I am super passionate about productivity hacks. And one of those hacks that I’ve found most useful is batching.  It seems I’m not the only one :) Recently, I bumped into an article about Tim Dorsey (Founder of Twitter) about how he manages his business and life:

In “our” case I don’t want the conversion rate any lower than that. I’m happy with about 50% because our content machine can set up the conversations quite nicely.  As you know, given you’re on our Fubbi email list - we’re pretty consistent with the ongoing content emails and podcasts.  And there’s one thing I KNOW by looking at our numbers…

Today I want to touch on how to build for scale.  Now, of course, scale means different things for different people. So it’s a personal definition. But now matter how you interpret “scale”, the first step to building for scale is always the same… Begin with the end in mind.  Visualise what your company looks like at “scale”. Some things to consider:

In my last couple of emails, I’ve talked about how I maximise my energy and productivity each day. Once the day starts, I’m usually working in sprints. So, I try to work to 50-minute sprints and then take a 10-minute break. But I don’t do that every single time.  Like I have mentioned in my prior emails, I can be undisciplined too!

One of the first things I do is a quick check of email. I know you’re not supposed to do this, but I don’t get many emails in the first place - probably 10 overnight, mostly marketing emails. That’s because most communication from my team comes over on Slack... so I don’t have to worry about getting derailed.  After that, it’s time to start my morning.

Many times over the years, I’ve had business partners, clients, friends, and even family comment on my levels of productivity. Now, that’s not ego. That’s a fact. 

Bottom line: story is the most potent and hypnotic communication framework you can ever deploy! I take the subject so seriously that almost every single communique I create is story based. When I’m not using a story it’s only because I couldn’t find a great story for a specific situation.  But that almost never happens.  Especially when I do speeches. 

There’s a reason that I keep getting such positive feedback from my talks.  And it’s because I prepare like an animal! To prepare I do the following:

In my last email I looped you into a conversation I had with my brother about advertising copy. If you missed that email, you’ll want to read it.  Why? Because I am about to ask you a question (it’s a trick question): Which benefit statement is stronger:

We all want to win.  We all want our target audience to pay attention to us… and not our competition. Especially when we release content or launch campaigns. In a world where attention is getting scarce, this is already challenging. But you can absolutely break through the clutter… if you’re smart :) In fact, I faced that challenge eight years ago.

Today’s email is going to be a quick one. And I’ll kick it off with a question…  Can you position your content as an authority piece... if you’re not an authority yourself? Yep, you can.  And you do so by using the “Halo effect.”

In today’s email I’m continuing on with my series of lessons about Gary V.  Today I am focusing on his comments about getting early onto a social platform. As you may know, he’s huge on getting a presence on new social platforms as they emerge.  Sure, it means you might waste time and resources on platforms that fizzle and die. But it also means you might get early enough on a platform that becomes a monster, such as Instagram.