing. They will always say that it's, it's your decision what sort of business you want to build and you have the foundation of a Great business. Like, you don't need to make it messy, you know?

[D]

Okay, I'll listen to you.

[B]

Don't worry. All right.

[A]

Good question.

[D]

All right, thanks.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All right, let's see. Do we have Tavisha here?

[B]

There we go.

[E]

Hello.

[A]

Sorry, I couldn't. Am I pronouncing that correctly?

[E]

Yes, you are.

[B]

The.

[E]

The V is pronounced like a W. Oh.

[A]

All right, well, great to meet you. Happy Monday. Thanks.

[E]

Nice to meet you too. Yeah, Happy Monday.

[A]

All right, so you want to check out this offer here?

[E]

So I basically, I. I went through Daniel's whole process for making, like, a free offer, but, like, I was looking at Daniel's, and obviously Daniel has a lot more technical expertise and things like that. And he was, he was talking about segmenting and like, you know, making a segmentation survey, which isn't a skill I have. I have a lot of writing skills. I can do LinkedIn. I can do, like, long form writing. So I wanted a little help because this offer didn't necessarily feel irresistible enough to me, if that makes any sense.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I guess, first of all, are. Is this just a brain dump for you or is this, like, what you're presenting to people?

[E]

No, this is the what I'm presenting. Like, it's technically two, like, offers I figured out, like, as one. So one of them is I do, like, a profile audit. So I. The name sucks, but I. I do a profile audit. I essentially help them fix their headline, banner, bio, like, content. And then the second part is, like, I do it because all of the sort of people I've been dming really are looking for new hires. So I was like, I'll make a post for them about, like a talent magnet post. That's pretty much all it says.

[A]

Okay, so a couple things here. First, I've noticed a couple questions in the past couple weeks on these Monday calls about, like, people wanting to create, like, Trojan horse offers. And I just, I want to dispel this. This myth really quickly, which is.

[B]

You.

[A]

You really don't need to think about it that way. Like, you don't. You don't need this, like, Trojan horse thing that gets your foot in the door that then, you know, like, that it. There's no reason why you can't just specialize in a service and go to people and sell people that service. Like, you know, like, I just want to make sure you and everyone understands. Like, it's. You don't need. You don't necessarily need to add this, like, secondary step. That said, when I was reading through this One of my favorite things, and this is the result of years of ghostwriting, one of my favorite things is when I read something that someone wrote or I listen to someone speak and I hear a phrase and I know that once I hear that phrase, that phrase is the answer.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Talent magnet is amazing. Magnet is that phrase. Okay, now, right. You could build an entire business around just building talent magnets for, for companies that want to attract talent. You Absolutely.

[E]

Oh, okay.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So. And, and if you did that, I mean, yeah, you could think of it like a Trojan horse offer. I just, I wouldn't complicate it in your mind like that.

[E]

Yeah.

[A]

But I would then upsell from that to a newsletter.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because that would make the most sense because you're getting people's emails and then now they need a newsletter. So if I were you, I don't think that you need, like these are different things, you know, it's like these are different offers. So I would either separate and I would not do LinkedIn profile authority, anything. And I would just specialize on building talent magnets. Ghostwriting talent magnets because the value is great. I mean, we do that for our company to hire like it. I think it's a great asset. And then the second thing is for everyone here, audits are typically something that you either give away for free or you bundle into an offer. An audit itself is usually not the offer. Does that make sense? Right, So I would lead with like, hey, I saw you had a, like, think about where you get leads. Go to LinkedIn and look for every single company that's like, has a job posting right now. Email their founder and go, I saw that you had a job posting on LinkedIn, by the way. Like, yeah, you might be getting some leads from that, but you know what's way more effective is actually building a talent magnet that comes from you attracting talent to your company and your mission. Here are all the problems it solves. Would you like me to build that for you?

[B]

Great.

[A]

Like that's. You could build a whole business around that. It's a great idea. Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Thank you.

[E]

Okay, that makes a lot of sense.

[A]

Any follow up questions?

[E]

Honestly, everything you said felt pretty clear. Like I, I honestly went through this to more understand what I'm offering because I've been back and forth about doing LinkedIn versus email newsletters. If I were to do talent magnet, would you say to. Would you say I should focus on LinkedIn ghostwriting?

[A]

Sorry, what do you, what do you mean by that specifically?

[E]

Sorry. I guess what I mean to say Is after I get them with the talent magnet, how would I, what should I upsell into LinkedIn ghost writing or should I upsell into newsletter ghost lighting?

[A]

I mean, personally, I would, I would probably go newsletter just because it makes more sense. Like, you just captured their email and so now what? But the reality is you can do both, you know, that's why with EECs, an EEC is the same concept. Once you have their email, you can either upsell to now you have to drive more people to that opt in, which is social traffic, or you nurture all the people on your email list, which is newsletter. So it's just up to you. Like, both can work. My opinion is newsletter, but both are doable.

[E]

Okay, that makes sense. Thank you.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And then Nick, like a talent magnet would be like, let's say we are trying to attract, let's say we're trying to attract like new success coaches for PGA and we want to source out applicants. We might put together a lead magnet that walks through like our whole methodology for coaching and being like, hey, if you're a, you're a coach in this space, here's a bunch of free education on how to do your role at a world class level. Give it to you for free. And by the way, we're hiring. So this is our methodology. If this is interesting to you, let us know. So it's like a combination of like a lead magnet that's designed to attract not someone that you're trying to sell, but someone that you're trying to sell on a position.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Someone that you're trying to hire or attract into your company. Great question. Thanks for asking it, Tisha. All right, do we have Tommaso here? What's going on? Happy Monday.

[F]

Happy Monday to you too.

[A]

All right, let's take a look at this. All right, you want to do a little content roast?

[F]

Yeah, let's go. No hard feelings.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

Why doesn't the link work? Oh, I think because.

[F]

Oh yeah, because I provided the X1 as well. My bad.

[A]

That's okay.

[G]

Come on.

[B]

All right.

[A]

Solid bio like that. Nice and clear to the point. You have a banner, you have a profile picture.

[B]

Great.

[A]

Checking boxes. All right, let's look at these. Three months ago, this founder is getting completely ignored until they made four changes that turned their profile around in 30 days. Okay, so here, let's just look at just this hook. This is great. So overall, like, all right, let's just do high level. So screenshot style post.

[B]

Great.

[A]

This, this was one of the formats we just put in LinkedIn AI. So this works great. Awesome. Quick little intro, context, lead with problems. All right, and then you have, here's the meat of the thing, here's what we did. Steps one, two, three and four. Okay, so whenever I'm auditing content, there's really only a couple things I look.

[B]

At.

[A]

And I'm just going to give you a couple because we could spend four hours on this Tommaso. So I'm going to give you a couple to mull on and iterate on. So the first is what type of content is this?

[B]

Right?

[A]

So is this, you know, something that's actionable, analytical, anthropological, can't spell that word or aspirational. So this is actionable.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Then the next is like, is this, you know, text, is it video, is it audio? Okay, so this is text. And then is it like what kind of imagery? Is there any. So here we have like a screenshot style. So this would be like behind the scenes. Okay, so though that's like high level how I'm thinking. Okay, so like what is this thing?

[B]

Right?

[A]

Then the next is the hook and the third is the main points. Literally everything else like this, this is 90% of it and everything else is the last 10%. Okay, so let me tell you what I mean. So in this case, the hook is. Three months ago, this founder was getting completely ignored until they made four changes that turn their profile around in 30 days. Okay, challenge question for the group. Can anyone share the the word? There is one word in this hook that is subjective. It that is killing. That is killing the hook. There's one single word. All right, I will, I will give a runner up. A runner up to ignored. I would have also accepted changes as the runner up as well. But the real word is around. The reason that word is killing the hook is because If I ask 10 people here what does it mean to turn your profile around, I will get 10 different answers. That means it's subjective. And so you want things that are as objective as possible, AKA require as little interpretation as possible.

[B]

Right?

[A]

So notice the difference between if this is V1 and we say V2, let's just change just that piece. Three months ago, this founder was getting completely ignored on LinkedIn because where are they getting ignored until they made four changes that made their content go viral. So now it's not turned around in general, it's we fixed four changes that did this one specific thing.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Or four changes that turned their profile into a lead generation machine. Now it's not turned around in general, it's four Changes that did this very specific thing. Does that make sense, Tommaso?

[F]

Yeah, no, it makes sense. I think where I was struggling with this is. It's not necessarily true that it got them leads or that it went viral. So that's what I guess I was struggling with because they don't really want either of those. Um, it was more like general engagement from, I guess, peers in their industry. But I guess I could have found a way to make that more objective as well.

[A]

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, there's always, there's always an answer. It's. It's like all roads lead back to avoid gen generalities, avoid subjective language, and try and get into extremely tangible, objective language. So this, and what's crazy, and this is something that a lot of people don't understand about digital writing is that literally this turn their profile around. Like those four words could be the difference between this post getting five likes and getting 5,000 likes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because that is quite literally how people evaluate. Do I want to give this my attention? Am I interested in this? So, so much of the game and so much of the effort has to go into that little hook at the beginning. Now the second, the entire rest of the value, 80% of the value. I don't even need to read the post. All I have to do is just skim the main points. So we optimized hooks for higher reach. We shared their story and mission. We wrote in their own voice. We engaged the audience more. Okay, now there's nothing wrong with this. I think that's what you did, and I'm sure that that is true. And from a formatting perspective, this is great, right? This is totally fine content. But if you're asking, okay, Cole, but how do I not create totally fine content? How do I create really amazing content? Here's the challenge question. This is the secret challenge question for everyone here. Has anyone ever drop in the chat. Has anyone ever read a post before on this topic and they have seen this piece of advice already? We optimized hooks for higher reach. Has anyone ever seen this before? Yes or no? Yes. Okay, how about number two, we shared their story and mission. Has anyone seen this before? Yes or no?

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Number three, we wrote in their voice. Is this groundbreaking advice? Have we ever heard this before? Yeah, we've all heard this, right? We engage the audience more. Has anyone heard this before? Okay, so like, this is. This is where the, the meta of the game comes in.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Because the question to ask, like, now you clearly are executing all the fundamentals, Tommaso. Great. You've You've got. You've got the structure down. Awesome. Okay, now the question to ask is, pretend you have to write about this same topic, position them as a thought leader in their industry. But you can't say we optimized hooks for higher reach. We can't say we shared their story and mission. We can't say we wrote it in their own voice. We can't say we engage the audience more. Now what do you say?

[F]

Yeah, makes sense.

[A]

That is the. That is the craft of writing. The craft of writing is make a list of all the things that everyone else has already said. Now you can't say any of them. Now what do you say? That's the game. Yeah, makes sense.

[F]

Very helpful. Very helpful.

[A]

Yeah.

[F]

I think this is what I needed.

[A]

To hear for sure. Awesome. Yeah. And Andrew dropped it. And this is sort of the secret. This is like, where there's levels to this. But not only is the exercise. Here's what everyone says. You can't say any of that. Now what do you say? But then the exponential version of that is. And what do you say? And how do you say it and name it? Something new? Like, the whole reason why someone like Hormozi has blown up the way that he has over the past four years is because he names and claims everything, literally everything. And so that it's like, it's hard to jump to that.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You got to get the fundamentals and then you got to improve on it. And then like, there's. There's steps here, but that. Just to plant the seed. That is where things are going and. Exactly, Bill. Like talent magnet. Okay, great. Here's how to build a talent magnet. How do you do it in these five steps? How do you remember these five steps with this acronym? Use this acronym to, like. It's all just naming and claiming ideas and saying things in ways that haven't been said before.

[F]

Gotcha. Makes sense. Super helpful, I guess. One last question I had. Unless. Unless you're not sure. Finish it. Yeah. I think it's just a very small tactical question. I guess so. I have a lot of connections from uni. They're quite useless when it comes to LinkedIn. I think, like, more than 20% of my viewers are people that are not ICP or, you know, not helpful at all when it comes to growing my running business. So I guess my question is, because I can kind of get rid of connections on LinkedIn. Do you think that would be useful or it would make sense or do you think it will level up the people I reach at all.

[A]

No, I, that's a. I think at best that would be exceedingly incremental. I don't, I don't think that it's really worth. I mean, the algorithm will sort this through over time for context. Like my connections and followers are a disaster. I mean, and I've never once spent, you know, five minutes going through and trying to optimize that. Like, I wouldn't worry about that. Just focus. If, if you just focus on this, all the problems will take care of themselves.

[F]

Amazing. Makes sense. Thanks a lot.

[A]

Awesome. Great question. Thanks for asking it. All right, we have Makita here.

[H]

Yes. Hey. Hey, Cole.

[A]

All right. How are you? Happy Monday.

[H]

Thank you. I'm okay. How are you doing?

[A]

I'm doing great. I. I saw this question come through and I, I was very excited to, to chat about it, so.

[H]

Okay, good.

[A]

Tell me, is there any other context you want to give me?

[H]

Yes, there is actually. So I just published a book a few months ago. It was a self help book. So just to add context to what I already wrote, it gave me a lot of meaning and purpose. So books, I think, give me that spark, that sense of purpose, as if I'm adding value to the world. So that's. I think that's very important to me.

[A]

Awesome. So what's the question?

[H]

So the question is the more time I spend with pga, even though I took it as a pragmatic approach, because it. Exiting nine to five and being, you know, on my own is also very important to me. But the more I stick with the process, the more dissatisfied I, I feel. My. Like, it just feels like another job, I guess, you know, like outreach sales. And I know this sounds, you know, I don't want to be one of those romantic writers that you always talk about who. I do want to make money too. So it's.

[A]

I don't know. I don't.

[H]

I don't know how to balance those two interests, I guess. And then I saw your fiction substack. I'm like, that's it. You know, that's the kind of thing I want to do. And here's the call, doing all the things. So I don't know, it's just, it feels. I feel a disconnect within me.

[A]

Yeah. So. Okay, so a couple things. First of all, I think it's extremely important to not necessarily look at the decisions that people make that are further along than you and think, well, they're doing that, so why can't I do that? What I mean, what I mean by that Is. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, a couple months ago, I started a substack sharing some fiction that I've been working on. I want to. I want to say very clearly, I graduated from college with a degree in fiction, wanting to write novels in 2013, and I did not write fiction until 2024.

[B]

Okay. Okay.

[A]

So for everyone here, like, this is not me. I'm at the beginning of my journey, and I'm gonna do this thing while juggling 8, 18 other things. When I was building my ghostwriting agency, I did nothing else except ghostwrite for four years. And then when I started ship 30 with Dickie, like, I gave up every single other hobby and interest that I had for years. And so something that I've observed in myself, this is why I. When I saw this question, I was like, this is a fun. A fun one. Something I've observed in myself is that anytime I am confronted with having to build new skills, I notice that the question of, yes, but am I fulfilled? Goes up tremendously. And I think. I think that is because it is so much easier to ask yourself, am I really fulfilled? What is my purpose? How do I do what I love, et cetera, than it is to sit down and confront the fact that you have new skills in front of you and new challenges and new things to do, new ways of thinking. And so the. The most directly that I can answer this question is, it all comes back to, what. What are you trying to achieve over what time horizon? Because I think a lot of. A lot of times people think if I stop doing this thing that I really enjoy, if I don't do it for a day or a week or a month or a year, that means I will never do it. And that's not true. I didn't write fiction for nine years, but now I can write fiction and I can do it the way I've always wanted to, and I can invest a shit ton of money in self publishing a fiction novel, because I didn't do that for nine years. I focused on other things. So it just depends on what, you know, what is your goal? And this I. Something I talk about a lot. And it's a. It's a extremely, like, faulty way of thinking for a lot of writers is in the same 30 seconds, you know, they'll say, I want to do. I want to do this thing because it brings me a lot of fulfillment. But where's the money? It's like, which. Which thing are we trying to optimize for? You know?

[H]

Yeah, it's important to me now I guess that's the question I need to answer for myself.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I. I will tell everyone here very transparently. I made a extremely conscious decision when I graduated from college. And I will never forget the moment. I literally. I was six months out in. In the working world. I had just taken a train home from work after working late. I got home at like 8pm I had been up since 6:30 in the morning because it took me an hour to commute there too. I spent my whole day there. I enjoyed my job. I was learning a lot. I had a great mentor. But I got home at 8pm and I was making, like, no money, living in a little studio apartment. And I had no other hours in the day. I literally sat there and I was like, this might be my life for, like, the rest of my life. And I made an extremely conscious decision where I said, I am going to give up writing for fulfillment and writing for purpose to figure out how to make money first. Because once I figure out how to make money, I will have all the time and energy and resources to write whatever I want. And I've been doing that for a decade. So I just. For everyone here, like, let's not romanticize it, you know, Like, I. I gave up a lot, and I have given up a lot, and sometimes that's what's required. Like you. Yeah, you might not get to work on your passion project for four years if you want to figure out how to make a quarter million bucks a year as a ghostwriter, like, that might be what's required, you know, and so it just depends on what you want to do. Yeah, makes sense.

[H]

Thank you. Have a lot of thinking to do.

[A]

Okay, well, let us know where you land and if you want to talk about it more.

[B]

For sure.

[A]

Thanks, Makita.

[B]

Yeah. All right.

[A]

Do we have Boris? A lot of good questions today.

[B]

Love it. Yes.

[I]

Can you hear me?

[B]

Hello?

[A]

Yeah. Hey, Boris. Happy Monday.

[I]

Happy Monday, Cole. Thanks for bringing me up. Shall I put a little.

[A]

Please do. Yes.

[B]

Okay. Yeah.

[I]

After the last Monday call, I was thinking, oh, my God, I'm all over the place in terms of different topics, in terms of different things I'm doing. But since I put out this question to you, like having a specific niche for my ghost writing and also coming from the place of wanting to build a brand on social and things like that. I more came to terms now that this is all one, but I couldn't bring it to one focus. And I think you just gave it in the conversation before that. Yeah, I want and I need to Learn how to make money. And I have to try different things and juggle what is ever possible in, in that area. But I'm focusing on ghost writing right now to get a start going and will deprioritize every other thing that is not aligning in that sense.

[B]

Right.

[I]

And yeah, I don't know if that's somehow clear what I'm saying.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's what's required. Like I can't, I can't emphasize enough how much getting something to a point of proficiency is.

[B]

It.

[A]

It's not that it's hard. It just requires commitment. And commitment is hard. And so you, the more that you can commit to one direction, the faster you will move in that direction. So I guess, I mean, here it says you're about to write ecs.

[B]

So.

[A]

So these are clients you have in different niches.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

So that's, that's okay, right? I think a misunderstanding that people have is if I have different clients in different niches, does that mean I have to change my niche or does that mean I have to change my positioning? Does that change, you know, my content strategy and. No, it doesn't. You can, you can serve clients in different industries and niches if you want, but I would encourage you to lead with something because it just makes everything else easier. And it sounds like this is what you want to lead with is ghostwriting for orthodontists.

[B]

Right? Yeah.

[A]

Okay, so great. I mean, that's the answer. Like that's what your bio should say. That's what your EC should be about. That should be the majority of your content. You will inevitably attract other types of clients. That's fine, you can serve them, but just keep hammering home the thing that you specialize in.

[B]

Okay. Okay.

[A]

Does that make sense?

[I]

Totally makes sense.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

This is, I. This is what I refer to as, you know, your, your constellation. The constellation that exists around every niche. When I had my ghostwriting agency, I led with. We ghostwrite for startup founders, specifically people who want to position themselves as thought leaders in their industry so they can fundraise for their startup. That was what we led with. But we inevitably ended up attracting CEOs of public companies. We ended up attracting solopreneurs, we ended up attracting celebrities. We ended up attracting tons of people that didn't fit that criteria. That's because in these invisible constellations exist around each niche. You know, so you might specialize in metropolitan orthodontists, but you know, you might end up attracting a chiropractic place right down, right down the street, you know, and that's fine. But yeah, don't. I wouldn't overcomplicate this.

[I]

And content I post would also be focused on that specific niche I'm, I'm hammering out right now.

[A]

Yeah.

[I]

No matter things like how life is going to be great or how our leaders going to excel or whatever.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I would always encourage less super broad topics. More specifically, like how can your entire content strategy be the things that you know and the things that you are learning as a ghostwriter for Metropolitan Orthodontists, you know? So for example, it's like four things orthodontists in the Chicago land area can do to generate more high quality leads for their business. Like, you should just do this like every single day.

[B]

You know what I mean?

[I]

Okay, got it.

[A]

Awesome. Well, good question, Boris. Appreciate you asking.

[I]

Thank you so much.

[A]

All right, do we have Philip? Philip, Is Philip here?

[G]

Hey, Cole. Yeah, I'm here.

[A]

What's going on? All right, we're at time, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna stay after for you.

[G]

I appreciate it a lot.

[A]

Let's, let's dive in. What's, what's your question here?

[G]

I'll give you the quick thing. So basically for me, EC client. So we're running it. CEO, co founder, super experienced and even like in the call, he just hired two new marketing, they're still in probation. Quite junior. In the first sales call, she was also a little bit hesitant. Has a content background and she had objections. And basically at the end, in the first call, the CEO was basically handling all the objections and questions for me and was closing for me. So now I, we're about to launch the EC and I talked with them also. Hey, now we talk about the traffic, getting traffic on the eec, but also finally convincing the CEO to post on social media. And they like realigned everything where they're standing two weeks ago. And then they're like, okay, also we need like a proper process and project delivery for doing so. Then last Friday I had a call with them and basically saying, hey, this is the current situation and we aligned. We need to convince him. And she already does something like this for somebody else in the company. And then I didn't even get to the price. Like suddenly I was like, hey, this is the current reality. And they bashed in saying like, like this is not correct, we're doing like a great job, it's way better than this, etc. Etc. I have a feeling they feel a little bit endangered because, like, I noticed also some other things left and right about what could be improved. The CEO pointed this out. He was like, ladies, I feel like a lot of resentment here from this. And we said, okay, let's postpone to Thursday. And I told him, hey, I have the feeling that you need to align your resources and focus as well. Because he said, ladies, if you do this on top, you have so much to do. And either you do everything and the quality suffers and you. There's a lot. Or you get support for the thought leadership CEO content for him. He is about to do fundraising. So this basically also the angle to focus here. And basically, right now, they, I, I assume, feel endangered I might have framed it the wrong way. And now the question is a what can I do? Like, they talk tomorrow. And now the question is, for example, shall I sidebar this a little bit? Call the CEO tomorrow in the morning and tell them, hey, what I noticed? And also, is there something in between I can do for the Thursday call and how to turn this thing around? Because I have a feeling he sees the value beyond content. He knows that the ladies need some support, but they are quite fresh. And I'm a little bit unsure how to navigate this situation smoothly. So this was like to.

[A]

Yeah, okay. So one is. This is very common. I would say that my. My honest answer is that this kind of isn't your problem. This is their own business and their own company and their own internal politics, you know, and so it's. It's on them to figure out how they want to handle this. The best thing that, like, the only thing that you have control over and the best thing that you can do is you always want to frame it. It doesn't matter if it's internal employees, if it's another agency they're working with, whatever. You always want to frame it as. I am your friend, I am not your enemy. I am additive. I am not subtractive.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

So one of the best things you can do with, you know, the existing people in the marketing team is how can you communicate to the CEO and to them directly? These are things that I can help you with that make your life better.

[B]

Right?

[A]

So it's like, you know, so much of what we talk about is point out the mistake, point out the problem. But when you're dealing with these internal politics, you want to point out the mistake or problem framed as the opportunity and then say, and by the way, I would love to help you with this. I could take this off your plate, et cetera. So I'll Give you a really simple example. Let's say that this marketing team is currently in charge of the CEOs LinkedIn content. And let's say that, you know, that's not what you would be taking over, but you see things that need to be improved. What I would do on the call is I would point that out and I would go, I noticed a couple things in the content. By the way, marketing team, you guys have been doing a really great job. Like, first of all, I really liked this hook on here, right? Sandwich feedback. Go back to third grade, right? I really like this hook. This carousel you met was awesome. Couple things that I think could be improved would be these. And by the way, like, I would love to be a support system for you. So if it would be helpful, you know, I could put together like a notion doc of some proven hooks that I've seen work really well for people and I could send that over to you and feel free to use it if it's helpful. But yeah, just whatever I can do to support you would be great. Like you, the whole narrative is I am not taking away from you. I am not pointing out that you are bad. I am saying how great you are and how much I would love to work extra to make your life better and easier.

[G]

Yeah, try to backfired massively. Maybe also my fault. Now the question is like, on Thursday we have a call scheduled with all like with the CEO and, and the one is responsible for content, one for the trim marketing. And now it's just like do something in between. Is it a good idea to sideburn also talk to the CEO because with him I have a good relationship and whatever. Or just wait for like let them handle the internal politics and on Thursday, just come prepared with like the things that you just mentioned.

[A]

All of these are fine. I wouldn't overthink it. If you have a good relationship with the CEO and you want to send him a text or give him a quick call and chat about it, sure, go for it. I just. Either way, whether you talk to him before, whether it's the meeting on Thursday, it doesn't really matter. It's just you want to proactively communicate to him and to this team. Here are the things that I would love to do to help you. I am your friend. I'm not a threat. I'm not taking anything away from you. You know, I'm not saying that you're bad. I'm not stealing your job.

[B]

Right.

[G]

Okay, then basically the next thing is just like making this way more clear because it might have not been clear in the last one.

[A]

Yeah. But also, I want to remind you, like, a, this isn't your problem, and B, a lot of times if the CEO is bought in, it doesn't matter, you know? And so it's sort of like, are you solving a problem that you might not have, but either way, like, let's pretend that's true and they hire you and the CEOs, like, I want to do this regardless. I would still encourage you to find ways to make friends with the internal team, you know, because that's always the right decision.

[G]

Okay.

[A]

Makes sense.

[B]

Thanks. Yes.

[G]

And I don't want to stretch the time any longer.

[A]

Yeah, don't. Don't overthink it.

[B]

This is.

[A]

It's very common and easy thing to fix. Just be their friend. Thanks. All right, everyone, jam packed Monday. Thanks for staying a couple extra. Real quick before we jump. I love starting the week like this. I feel fired up moving it to Mondays. I like drop in the chat. What's one thing you learned today? What's one thing you're going to implement? One thing that you're gonna take and immediately apply to your own business? Because we can talk about these things all day. I love when I see certain ideas land, but if you don't do anything with it, then what's the point? What are we all doing here? Quality over quantity when it comes to outreach. Name and claim everything. Don't overthink it.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Reframe your role as helping. Yeah. Always. Always. You are not a replay. Educate and articulate on the problem.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

It's okay to delay what I want to do for what I need to do. Yes. Yes.

[B]

And.

[A]

And when your little voice, you know, tries to talk you out of that, you have to remind yourself, oh, that voice exists because I lack the skill to manage that voice in my head. That is a skill. It is not a static state. Great exercise. List all the things that have been said. Now you can't say any of them. What do you say now? I love that exercise. For writing. No effort is a waste. You're always practicing something. You're always learning something. Awesome. Learn the skill of articulating someone's problem. That's.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

That is the skill. That is where all the leverage is. Awesome. Great takeaways. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for showing up. Appreciate you paying attention. And I'm glad some of these things landed. Have a great week. Just pick one of these and implement them. And looking forward to seeing everyone next Monday. All right, See everyone. Have a great week.