Hey Everyone,
Hope you're having a great week. Here are a few things I've been reading, writing and pondering lately. Enjoy!
How to stop doing sales and start building a great agency
My boss Walter Chen just created this course for freelancers and agency owners who want to get away from selling and focus on other things. As Walter says, this is a plateau that most people in service businesses never get past. He explains exactly how he did it and what he learned along the way.
The course is normally $250 but you can use my link (for a limited time) to get it for $125. Learn more and signup here.
1. Forget About Traffic and Start Using Content to Drive Leads and Sales
How many SaaS companies have seen traffic grow steadily while free trials or SQLs stay mostly flat?
The main reason this happens is because the marketing team is too focused on the top of the funnel. Instead, marketing teams should be working closely with sales. This article explains exactly how to go about it.
2. The Pmarca Guide to Personal Productivity
Thanks to my teammate Andrew (the same guy who wrote this great post and built Revive) for sending this my way.
If you have at any point in your life lived a relatively structured existence -- probably due to some kind of job with regular office hours, meetings, and the like -- you will know that there is nothing more liberating than looking at your calendar and seeing nothing but free time for weeks ahead to work on the most important things in whatever order you want.
3. How Will You Measure Your Life?
A few things about this:
- This is a book written by Clay Christensen. He's most famous for "The Innovator's Dilemma" but this book is more applicable for nearly everyone.
- He passed away recently at 67.
- Chirp Audiobooks is currently running a deal on the audio version of the book. It's $3.99 for the next dew days. (Side note: Chirp is a great place to get audiobooks for way less than Audible.)
This is not an affiliate link, I just really enjoyed the book and I think you might too.
4. Podcast of the Week
"129 Cars" is one of my favorite episodes of This American Life. I learned a lot about how car dealerships work and picked up a few sales pointers too.
5. Random Links
- Monster: DC Sniper is another podcast that I've been binging on lately. It's horrific and fascinating.
- Thanks to my teammate Julia for sharing this article about the Scope Triangle, which is a very helpful way to think about project management.
- Pretty Interesting: Utah Wanted All the Tourists. Then It Got Them.
- If you're into crypto, check out Keysheet. It's like rotten tomatoes for cryptocurrencies.
Have a great weekend!
Jimmy
PS - Want to brush up on your content marketing skillz? Check out my course 5 Days to Better Content Marketing. Join 400+ people that have taken and enjoyed it.
PPS - I started a Slack community for content marketers. It's free and there are 450+ wonderful people sharing, learning and looking out for each other. Learn more here.
PPPS - I’ve had some great folks sponsor this newsletter lately. If you’re interested in promoting your product or service to 4,000+ incredibly smart people, reply to this email to chat more.