My father is subscribed to my email list. (Hi dad)

He reads every single email. That’s a whopping 49 till now!

He doesn’t read them every single day though. He saves a few days of emails and then reads them in batches. It always differs how many he saves and when he reads them.

But I believe there’s a method to his madness.

But just yesterday he was reading his latest batch of emails made by his favorite email writer.

He never said that last part but I’m just going to imagine that to be the case.

One of the emails in his batch was an email from last week where I was talking about How to Train Your Dragon and how the opening scene can help you to create better lead magnets.

After reading it, he immediately stepped into my room and said the following:

And honestly. I loved that question.

First of all. I was ecstatic when I finished writing that email.

It’s one of a few emails with a genuinely original idea of mine. Nowhere on the internet will you find someone who connected these two topics. You won’t find that lesson anywhere else. It’s mine and mine alone.

(That’s the point ChatGPT writers are missing by the way. But I won’t delve deeper into this topic.)

I was proud. I really was.

So getting asked about that showed me it made an impact. It showed me that MY idea had at least some intrigue.

As for my answer?

I simply told him, “I read a lot” and left it at that.

But that’s not entirely true. It’s not the full story.

I don’t just read about topics. I immerse myself in the topic.

I read books, articles, and newsletters. I watch YouTube videos, movies, and series. I listen to podcasts, interviews, and lectures. I even play video games and listen to music almost 24/7.

Entertainment isn’t bad. It’s how you use it that can be damaging.

If used correctly, entertainment is the best thing to observe.

Especially when it’s created by a master of the art.

But the real secret? I do all of these intertwined. I read multiple books at once and listen to multiple podcasts when traveling.

Flood your brain with information from all different sources about all kinds of topics.

And then give it plenty of time to rest and do something with it.

Go on silent walks, get enough sleep, do some meditation, and perhaps even some journalling/brain dumping.

Your subconscious mind will take care of the rest.

PS: On another unrelated note. Yesterday I released and gave away a 7-page pdf explaining everything I know about hosting Twitter spaces.

They’re one of the best and most underrated ways to boost your authenticity and build fans instead of followers.

Check it out here: http://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/TSP

It’s that time again.

I’ve finished reading Lord of the Flies. 

Now, I have this habit where I’m always reading multiple books at the same time. Around 8–12 books to be precise.

It helps me to stay disciplined in my reading habit.

Whenever I don’t feel like reading a certain book, no problem. I’ve got a handful of others to choose from.

No procrastination. I always get my daily reading in.

It also helps loads with being able to make better connections between different topics that I’m reading about.

And as you should know. Making those connections is where the real value comes from.

Which is funny because I used to hate reading when I was younger. But that’s a story for another time.

At any given time I would have 1 main fiction book that I’m reading. My main book for the past weeks was Lord of the Flies.

But here’s the ‘problem’ I had just today.

I only have one other fiction book left on my shelf.

And that’s The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. Which is a HEAVY piece of literature.

I ‘started’ reading it back in February but dropped it quite quickly. The book left me confused and I couldn’t understand much.

Even now when I am forced to resume where I left off. It scared me to see just how many pages I have yet to read.

But then I thought about it in a different way.

There’s actually no difference between reading a book that’s 80 pages vs one that’s 800 pages.

You just read. You read one word, one sentence, one page at a time.

Do you know who taught me that?

Rocky.

It’s what he said when training Adonis in the movie Creed.

“One step at a time, one punch at a time, one round at a time.”

It’s true for boxing. It’s true for reading. And it’s true for all of life.

Even for building your creator business. The aim isn’t to make $10K/month. The aim isn’t to get to 10K followers.

It’s to keep playing the game step by step. One idea, one tweet, one offer, and one client at a time.

We often get blinded by the grand scheme of things. Looking at the peak of the mountain instead of the trail right in front of us.

Take a step back.

Zoom out. Look at the bigger picture, yes.

But don’t stay stuck.

Figure out what you’re lever-moving tasks are. What can you do on a daily basis that’s getting you closer to your goal?

Are you closer to your goal this week than you were last week?

Great. You’re making progress. That’s what it’s all about.

Now excuse me I’ll be reading my book one page at a time.

So get out there and start putting your steps in.

PS: If you’ve got any recommendations for your favorite fiction books. Feel free to reply to this mail and let me know. I’m always open to new suggestions which I hadn’t heard of before.

I’ve been offering consultation calls for a few months now.

And there’s one problem that keeps popping up. Time management.

Everyone has responsibilities outside of Twitter. So how much time can you really spend on building your business and how can you make the best use of your time?

I struggled with this same problem myself early on.

I’d find myself not engaging AT ALL because I had too many other I needed to do.

I’ve also found myself on the other side of the coin.

I had plenty of time, but no idea how to bust use it. I’d open Twitter, start engaging here and there, and before I knew it I’d been scrolling through my timeline for 1–2 hours.

And let me tell you. That’s time not well spent.

There are better lever-moving tasks.

So I started looking into the issue. Which tasks yield the most results? And which tasks do I spend the most time on?

I found I was mostly spending my time engaging with others and replying to all the comments I’ve gotten.

Necessary tasks, yes. But not the ones that will move my business forward.

So next question. How do I reduce the time I spent engaging and replying to my comments?

The answer?

TweetHunter

For those who don’t know. TweetHunter is THE tool all of the biggest creators use to manage their Twitter.

It originally started as a Tweet scheduler, but it’s so much more.

As I’ve hinted. It completely solved my problem of time spent (wasted)replying and engaging.

What took me an hour to do before now takes me 15 minutes max.

Now I don’t know about you, but I like the time I have available to me.

But that’s not the only thing.

TweetHunter has other fancy tools I can’t live without anymore.

• I use it to schedule all of my tweets for the week ahead (I batch-create them every Sunday, another timesaving hack)

• It automatically retweets my tweets 3 times every 5 hours (more reach and engagement)

• It handles all of my giveaways because of its AutoDM feature (I don’t like to send 300 DMs manually)

• It automatically plugs my newsletter under high-performing tweets (the best way to grow your email list)

• It has an insane library of high-performing tweets for you to look through, get inspired by, and study

Oh and did I tell you about the detailed built-in analytics tool?

It’s much better than the Twitter analytics website. And it allows me to examine which tweets performed the best for my business and which ideas I should talk about more often.

Now I could keep talking about how great of a tool it is. But you won’t fully understand and experience the greatness of the tool yourself.

So here’s a proposal I have for you.

I have a gift for you if you sign up through my TweetHunter link and try out the 7-day free trial. (It’s actually a 37-day free trial because it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked)

I’ve mentioned how I TweetHunter to schedule my tweets.

But the cool part is that you can give every tweet a “tag”. And you can create certain times when you can only post a tweet with tag x.

It’s a built-in tool to create your own content plan.

So here’s my offer.

If you sign up for the free trial through my link, I’ll send you the content plan I’ve developed on TweetHunter.

It’s the content plan I’ve been carefully adapting over the last 7 months.

I’ve constructed it to give me the perfect balance between growth, authority, and authenticity. It’s gotten me to 1,800 followers, previously 700 email subscribers, and some good money in my pocket as a creator.

So once again, here’s what you have to do:

1) Sign up for the free trial through the following link: http://tweethunter.io/?via=alexvandromme

2) Reply to this mail with proof (a screenshot for example) that you signed up

3) I’ll send you my content plan that I’ve carefully constructed over the last 7 months that got me to where I am today

P.S.: I’d advise you to do so now because we’re all forgetful creatures. I’m also going to put a 48-hour deadline on this offer, starting from when this email goes out.

The deadline isn’t because I like to torture you by not giving you the opportunity to get my content plan next week. It’s instead because I know how people procrastinate and this makes it more likely that you’ll actually do it. And in turn free up more time so you can focus your efforts and more important tasks that actually move your business forward.

In case you wanted to see the link once more, here it is: http://tweethunter.io/?via=alexvandromme

Ascend 101

Lessons about building a one-person business, writing, and self-improvement

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From Zero to Hero: The One-Person Business Roadmap to Landing Your First Client

Let me start off by saying this isn’t the only way to do things.

There are a multitude of methods and strategies that you can use.

But this is the one I use and the one that has the most leverage to scale in the future. My goal is freedom. My goal is independence.

This is the one that has the most potential to get me to my goals.

I’m known for not liking cold outreach and not spending any time doing so.

Do you want to go down that route without building yourself a personal brand? Perfectly fine. But then this roadmap isn’t for you.

With that said, let’s get into it.

Step 1) Your brand

As I’ve said. We’re going to be building a personal brand.

But what is a brand?

Well first, your brand is NOT your Twitter profile. It isn’t the color scheme in your profile picture, banner, website, or products either.

Your brand isn’t even the type of content you write.

Your brand is your story.

It’s the vision, mission, and values you have. It’s why you’re doing what you’re doing, how you got here, and where you want to go.

That’s what makes a (personal) brand so powerful. And what 90% of people on Twitter get wrong.

They create an account, pick a random color, select a niche, and become yet another ghostwriter, growth coach, email copywriter, graphic designer, or fitness coach.

Only to end up as copies of one another.

But they don’t have a brand. They have a traditional business. A soulless one at that.

People often talk about being “authentic”. Yet fail to be authentic.

That’s because they missed this vital step.

You can’t be “you” if there’s no “you” infused in your brand. Simply sharing your opinion isn’t enough. People have no clue whether you’re actually authentic.

Being authentic means being consistent with the story you’re telling. It means fighting for your values while defending your vision. And doing everything in line with your mission.

You can only “be authentic” when you’ve carefully crafted (and shared) your story, vision, mission, and values.

Step 2) Profile optimization

Now that you’ve got your brand. It’s time to build and optimize your profile.

And please don’t skip this. I don’t care whether it’s right or wrong. But people judge a book by its cover.

So it’s up to you to accept the fact and make your cover as flawless as possible.

A winning Twitter profile needs 3 things:

• It needs to be immediately understood (who you are)

• It needs to offer value (what you do for them)

• It needs to have a unique angle (why they follow you)

How you do this is up to you.

This is an extension of your brand. So play around and use your creative freedom. But don’t go overboard.

Remember that it needs to be clear, not clever.

Don’t worry about getting it perfect the first time around. It won’t be.

You simply need to get your first iteration out ASAP. You can (and will) improve it later on.

Step 3) Your content

Your content drives your business forward.

It’s what educates your audience, grows your brand, and proves your authority.

But first, you need to know what to write about. And, you guessed it, this comes from your brand.

Your real brand. Your mission, vision, and values.

Throughout your journey, you’ll have different goals, obstacles, systems, and benefits from those systems.

These are the things that’ll shape your content.

• You talk about your goals and share why you care about them

• You talk about the obstacles you’ve faced and how you overcame them

• You talk about the systems you’ve used and why they mattered

• You talk about the benefits your current lifestyle got you and how others can get them

If you talk about all of those, you’re already halfway there. The last step for great content is talking about it from different perspectives.

Not all content serves the same purpose after all. You’ve got content for growth, authority, and authenticity.

All of which are important. And all of these can include the same big ideas that we’ve listed above.

Step 4) Building your audience

You won’t have enough followers early on to get eyes on your content just by writing tweets.

You’ll need to work on building your audience. Which you shouldn’t confuse with simply posting content.

We’re talking engaging and networking with other creators. Borrowing their audience, hosting spaces, and even liking tweets of smaller accounts.

The ultimate goal is for your customer to find you. This saves you time, energy, and effort that you’re able to put into other higher-leverage activities.

I won’t go too deep into building an audience in this email. There are 1001 different growth coaches with their own courses to teach you all about it.

Step 5) Crafting Your Offer

This is where the fun begins.

Crafting your first offer. I called it step 5 for simplicity, but ideally, you’ll start doing this from day 1.

There’s not a single reason to wait before you craft an offer. Having an offer from the start makes it easier to grow, in fact.

You need to have a project to work on. Some type of progress to share on the timeline.

You build authority by showing your results. And you can only get results by building something.

The easiest way to know what to build/offer is to start by looking at your own problems and looking for a solution.

Then all that’s left to do is talk about your solution and how it improved your life.

You’ll naturally attract people similar to you who are a few steps behind you and who’ll probably have the same problem in their lives as well.

All that’s left to do for you is to package up your solution into a compelling offer.

Keep in mind the 4 factors of The Value Equation:

• Dream outcome

• Perceived likelihood of achievement

• Time delay

• Effort & sacrifice

Add in some psychological tricks as a cherry on top and we’ve got your offer.

The easiest type of offer to start with is a high-ticket one (freelancing, coaching, or consulting.)

It pays the best, gives you the most amount of experience the fastest, and it’ll be easier for you to build a course/cohort curriculum out of it afterward.

While I’m not covering email lists and newsletters in this email. After you’ve created your offer is the perfect time to create your email list.

It’ll allow you to practice writing copy and it’s so much easier to know what to write about.

Step 6) Getting leads & prospects

Everyone thinks you need a fancy landing page and some sick copy to get leads for your high-ticket offers. (I used to think the same)

But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

It’s all done in the DMs. Even Kieran Drew said so in a recent webinar of him.

And don’t worry. I’m saying you’ll have to send 100 cold DMs a day.

No. I’m talking about sliding in the DMs of your warm audience.

The people who already know and like you. Those who already respect you as an authority and have shown interest in your services through your content.

And no you don’t need thousands of followers for this step. All you need is a few people who engage (like, comment, retweet) with your educational content.

The next step is to get them on a call via my 8-step framework:

• Find someone to DM

• Send the first message

• Transition into uncovering their goals

• Identify the roadblock(s)

• Dig deeper into their problems

• Pitch your offer

• Send a form or calendar link

• Follow up

Step 7) Closing your first client

This is what you’ve all been waiting for in this roadmap.

Closing your very first client. It’s always exciting the first time you hop on a sales call.

But the funny thing is that, if you followed all the previous steps, this is actually the easy part.

Once people arrive at this stage, they’re already interested in your offer. They already made up their mind to improve their situation and get help from someone. That someone being you.

All they want is a bit of information about how things will continue.

Nobody jumps on a sales call without some part of them willing to pay for your services.

You’ll have no trouble closing them with my 7-step closing framework:

• Start the conversation

• Frame the call

• Discover their motivations

• Understand where they are

• Understand where they want to be

• Show them the promised land

• Close’em

If you think you’re at this point and not able to close any of the leads you get. Then you skipped some of the earlier steps.

Chances are you skipped the very first one.

Skipping step 1 turns you into a commodity and people feel no difference between working with you and another person offering a similar service.

The goal is to become a category of one. Where there’s simply no one else who’s able to offer the exact same thing as you.

Wrap-up

I’m going to wrap this up here.

I know I said that I’ll include practical examples of readers who sent me their current situations. And I still intend to do so.

But this mail is already much longer than I anticipated and I don’t feel like turning this into a 3,000-word email.

So I’ll keep the case studies for next week. This way it’ll get its own newsletter issue and go deeper into every single one.

This also means that you can still reply with your current situation if you didn’t do so last week. (and thanks again for those who already did)

So once again. If you want me to look at your situation (and feel ok with me sharing it with my email list) then send me a big picture of what you’re doing right now.

What strategies are you using? What’s your offer? What results were you hoping for and what results are you currently getting? And lastly, what do you think is the biggest obstacle holding you back?

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P.S.

Whenever you’re ready. Here’s how I can help you:

1. Hop on a Clarity Call with me: Remove all of your uncertainty. Get clear on what you have to do, when you have to do it, and how. Let’s get you on the right track to achieving the freedom you deserve.

2. Work 1-on-1 with me: We’ll determine where you stand and where you want to go. Then we’ll devise a roadmap to get you from A to B. And get you there in the next 30–60 days.

3. Download all my products for FREE: Ranging from every resource I ever read to everything I know about content creation. It’s all waiting for you to claim it. Start your journey to financial freedom the right way.

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And if you've got a moment, I'd love to hear what you thought of this edition of Ascend 101.

Send me a quick message – I reply to every email!

It’s 2025.

You arrive back home from your trip.

Before you park your car in the garage, you start to think.

You really made it.

Here you are in your dream car. Living in a home you couldn’t have ever imagined.

Coming back from trips you’d never thought you’d be able to make.

Your mind drifts back to 2 years ago.

That’s when you decided to change.

Life had to change. You had to change.

No more excuses. No more procrastination.

You worked tiresomely on your craft every single day.

You learned as much as you could. You experimented with different methods, frameworks, tools, and platforms.

The beginning was rough. You didn’t know where to go or what to do. But that didn’t matter.

You made a promise. A promise to yourself. A promise to your loved ones. A promise to your family and to everyone who cares about you.

You were going to make it.

Not everyone believed you. Not everyone supported you.

But that didn’t matter. You didn’t blame them either. You knew they simply didn’t understand. They didn’t see what you saw. They couldn’t.

You simply said, “I’m going all-in”.

You showed up day after day. You took it one step at a time.

Becoming slightly better every single day.

Your goal was getting closer and closer.

Soon you achieved your first victory.

You landed your first client. Then your second. Then your third.

Business started to speed up, and you finally started getting the hang of it.

Before you knew it, you were there.

You made it.

You’ve earned financial freedom. You’re able to travel to where you want. Do whatever you want. When you want. And with whom you want.

You’re able to support your family and everyone you care about.

You no longer have to worry about the bill at the restaurant. You simply swipe your card without even looking at it.

You always knew you’d be able to achieve this. But now it feels so surreal.

You look back at the past years of struggle. The hard work and the late nights.

The mistakes and missteps you made.

The people you met on the way. Both those who are still by your side and those who quit.

All of this started 2 years ago.

You still remember the day as if it was yesterday.

A silly little email titled “You made it” popped up in your inbox.

It showed you the possibility of the future. How you’d be able to achieve the life you dream of.

All you needed was a little push. Some clarity and what to do and how to start building your business.

You made up your mind right then and there that you’d give everything you had.

You booked the consultation call mentioned in the email.

You didn’t think much of it at the time. But you said, “F*ck it I might as well give it a go”.

That simple sentence changed everything.

That single call changed the trajectory of your journey.

Suddenly you knew what to do. You knew how to move forward.

The only obstacle left standing in your way was your own inability to act. Your own procrastination.

But that didn’t matter. The roadmap given to you on the call prepared you for the battle ahead.

And look at you now. You’re still, to this day, recommending other people to hop on that same call.

You smile.

Imagine if you had never booked that call at https://calendly.com/alexvandromme/clarity-call

How to Train Your Dragon is a (musical) masterpiece.

It has one of the best, if not the best, opening scene in all of cinema. And it holds the key to creating the perfect lead magnet.

But first. Let me explain what’s so good about the opening scene. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check it out here.)

The opening scene of any film has multiple tasks to accomplish.

It needs to:

• Hook the audience

• Establish the world

• Introduce the characters

• Create the Inciting Incident (the thing that sets the story into motion)

• Set up the final act reveal (some sort of foreshadowing towards the end of the film)

How to Train Your Dragon’s opening scene checks all of the boxes.

But that’s not the impressive part. It does all of this in the first 7 minutes. There’s so much going on in those 7 minutes. Yet it all works and blends nicely together.

BUT. A big but this time because the film deserves it.

That, yet again, isn’t the most impressive thing either. At least not to me.

The real work of art is what the music is doing during this opening scene.

You see. In film music we have a thing called a Leitmotif.

It’s a short musical idea (called a phrase) associated with a particular person, place, or idea that’s repeated throughout the film to represent said particular person, place, or idea.

Think of how whenever you hear the Imperial March you think of Darth Vader. That’s a leitmotif.

Hiccup, the dragons, the people of Berk, the kids, and Astrid all have their own leitmotif. Their own short piece of music.

The purpose of such a leitmotif is to bring unity to a film and to evoke more emotion from the listener.

Imagine if a certain piece of music always played whenever a certain character comes into view. Whether you realize it or not. Your subconscious will create an association between that character and that musical idea.

Whenever something happens to our character. Bad. Good. Amazing. Terrible. Those emotions will be “saved” into the association with that musical piece.

If you were to hear that same piece of music later on in the film. You’ll automatically relive most of those same emotions.

The music in a film essentially has the purpose of telling the same story happening on-screen to your subconscious.

Now what does this have to do with anything so far?

Well in most films a) those leitmotifs either aren’t properly developed or b) they take ages to develop all the motives. And even if they develop the motives, they aren’t always used as well as they could be.

This is exactly what How to Train Your Dragon does perfectly.

Within the first 5 minutes of the film. You’ve heard every single musical idea used throughout the whole film except for one.

You hear the leitmotif of the people of Berk first when Hiccup talks about his city. Next, you hear the leitmotif of Stoic. Then the group of kids, then Astrid. Hiccup’s theme is next and lastly, we hear the dragon’s theme.

And everything blends smoothly together.

The viewer, both his conscious and subconscious, knows what to expect for the rest of the film.

Whenever a piece of music is played. Your mind knows the correct association. Not a single emotion is wasted.

As for the one musical idea that’s missing. That’s Toothless’ theme.

The reason for this is because Toothless doesn’t “belong” there. He’s an outsider.

He’s part of the unknown world.

It’s up to Hiccup to go on his Hero’s journey and step out of the known world and into the known. (this is peak storytelling by the way, not Twitter wannabe storytelling)

Toothless’ theme is only later heard for the first theme when Hiccup goes out to look for him.

The “outsider” feeling is enhanced as well by the use of “strange” instruments that we haven’t heard before so far. Bagpipes.

But I hear you asking. What does this have to do with creating the perfect lead magnet?

This mail is already long enough and I haven’t said a single thing about lead magnets so far. Fair enough.

Here’s the thing.

The opening scene introduces all the musical ideas that the film will later build upon from the very start. All but Toothless’ theme.

This is how you should create your lead magnet.

Introduce everything there is to know about your offer. Teach people all of the topics you’re covering in your coaching offer/paid product/whatever.

Don’t hold anything back.

But the secret lies in 2 things.

First. The topics, frameworks, methods,… you teach in your lead magnet will be used as building blocks in your offer.

This is how you educate your audience to the point of wanting, even needing your offer if they want to move to the next level.

You educate people for free and sell the solution to the problems that arise because of your free education.

Second. Just like Toothless’ theme wasn’t introduced in the opening scene. You’re not going to include the “how” in your lead magnet. The implementation itself.

You should share the “why” in your content and the “what” in your lead magnet.

This is when people have a choice. They can either spend a long time figuring out the exact “how” by themselves for free.

Or they can pay you to teach them the “how”, the implementation.

Now I could go on. But I won’t. It turned out to be a long mail already. Long for a daily mail at least.

This is a perfect example of me following my curiosity, creating a unique perspective, connecting 2 different domains, and sharing it with you.

So if you would do me a favor. Let me know what you thought of this mail.

It takes a minute or two to write for you and it saves me ages of experimentation. I’d appreciate it if you write in to share your thoughts.

Was it too long? Did you like the topic? Was it understandable?

I’d be glad to hear from you.

A week ago I wrote an email in which I shared my love for music, film, and film music.

And as you might have guessed. I received a few questions about my favorite movies and soundtracks.

Now I must mention that I am an absolute Christopher Nolan fan when it comes to filmmaking and visual storytelling.

As for music. How much of a Twitter bro would I be if I didn’t say Hans Zimmer?

It almost seems cliche as of last. But it’s true.

So whenever Hans Zimmer and Christopher Nolan work together. Oh boy you know I’m going to love whatever comes out.

You might be thinking that I’m going to talk about Inception or Interstellar. And sure those are masterpieces.

Don’t get me started about the introduction of the organ to sci-fi film composing in Interstellar. I can talk about it for hours.

But no.

There’s another literal piece of art that’s way too underappreciated. It should deserve 10x the love it gets now.

And that film is Dunkirk.

From beginning to end it does everything perfectly.

Everything it does "wrong”, according to traditional film writing, it does wrong just right.

Dunkirk is a film that breaks all the rules. It’s not centered on the people in the story. The film doesn’t actually make you care about any of them.

There’s no transformation going on. There’s no internal struggle to overcome. We hop from timeline to timeline and from “protagonist” to “protagonist”.

It’s been long said that if Dunkirk were to be made as a novel it would be one of the worst ever written. It simply doesn’t work as a story.

But that’s the power of film.

Everything about it is carefully crafted to tell you the story of the event. Not the people.

It’s not about emotions, morality, or bravery. It’s about scope.

And most importantly of all. It’s about the fear and horror of it all. That’s what keeps the film interesting.

But here’s the tricky part.

Most of the time. Nothing is actually happening.

So if there’s no story being told about people. And there’s not much happening. How does the film keep you interested? At any point in the film, you’re always on the edge of your seat.

Why?

That’s because of the tension. There might not be something happening. But the film is always implying that disaster is going to strike soon.

Part of it is due to Hans Zimmer’s amazing score and his use of a little trick called a Shepard tone.

The other part of it is Christopher Nolan’s excellent visual storytelling and building of tension in the film.

Tension such as bombs falling in a straight line leading up to the character on screen lying in the sand.

Nothing is happening to our character. He’s simply lying there. But you realize that a bomb might fall on him. Yet it never does.

Or when other characters are swimming in the sea with a layer of oil covering the surface. Nothing much yet is happening. But it’s the possibility of it lighting fire that builds all the tension and makes you cling to your seat.

But. And this is the real kicker. And I say this a lot but it’s true.

There’s another little being used in the film. A trick which without it, all the suspense, and emotions might not be as strong as they are now.

And that’s the fact that the enemy, the Germans, is never shown. They are only over referred to as “the enemy”. An invisible and unknown force. Ready to deliver total destruction at any second.

This works because of how we experience fear.

The biggest fear we have is the fear of the unknown. The unknown is the scariest enemy of them all.

You know something’s coming. But you don’t know what.

Who/what is it? What’s going to happen? How will they strike? When will it occur?

The building tension and unending fear are enough to drive anyone mad.

Imagine if you’d see the Germans on the screen at all times. Imagine if the characters in the film were aware of their every move.

Imagine if the Allies had a respected general that had previous experience with/against the Germans. He’d know how they work, what they would do, when they’d do it, and how to emerge victorious.

Suddenly the whole ordeal doesn’t sound so scary anymore does it?

If you were in that situation you would want that general by your side, wouldn’t you?

Luckily you can. Only in this case the goal isn’t evacuating out of Dunkirk and surviving the Germans. It’s building your creator business and creating a better life for yourself. A life of freedom.

And I’m the commander with previous experience in that battle.

Ask yourself whether you want to live with the permanent fear of not knowing what’s going to happen and how to overcome the obstacles that are heading your way. Or if you’d rather be fighting side-by-side with an experienced general who’s able to help defeat the fear of the unknown and overcome the oncoming obstacles.

Reply to this email if you’d rather stand side-by-side with such a general and we’ll take a look at the enemy you’re battling.

Last Sunday I held our weekly Twitter Space.

The space was on how to network as a creator on Twitter. Which is funny because it should’ve been one of my earlier spaces.

It’s such an important topic to talk about on Twitter. The whole road from 0 to 1,000 followers is nothing more than glorified networking. Both in the DMs and in the comment section.

So we got talking. We shared all our tips & tricks. From who to engage with to how to utilize lists and hopping on calls with other creators.

Overall it was a wonderful success. Lots of people showed up. Many came up on stage to ask questions, great stories were being told, and there was more interaction than I could ask for.

But among all the topics that were being discussed. I brought up one specific ‘hack’ no one had thought about before as being great for networking.

That hack was none other than my obsession with bananas. You could say I’m bananas about them.

And almost everyone who follows me knows it. I talk about them all the time.

Now this has a bunch of benefits. Some obvious, some hidden.

The major benefit is how I take up mental real estate in people’s minds. Whenever someone sees a banana, they think of me. Whenever someone thinks of me, they think of bananas.

It’s a great trick to make myself more memorable.

Today’s society is a game of attention after all. Attention is the new currency. And mental real estate ensures that I stay in people’s minds.

Call it a method to reduce “customer churn” if you will.

Now another benefit is that it increases my networking opportunities.

Both inbound and outbound. I can reach out to so many people and they will react with “Oh that’s the banana guy”. And they’ll respond. That’s outbound networking.

It works for inbound as well. I don’t even have to do anything. People will want to talk to me because of the banana thing.

Don’t believe me? Here’s an example of what I think is one of the best DMs I’ve gotten to this day:

So yeah. It works.

It works both ways as well. Because it’s personalized. I’m more likely to respond than to yet another “Hey I like your content how are you?”.

If you didn’t realize the lesson yet.

Think about your obsession. Pick something. Whatever it may be. But pick something and go crazy about it.

It doesn’t have to be special. Eddy Quan has watermelon. Jeff Nippard has kiwis.

Also it doesn’t have to be fruit either. Dan Koe has going on daily walks. Kieran Drew has his OnlyFans jokes. Alex Hormozi has his peculiar “I don’t give a f*ck” outfit and nose strips.

So just pick something. Whatever you like. Don’t worry about it being unique or special. Worry about it being something personal.

Trust me it’ll be worth it.

ps: I’m a curious individual. So reply to this email with whatever it is you’re going to use as your one thing. I’m interested to see what you’re interested in.

Yesterday I posted my weekly long-form newsletter issue. (Check it out here if you missed it)

The email talked about the 3 most important (and only) aspects to consider when troubleshooting why you’re not landing any clients.

It was also the first long-form email I began by sharing a personal story (as far as I remember).

That’s already a victory for me.

I’ve been studying storytelling and sharing a few stories here and there. But I haven’t been incorporating them into my long-form writing so far.

But that wasn’t the only victory.

I ended the email by sharing the plan for next week and asking people to reply with their current (business) situation.

I’ll use those as real-life examples and show how a few simple changes can make all the difference in the business. My article will be more valuable because of it and the people who reply will get a free mini-consultation session.

Win-win for both sides.

And it seems like people liked this idea because I’ve already been getting a decent amount of replies. (I haven’t responded to most of the emails yet, but I have read them. I’m not perfect either.)

One of the people who responded mainly seemed to struggle with closing clients.

And I get it.

Hopping on a sales call is scary. Every nerve of your body is screaming that they don’t want to be there.

You have no idea what to do and no idea what to expect.

What if they don’t like your offer? What if they think you’re too expensive? How are you going to handle objections? What does “objection handling” even mean??

Little by little you’re starting to doubt whether you’re capable of successfully fulfilling the request and carrying out your service.

It’s daunting.

I understand. I’ve been there as well.

Unfortunately I can’t help you to instantly master the art of closing leads on a sales call. That’s something that takes practice. You need to hop on sales call after sales call to build up experience.

But I can help you calm your nerves a little bit by giving you my 7-step closing framework. This will at least help you understand the general flow of things so you know what to expect.

But that’s not all.

I can indirectly help you with getting sales call practice as well.

A good friend of mine Gio Bezhanisvili is new to the coaching space but he has years of experience hopping on sales calls. He’s closed over $100k+ in deals in the past few years.

He knows how the game is played.

And here’s the best part of it. He’s giving out free closing consultations to help you master the art of the close.

Together you’ll go over your closing strategy, analyze your strong and weak points, and develop a specific pitch outline for your offer.

Just send him a DM on Twitter telling him you’re interested in his free consultation. Let him know you found him through my newsletter and he’ll be sure to help you out.

You can find the man himself here: https://twitter.com/GioBallerz

Ascend 101

Lessons about building a one-person business, writing, and self-improvement

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Twitter wasn’t my first gig. Far from it.

I’ve been “in business” for multiple years before that.

My family still tells this one story about me way back in primary school.

My mother would always give me some snacks to eat while I was in primary school. One of my favorites was this type of thin and dry sausage. God I loved those.

I was about 7 years old at the time. And I’ve always been quite shy for most of my life. Every teacher I had would say how quiet a kid I was.

But nonetheless when it came to these sausages I had a plan.

You see my mother would buy a package of 5 of these sausages for about 50 cents.

But I noticed that some other kid was always interested in this one snack I was eating. He didn’t have those kinds of snacks himself.

But he had money. I would sell him one of my sausages every day for 1 euro. That’s a 900% markup.

I was making some sweet bank for a 7-year-old.

But then it stopped. The other kid didn’t want my snack anymore. I tried looking for other people to sell to. But to no avail.

Now this might sound like just a funny anecdote. But this is exactly the problem I see many people struggling with. They don’t know how to get clients.

Which is a shame because that’s what keeps their business alive.

Without clients you have no business. You’re unable to experiment and compare different offers. You’re unable to scale your business. You feel stuck with no hope in sight.

But here’s the kicker. Whenever you’re not getting clients it’s always because of 3 things: The market, the marketing, or your offer.

I can tell you from experience it’s almost always one of the first two. Rarely is the problem a poor offer. You can make almost any offer work as long as you’re in the right market and have the proper marketing around it.

1) The market

Let’s go back to 7-year-old Alex.

What did I do after losing my first customer?

I started asking random kids in my class if they wanted to buy my snack. The problem?

My classmates on average:

• weren’t interested in dry sausages

• wouldn’t be carrying money around

• expected their friend (me) to give it to them for free

• had snacks of their own

I was in the wrong market.

It would’ve been easy to sell my snacks to starving adults at a sports event.

• They had money

• They wanted something to eat

• They’d think it’s cute to see a little boy hustling

2) The marketing

How many clothing brands are there? What about watches? Jewelry? make-up? Alcohol?

How about dentists, doctors, hairdressers, personal trainers, and copywriters?

Let’s not fool ourselves. Every brand (person) in that specific industry sells the same thing as any other brand in the same industry.

But it’s their marketing where they make the difference. The different angles they attack. The stories they tell, the goals they’re working toward, and the values they hold.

Harley Davidson and Ducati both sell motorcycles. But Harley Davidson tells the story of community & freedom while Ducati tells the story of speed & Italian elegance.

Jeff Nippard and Noel Deyzel both sell fitness coaching. But Jeff tells the story of the scientific fitness community while Noel tells the story of him growing up without a father and helping boys become men.

It’s not what you do but who you are and why you do it that matters.

3) The offer

The easiest way of having a good offer is to look at what’s out there (and what’s selling). And just doing the exact same thing.

There’s no need to overcomplicate this part.

As I’ve said. Most of the time it’s not the offer that’s the problem.

I’ve written extensively about offer creation before. Check out the following articles if you wish to learn more about it:

• The Value Equation

• 5 Steps to unlimited value

• Enhance your offer with psychology

Next week

I’m going to be honest here.

I planned on ending this mail with a step-by-step roadmap to landing your first client. But I had more to do this week than I had imagined (and I procrastinated more as well).

So I didn’t get around to completing it. And I don’t want to leave you with a half-assed roadmap filled with errors and gaps.

It needs to be clear and actionable for everyone.

So you’ll get the roadmap next week.

As an added bonus for not getting it now. Reply to this mail with your current situation.

What you’re currently doing. What you’ve done in the past. And what you think is holding you back from landing your first client (or your 10th).

Paint me a nice picture and I’ll include the best examples in the next week’s email as real-life case studies. With a step-by-step guide to improve your situation.

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P.S.

Whenever you’re ready. Here’s how I can help you:

1. Hop on a Clarity Call with me: Remove all of your uncertainty. Get clear on what you have to do, when you have to do it, and how. Let’s get you on the right track to achieving the freedom you deserve.

2. Work 1-on-1 with me: We’ll determine where you stand and where you want to go. Then we’ll devise a roadmap to get you from A to B. And get you there in the next 30–60 days.

3. Download all my products for FREE: Ranging from every resource I ever read to everything I know about content creation. It’s all waiting for you to claim it. Start your journey to financial freedom the right way.

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And if you've got a moment, I'd love to hear what you thought of this edition of Ascend 101.

Send me a quick message – I reply to every email!