Ascend 101

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

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The road from 0 to 1,000 followers is the most difficult one.

You:

– lack social proof
– get no eyes on your content
– still have to figure everything out
– feel lost while everyone seems to know what they’re doing

But luckily for you. The solution, while sometimes tedious, is straightforward.

It’s all about engaging with others. Building connections gets you from 0 to 1,000 followers. How much (and how well) you reach out to others determines the speed of your growth.

Engaging and reaching out can be done in numerous ways. Today we’ll focus on one of the most important ones. Sending DMs.

Not only is this the most personal method that allows you to make the deepest, longest-lasting connections. It’s also the foundation for building trust and setting up sales calls. So the more practice you get, the better.

Step 1) Find someone you want to DM

Let’s make it clear from the start. You don’t have to DM everyone you come across. That’d be exhausting and unproductive.

You only want to DM people you:

– are inspired by
– would want to work with
– would want to strategize with
– see potential for mutual benefit with

This also makes you more authentic. You actually have a reason to DM people. You can just be yourself.

Too often people try to DM everyone. People they don’t care about. It’s hard to get a genuine conversation going that way. Trust me. I’ve been there.

Start by DM’ing people that are more or less within your follower range. And work your way up.

Example

– At 500 followers aim to connect with people at 500–1500
– At 1000, aim for people with 2000–3000
– At 5000, aim for 5000–10000
– At 10000, aim for 20k–30k

Where do you find people to DM?

– In the reply area of your favorite big accounts
– In the “following” list of accounts that you like
– In your timeline as accounts your peers engage with

Step 2) Send a genuine compliment

First impressions matter. Be nice. Genuine. And thoughtful.

Send them a piece of content they made that resonated with you and tell them. Share why it resonated and what you liked about it.

Give a thoughtful comment about how their profile looks or what they talk about.

Don’t say “Hey I like your tweets”. Be specific. What tweet? Why? What made it stand out?

Bonus: look for tweets that got less engagement. Even better if you see they were passionate about it. If they put a lot of work/thought into a piece of content and it flopped then it’d be even more meaningful to them if you complimented it.

Step 3) Show interest

Ask them about:

– their goals
– what they’re building
– what they do for work
– how long they’ve been on Twitter
– what made them decide to start on Twitter

The best way to go about it is to imagine you’re at a house party. Introduce yourself to people and start asking questions about them. Don’t be a weirdo and start pitching what you do for work or asking people “to connect”.

Have a normal conversation like you would otherwise. Show you’re friendly and not overly formal.

Step 4) Lead with value

The goal now is to show people you’re not just in it to get something. Whether that be a follow, engagement, or a new client.

Show them you’re a giver. Give without an expectation to get anything in return. We’re here to build goodwill first. A following/a bank account second.

These are your first options:

– See where you can help
– Send actionable tips (tips they can implement immediately)
– Send resources, systems, or videos you’ve created

No matter what you may think. You always have value to give people.

Even if you don’t have enough knowledge about the subject or haven’t created anything. You can always:

– send a resource someone else made
– connect them with someone else in your network
– just continue having a friendly conversation and keep showing interest (too many people on Twitter take things way too seriously)

Step 5) Get on a call to make a deeper connection

I’d like to say this is optional. But this is a real game-changer. It’s easy to message people and start hundreds of conversations. But how many of those are actually meaningful and memorable?

Hopping on calls with people will make a much deeper connection. Seeing each other “face-to-face” is priceless. They’ll remember you like no other. You can show them your authentic personality and mannerism. You can connect so much better.

If you want to make long-lasting connections. Hopping on calls is the way to go.

All you need is a Calendly account:

– Create an event (call it “social calls”, doesn’t actually matter much)
– Fill in your availability
– Send the link to people asking if they’d like to hop on a call sometime soon to get to know each other better

Step 6) Follow up

The initial conversation will eventually die out. That’s alright.

Wait a few days. Maybe even a week. And hit them up again and offer some more value. This could be another resource you’ve found/created. An idea you came up with. Or someone new you’ve met that they’d be interested in getting to know as well.

Example:

– “Hey ____! I remember you telling me about your plans for ____. I found this today and thought it could be useful for you.”

Step 7) Make an ask

Once you’ve built a solid connection. Meaning that you’ve given value to the point where they are ready to return the favor.

Then you can:

– ask them to join a mastermind group
– send them a post of yours that you put a lot of time into
– ask specific questions you have without paying for consulting

If you’re sharing a post of yours hoping to leverage their audience. Be sure that it’s a post they’d want to share. It has to align with their content and the wants/needs of their audience.

Example:

– “Hey man. I just posted this and thought you'd enjoy it. It was inspired by our previous conversation.”

Do not ask for engagement. Let them decide for themselves. They will share it if it’s something they like.

Wrap-up

This is the only 7-step framework you need for building connections through your DMs. That being said. Pitching and selling your offer requires a slightly different approach.

One which is built on a different framework. A framework focused on educating your prospect and moving them up the levels of awareness.

Reply to this email if you’d like to know more about that framework as well. If enough people show interest I’ll make it the subject for next week’s email.

Until then. Have a great week. And start building those connections.

Cheers,
Alex

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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!

Ascend 101

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

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I enrolled in university back in September 2018.

I always excelled in maths, economics, and most of the sciences (except for biology). So with no idea what it meant I enrolled in Business Engineering (I still don’t know).

As the years went on I added more IT-related courses to what I was studying.

Data science was the new hot shit. And I wanted a piece of the pie as well. Machine learning, AI, data mining, you know. All the cool fancy words that everyone loves to talk about but nobody actually has a clue what it means.

This was before ChatGPT and the likes were around. So most of the world literally didn’t know about the existence of those words.

I pretty much had my life all figured out. I would graduate and become a consultant for one of the Big 4 with my expertise being data science.

Like any other student wanting to be informed and secure the safety of their future. I too would often go to networking events and meet with different people from different departments of these firms.

We’d talk about what business culture I could expect and what my average day of working for them as a consultant would look like. I couldn’t help but notice that every conversation with every single person from every single corporation went exactly the same.

They were all duplicates of one another. They all had great working environments. Big paychecks. Wonderful colleagues. And they loved what they were doing.

Some of those claims were true. Some of them weren’t. I don’t think I have to explain which ones were and which weren’t.

I figured I didn’t want any part of this. Working 60+ hour weeks for years. Doing unfulfilling work for other people. Not building something for myself. Looking forward to those 1–2 vacations I can take each year. And doing this until I retired at 65.

No thank you.

The summer of 2022 came around and so I had a lot of free time. I always get a burst of passion for some new skill or hobby whenever I have a lot of free time OR a complete lack of time (which doesn’t help during finals). No in-between.

I became obsessed with both game development & music orchestration during that summer. I spent months learning, experimenting, and creating my own games & soundtracks.

The underlying goal for me was to find a career path where I could be independent and make a living doing something I enjoyed.

Eventually I figured that both these options weren’t the best for making a good living. Looking back that’s not entirely true. But I was missing the knowledge necessary to do so.

After some more digging around I came across SMMAs. Social Media Marketing Agencies. They were a big thing on YouTube at the time. So this led me to become a digital marketing freelancer. I learned everything I could about creating social media & Google Ads (I still have my certifications).

I got a few projects on Fiverr. But that didn’t do it for me. One reason is that I don’t like the business model. Or at least not how most people are being taught how to do it.

The second and far bigger reason is that I’m a creative person. Something that I only realized a few months ago. I need a way to express myself and create something of my own. Creating ads for others wasn’t going to cut it.

I needed to find yet another method to become obsessed with.

You’ve probably guessed it. This is when I came across Dan Koe on YouTube. Everything he talked about resonated with me. I devoured his content and without any hesitation I got started.

I logged back into my old Twitter profile from 2016. Cleaned it up. Deleted the handful of dumb tweets I made. Unfollowed everyone. Quickly made a banner in Photoshop — It was a picture of a road with the text “Start Your Journey” in front of it. I added a new profile picture. And I posted a tweet. It was a list tweet about 5 life lessons going to the gym taught me.

I’ve never gone from idea to execution so fast in my entire life. It wasn’t perfect. Far from it. But I got started.

Within a month of writing on Twitter I knew I finally found it. It just felt right.

Building an audience. Sharing what I learn with others. Helping people achieve freedom in their life. 

This is what I’m supposed to be doing. This is what I want to keep doing this for the rest of my life.

It was right then and there that I decided to drop out of Uni. 5 years of education were already behind me. There’s only 1 year remaining and I would’ve gotten my master’s degree in Digital Business Engineering: Management Information Systems.

But that didn’t matter. I have no use for that piece of paper in my life. It won’t give me the life that I dream of.

Still I’m grateful for all the years I’ve spent in that place. All the lessons I’ve learned and experience I’ve gained. They weren’t for nothing.

I made friends for life. Friends who don’t understand exactly what I’m doing. Friends who probably think I’m crazy for dropping out like this. But friends that are still subscribed to my newsletter and read every mail I send regardless.

I've grown and developed as a person. The person I was 5 years ago and the person I am today are 2 completely different people. I worked on my social skills, my thinking skills, my sales skills, and even my leadership skills.

I wouldn’t take that back. But that season of my life is over now. It’s time for a new chapter.

Finishing my degree would be the safe bet for sure. But it would be a waste of my time and an easy excuse for why I’m not going all-in on building my creator business.

Most people would tell you to play it safe and take the long route. I’m not most people. I’m telling you to take that risk. Fully commit to it.

Light that fire under your ass and force yourself to make it work.

This holds especially true if you’re in your 20s. This is the time in your life when you have to go all in. Try 10 different things and fail at 9 of them. Fail fast and get back up again.

I’ve made the jump and figured out how it works.

It’s your turn to make the same jump right now. But you’re not on your own this time. I’m here to help guide you. You don’t have to struggle like I did. Spending $1,000’s on courses only to struggle to implement them.

Schedule a call with me and we’ll figure out how to get your creator business started so you can start living independently as well.

You owe it to yourself not to give up on your dreams. You owe it to yourself to stop wasting your time. You owe it to yourself to reach your full potential.

Check out how I can help you and decide what’s best for you.

Cheers,

Alex “Make that jump” Van Dromme

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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.

P.P.S.

For those interested, this is the software stack I use:
(These are affiliate links, so if you sign up, I'll get a small referral bonus.)

1. Beehiiv for my newsletter: One of the biggest, easiest, and best providers for people wanting to build their newsletter. A logical choice to make with its abundance of integrated solutions for easy growth. (e.g., an integrated referral program)

2. Tweethunter for everything Twitter: From scheduling tweets to gathering inspiration and engaging with others. TweetHunter has everything you need if you’re serious about building your business on Twitter.

3. Carrd to build my landing pages: You’re building a business. You need simple and effective landing pages for your funnels. Carrd is an easy-to-use website builder that does exactly that.

4. Testimonial to gather testimonials: Simply drop your clients a link where they can leave a testimonial. Gather everything in one place. And embed it on your landing pages as you wish.

5. Ilo for my Twitter analytics (+10% discount): The most advanced Twitter analytics tool and a MUST if you host spaces. Get in-depth knowledge about your audience, what they like, and who they are.

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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!—

Ascend 101

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

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I used to look up to people who could work all day. 10, 12, 15 hours a day. The non-stop grinders.

You probably know who I’m talking about. The real hustlers.

For some reason that’s what society praised — or at least the part of society that I came into contact with.

So I wanted to be one of them

Often times I got really motivated on some project and would work on it non-stop for a couple of days. Until I eventually got tired of it and quit entirely.

I didn’t want it enough apparently. Otherwise I too would keep working these ruthlessly long hours day after day.

This back and forth of trying new stuff, going all-in, and quitting because it felt unsustainable eventually led to me not doing anything at all for quite a while.

Slowly but surely I started to think about this bizarre cycle in my life.

Was this the way it was supposed to be? Maybe I haven’t found my passion yet. Maybe I’m not designed to do this. Maybe I’m the problem. Am I the problem?

I found out that this was a common occurrence with countless others as well. Surely we can’t ALL be the problem. There had to be something else.

This led to lots of research and experimentation. But after about a year I ended up right here on Twitter where I started writing.

No longer did I believe that working 80-hour weeks was the most admirable thing to do.

No longer did I believe you had to sacrifice your relationships, your youth, your time, and above all your happiness if you wanted to be successful.

No. I could build my business while working less than 3 hours a day.

Why longer isn’t better

Some of you might be wondering, “Alex you have far more time, why do you limit yourself to only working 3 hours a day?”.

And well that’s because it’s optimized this way.

Let me explain.

Parkinson’s law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

Aka. If you were to give yourself 5 hours to do something. It’d take 5 hours. Give yourself 3 and it’d take 3. More isn’t necessarily better.

To add to that. People often measure their productivity by tracking the time spent working.

Which is a flawed metric. If I complete 3 tasks in 1 hour. Am I less productive than someone completing 1 task in 3 hours?

Of course not.

This is where you have to reframe your own beliefs about work.

What matters is not how long you spend working. What matters is the quality of the work you do. For the informed readers, yes I’m going to talk about Deep work.

Deep work refers to the ability to focus without distraction on a complex task. It gets you into a flow state. Your creative energy and mental power is at its maximum. Performing deep work gives you the best results.

But there’s a caveat. Most people can’t perform more than 2–3 hours of deep work a day. Most highly trained professionals can’t perform more than 4 hours a day.

In short: working longer than 3 hours would be less optimal. And you also need to give yourself rest to recover your mental capacity and perform as best as possible the following day.

Meaning that working longer hours isn’t only less optimal. It’s counterproductive.

My personal system

So how do I structure my system?

As you might know by now. I’m not a big fan of very complicated systems and complex stuff in general. I like to keep everything as simple and minimalistic as possible.

Yes I might be able to optimize certain aspects of my life even more. But why should I? There’s always a pay-off. Let us stop overcomplicating the world and enjoy the simplicity of everyday life.

With that in mind, my system is straightforward. I start off by writing for the first 2 hours of my day. Every day.

I wake up. Maybe drink a glass of water. Look outside. Get some sun in my eyes — if there is any. Turn on my PC and start writing.

What I write depends on what day of the week it is.

Monday: write Tuesday’s thread
Tuesday: free to choose
Wednesday: write Thursday’s thread
Thursday: work on a product/giveaway
Friday: free to choose
Saturday: write my newsletter (this one)
Sunday: write & schedule my tweets for the next week

The most important parts of my system are the weekends.

The newsletter is the foundation of my content. This gets my brain thinking about different perspectives and potential ideas to expand upon.

And Sunday is when I write out all of my results, experiences, thoughts, ideas, and discoveries that I’ve made throughout the week. Condense them down into the core message. And convey them as best as possible in an eye-catching format limited to 280 characters.

That’s why my content might differ from week to week. It reflects what I’ve been working on that week. Which is another added layer of added authenticity and a great way to work if you ask me.

The moments where I’m free to choose what to write about can be for everything. I could help my future self out by already making an outline for my newsletter. Or I could work on some copy for my landing pages.

Whatever fits me at that moment in time.

“But what about the other hour Alex?”

Yes what about it? This is for the other parts of the business.

• Engaging with other tweets

• Replying to comments

• Responding to DMs

That type of stuff.

Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes. Sometimes an hour. But never longer.

Sometimes I skip it entirely for a day. Crazy right?

And that’s about it.

I fill the rest of my day reading books, learning new skills, talking to friends & family, enjoying the weather, working out, and just trying to enjoy my life as much as possible.

If you want to be someone online, you have to be someone offline as well.

I hope getting to know my system helps you gain some useful insights to create your own.

In case you still have some uncertainty and want to discuss it with me in more detail. Don’t hesitate to schedule a clarity call with me.

I’m always happy to help you develop a fully functioning system/routine according to your needs.

Cheers.

Alex “don’t overcomplicate it” Van Dromme.

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P.S.

If you’d like more help, I’ve got your back:

1. Hop on a Clarity Call with me: Remove any and all uncertainty you might have. 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. 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.

---

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!

Ascend 101

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

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I held 3 coaching sessions last week. They went great.

Wonderful people, with lots of potential, bright ideas, and amazing visions.

Lots and lots of potential.

But one thing stood out to me.

They were lost.

They didn’t know what to do. Where to go. Or how to get started.

And I felt that. Strongly.

Why?

I’ve been there as well.

When I first came to Twitter I gave copywriting a go.

I spent $1,738.72 on all the books and courses I could get my hands on. I filled my days reading, researching, and writing.

Doing everything I could to hone my skills.

I then tried getting clients and making some sweet sweet cash.

But nothing happened.

I had no idea what to do. I barely had an audience. I didn’t have any proof that I could write copy.

Who was I to make money doing something I had never done before?

I was lost.

Perhaps this sounds familiar to you as well.

So what’s the problem here?

I was following standard Money Twitter advice

And let me get you in on a little secret:

90% of people shouting about what to do on Money Twitter don’t have any clue themselves.

They repeat the same boring advice that everyone else is giving, not knowing that the advice they’re sharing doesn’t work.

Trust me, I learned it the hard way.

I learned it through trial & error. Mostly error.

And I don’t want you to have to do the same.

I’m here for those who haven’t yet found their way.

While I do have my coaching offer. I realize not everyone has the cash to spend $500, especially not when just starting out.

Because of that I’ll be holding 1-1 clarity calls.

These 60-minute sessions aim to remove all of your uncertainty and get you on the right track to actually build your business and enjoy the freedom you deserve.

It’s my personal mission to overdeliver with everything I do. And this is no exception.

Check it out here

Who is this for?

This is for you if you:

• Want to get clarity

• Can’t seem to grow your account

• Want to speed up your learning phase

• Are ready to build your creator business

• Feel like you haven’t found your inner potential

• Have an audience but don’t know how to monetize

• Know you have something to offer but don’t know how

I’m against over-complicating everything.

And this is no different.

Don’t make your journey any more difficult than it has to be.

Remove your uncertainty now

Cheers,
Alex.

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P.S.

If you’d like more help, I’ve got your back:

1. Hop on a Clarity Call with me: Remove any and all uncertainty you have. 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. 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.

---

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!

Ascend 101

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

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If you’ve been on Money Twitter (as the cool kids call it) for a while you’ve undoubtedly come across people talking about ‘storytelling’.

But what do we mean when we say 'storytelling’?

No, we aren’t all secretly in the fable crafting business.

True storytelling is all about sharing personal stories.

They have to be personal. Because the aim is to build a deeper connection with your audience.

We tell stories to express our hardest, best, and most authentic truths. To share our deepest desires and greatest fears. To build trust and a feeling of resemblance with everyone.

Storytelling is the single greatest skill to have. It has been used to win elections, build fortunes, and conquer nations.

Let’s dive into the wonderful world of storytelling.

Everything changes

Let’s start off with the number one most important rule of storytelling.

What constitutes a story to begin with?

Is it that time when you got blackout drunk and woke up missing a tooth?

You might think it’s a funny story. And while it certainly can be entertaining.

It’s not an actual story.

It doesn’t hold any intrinsic meaning.

A real story revolves around change.

You must start out as one version of yourself and end as another.

That change doesn’t have to be huge. It can be as minuscule as realizing you liked bananas more than you originally believed you did.

But something had to change.

Every story is a transformation story.

This is also the key concept of your story.

Every great story revolves around one moment where something changes.

If I were telling the story about how I came to love bananas, it would be nothing more than a 5-second moment of how I came to realize it.

And I’d package that story with carefully chosen events that lead me to this moment.

Pay attention next time you’re reading a book or watching a movie.

Even your latest 3-hour-long Hollywood blockbuster is nothing more than events leading up to a 5-second moment changing the protagonist for good.

You ARE the main character

Every story you tell should be about you.

Don’t tell stories you’ve heard about other people.

Your audience doesn’t care about others. They care about you. They’re your audience.

Do you want to tell a story about how your brother fell into the lake during your camping trip? Sure go ahead. But tell it from your perspective.

Describe what you remember, what you saw, and how you felt.

Why wouldn’t you tell your stories?

Are you telling the stories of someone else because you’re not interesting enough?

Let me tell you otherwise.

You have a lot more stories to tell than you can imagine.

Your Turn

It’s time for me to give you some actionable steps once again.

Think about moments in your life. Anything really.

Think about experiences that affected you, memories you keep holding onto.

Occurrences you don’t want to forget.

Write them down.

Next try to pinpoint what your 5-second moment is.

What was the change that occurred?

Try to be as specific as possible.

Last think about what events came prior and craft write out your story.

I probably gave you enough content material for the next weeks (if not months).

You’re welcome.

Wrap-up

If you can’t tell already.

I’m having fun writing these newsletters, exploring different topics, and sharing my thoughts about them.

I’m well aware jumping into storytelling can feel awkward and weird for some of you.

But trust me. You’ll soon get the hang of it.

And It’ll be worth it.

Let me know how you’ll incorporate storytelling into your life and if you want me to delve further into how to actually craft your story.

Until next week.

Cheers,
Alex.

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P.S.

If you’d like more help, I’ve got your back:

1. Book a 1:1 coaching call with me: We'll talk about how you can start building your one-person business and set you up for success in the long run.

2. 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.

P.P.S.

For those interested, these are the most important pieces of software I use:
(These are affiliate links, so if you sign up, I'll get a small referral bonus.)

1. Beehiiv for my newsletter: One of the biggest, easiest, and best providers for people wanting to build their newsletter. A logical choice to make with its abundance of integrated solutions for easy growth. (e.g., an integrated referral program)

2. TweetHunter for everything Twitter: From scheduling tweets to gathering inspiration and engaging with others. TweetHunter has everything you need if you’re serious about building your business on Twitter.

3. Carrd to build my landing pages: We’re building a business, not a blog. We have a need for simple and effective landing pages for our funnels. Carrd is an easy-to-use website builder that does exactly what it needs to.

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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

Ascend 101

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

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Would you believe me if I told you that you could increase the value of your offer tenfold without changing anything about the offer itself?

If you do great.

If you don’t also great.

Because I’ll not only convince you. I’ll also show you exactly how to do so.

This is a 4-minute read.

Enhancing your offer

There’s only so much that you can improve your offer to make it valuable if we’re talking about logical solutions.

But that’s a whole different game if we introduce psychological solutions to the mix.

All of the methods that we’ll discuss today are purely psychological.

They don’t change anything about the offer itself.

They change something about the perception people get from your offer.

They change how people perceive the 4 factors of the value equation.

Scarcity & Urgency

Do you remember the last time you bought something online?

Chances are there was a message saying how many items still remained in stock.

My last purchase was another book from Amazon. And sure enough, there it was.

“3 left in stock”.

I didn’t want to miss out on this book. Imagine if someone else buys it before me and I have to wait another few weeks.

So I bought it.

That’s scarcity in action.

Scarcity refers to a shortage of supplies. Whether artificially created or not.

Some people even apply scarcity to their online products. Acting like the ebook they’ve created will run out at one point.

But that doesn’t matter. They’ll only sell 100.

This makes you more inclined to buy the product.

Why is that?

People want to have what others cannot.

It’s human nature.

Urgency is the exact same thing but time-related.

Think of time-limited promotions or discounts.

“50% off my product until next week”

Both scarcity & urgency force people to act now or they’ll have to miss out forever.

And people generally don’t want to miss out.

Bonuses

Bonuses come down to one single rule:

A single offer is less valuable than the same offer broken into its component parts and stacked as bonuses.

This is because people perceive the same offer as having more included.

Imagine you help people lose weight and build muscle. You could call it “Fitness coaching“and leave it at that.

Or you could mention extra bonuses such as these:

• Personalized meal plan

• DIY Grocery Calculator

• Telegram access for questions

• 5 min guide on cooking high-protein dinners

• Access to our VIP gym space

And suddenly our offer becomes a lot more valuable.

Guarantees

One of the biggest objections people have is risk.

They aren’t sure if they’ll achieve the dream outcome they’re hoping for.

This is where guarantees come in.

It’s your method of risk reversal.

There are many different types of guarantees you can use. and each one serves its own purpose.

I’ll list a few to get you started.

• No questions asked refund guarantee

• I will achieve X for you in Y time or I’ll keep working for free until I do

• I will help you [make your first sale, build your first website, …] and you don’t pay me until that happens

• You pay me X% of the extra profit you make because of my service

Adding a guarantee can guarantee that people will purchase your product if you choose the right one for your offer.

Naming

Imagine you’d like to lose weight and you come across these two offers:

• Calories Counting Course by Bob

• Free Six-Week Lean-By-Summer Challenge

You’d choose the second one, right?

Even though they are in fact the exact same offer.

The challenge is nothing more than you going through Bob’s course about counting calories which takes six weeks to complete.

That’s the power of naming.

Next week

We’ve had a wonderful few weeks talking about everything related to offer creation.

But there are a lot more amazing and interesting topics to cover other than offer creation as well.

Next week you’ll receive an exciting email about the power of storytelling and why every entrepreneur should master the art of telling great stories.

Cheers,
Alex

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P.S.

If you’d like more help, I’ve got your back:

1. Book a 1:1 coaching call with me: We'll talk about how you can start building your one-person business and set you up for success in the long run.

2. Download all my products for FREE: Ranging from every resource I 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.

---

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!—

Ascend 101

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

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Hey friend!

I’m here with a quick update just for you.

We’ve reached 1,000 followers on Twitter and that calls for a celebration 🎉🎉

To celebrate I’ve decided to give 10 creators the chance to hop on a 1:1 coaching call with me. (for free!)

Sounds good already? Go here to apply: giveaway.alexvandromme.com

Not sure what to expect?

We’ll hop on a call and talk about your vision of the future and which goals you want to reach in the next 60–90 days.

Next we’ll take a look at the current obstacles along your path and how to overcome them.

At the end of our call you’ll have your own personal roadmap with detailed steps on how to grow and monetize your account.

We can and will cover topics including:

• Audience Building

• Personal Branding

• Content Creation

• Monetization

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in be sure to apply now: giveaway.alexvandromme.com

The winners will be notified by email before May 15. But the selection will happen even sooner.

So apply as soon as possible if you want to get a chance at landing a free coaching spot.

Over 30 people have already beaten their procrastination and taken a shot at jumpstarting their creator business by applying.

I know you can do this too.

»»»»»»» Third time’s the charm so click here to jumpstart your creator business

Cheers

Alex “get your ass in here” Van Dromme

Ascend 101

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

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Last week I asked you to vote on the topic of this week’s email.

The results were equally distributed between the topics.

As to not overwhelm you with only offer creation I’ve decided to switch it up this week.

My goal is to help you build a business while working less than 3 hours a day.

To do so you need a good workflow, and even more important, a good tech stack.

Let me show you what you need to make that goal a reality.

This is an 8-minute read.

My software recommendations

Running a business can feel overwhelming.

But with the right tools everything becomes 10x easier.

The best part? Almost all of these are free to use.

We live in the digital age. The internet has given us so many new opportunities.

Everyone can start their own business for free from home. There’s nothing holding you back anymore.

Let’s see what I use to build mine.

(Some of these will be affiliate links, so if you sign up, I'll get a small referral bonus.)

Tweet Hunter

This is the foundation of my business.

I absolutely cannot live without Tweet Hunter anymore.

Everything I do on Twitter happens via Tweet Hunter.

From tweet scheduling and in-depth analytics to a fully functioning CRM where I can engage with others and reply to all the comments I’ve gotten.

Imagine opening Twitter and you see that you have 247 comments to reply to.

It would take ages to complete. But not with Tweet Hunter. It nicely lines up everything. All you have to do is write a reply and press enter.

Let alone the power of the auto DM feature.

Simply write a tweet mentioning that people have to reply for you to send them something valuable, enable the option, fill in the DM you want to send, and voila.

You get a ton of engagement and you don’t have to send a single DM yourself.

That’s how all those giveaways are done if you were wondering.

All-in-all a wonderful tool that I’d suggest anyone gets from day 1.

» Start Your Free Trial Here «

Beehiiv

Have I told you that email is king yet?

Well it is.

There’s nothing better and more effective than having your own email list.

You should know. You’re reading mine.

For those that hadn’t noticed yet. I use Beehiiv to host my newsletter.

Why do I prefer Beehiiv over something else like ConvertKit?

Scalability.

Beehiiv has the better platform and UI to start with. They also offer web hosting from the get-go. Which is important for content repurposing.

They also offer more growth-focused features that really benefit you as a starting creator.

ConvertKit is nice for established creators who want to play around with more complex funnels. But even then it’s so much more complicated to set up.

On top of all that. Beehiiv is absolutely free for up to 2,500 subscribers while ConvertKit only allows you to go up to 1,000 subscribers.

What about after your 2,500 subscribers? Well then Beehiiv is a measly $42 a month. You’ll be making far more than that every month if you have 2,500 subscribers.

You’d be stupid not to accept such a deal.

» Click Here To Create Your Free Beehiiv Account «

Calendly

This one is self-explanatory.

I need a way for people to book a call with me.

It’d be a nightmare if I had to send messages back and forth in the DMs to decide on a time when both of us were available.

Calendly does this for me.

All I have to do is fill in when I’m available and connect it to both my calendar and my Zoom or Google Meet account.

Now people can choose a timeslot and it automatically schedules everything.

I show up to the call and that’s that.

It’s also free forever. There are upgrade plans, but those aren’t necessary for everyone.

» Click Here To Get Started «

Carrd

You need a landing page (or more).

You might have web design experience. That’s great.

I don’t. But I don’t have to because Carrd is an easy-to-use web builder.

It’s also entirely free. If you’d like to upgrade to more additional functionalities it’s only $19 per year. (That’s not a typo. It is in fact per year)

Carrd focuses on single-page websites (landing pages) so as to not overwhelm both you and the visitor with other pages that might steal their attention.

Perfect for maximizing conversions.

» Start Making Your Landing Pages For Free «

Stripe

Another self-explanatory one.

You want to get paid. Stripe allows you to do so.

You can send invoices, payment links, and integrate with thousands of other tools to automate everything.

It also automatically creates invoices and receipts. Which makes your job a whole lot easier.

If you need anything payment related. Stripe has got you covered.

You only pay a small fee every time you make a sale. So no unpredictable costs.

» Start Receiving Money «

Gumroad

Gumroad is amazing.

You can host your products, courses, services, or memberships on their site.

Everything you offer can be done through Gumroad.

Again everything is free of charge, they only include a small service fee.

Better yet, you don’t even need your own products to start selling.

Simply create an account and you can start affiliating with other people’s products.

This is a great way to start earning when you have an audience but you don’t have your own product to sell yet.

» Create Your Account Here «

Zapier

This is one of the most advanced tools on here.

Zapier allows you to connect all of your other tools and create workflows. Zaps they call it.

All with the intention of automating actions you otherwise have to do yourself.

Connect Twitter with Discord or Telegram to automatically share your tweets.
(You can go extra advanced and make a workflow to automatically repurpose your content to other platforms)

Connect Calendly with Slack, email, or even text message anything really, to notify you or others whenever you have a new lead.

Again it’s completely free for basic consumption which is more than enough for most people.

» Start Automating Here «

Testimonial

Building social proof is one of the best choices you can make.

One way to do it is by collecting testimonials from people you’ve helped.

This allows you to share it on your landing pages or even on your social media.

Testimonial is a perfect tool to do this with. Simply send someone your link and they can fill in a testimonial of how you helped them. They can choose between text or video.

All of your testimonials get neatly saved together and you can then reuse them to share wherever you want.

The feature that makes this all worth it is that you can integrate your “wall of testimonials” into the landing page you made with Carrd.

Testimonial is entirely free to start with.

They allow you to collect up to 10 testimonials for free. Once again, by the time you’ve collected 10 great testimonials you’ll be making more than enough to upgrade to a paying subscription and start collecting even more testimonials.

» Start Collecting Testimonials Here «

Grammarly

Last but not least we have Grammarly.

Some people have this belief that great writers don’t need a writing tool.

But let me tell you otherwise.

I’m not a native English speaker myself. And chances are you aren’t either.

And even if you are, we all make spelling mistakes once in a while.

So do yourself a favor and get the Grammarly plugin to spellcheck your writing.

Nobody wants to make embarrassing spelling mistakes.

You don’t even need Grammarly premium.

I use the free version myself and that’s more than enough.

Again, it’s to get rid of those embarrassing spelling mistakes (it even corrected ‘embarrassing’ for me just now). Not to improve the style or voice of your writing.

» Never Make Spelling Mistakes Ever Again «

Wrap-up

I hope it hasn’t been overwhelming.

If you have any questions about any of the tools that I mentioned feel free to reply to this mail.

I’ll gladly clear up any questions you might have and help you set everything up.

Next Monday you can once again expect an email about offering creation.

We’ll discuss how to increase the value of your offer up to 10x without changing anything about the offer itself.

We’ll cover all the fun psychological tips & tricks.

Stay tuned!

Cheers,
Alex.

---

P.S.

If you’d like more help, I’ve got your back:

1. 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.

2. Book 1:1 coaching with me: We'll discuss your goals and the obstacles you’re currently facing. Afterwards we’ll build and follow a roadmap so you can reach your goals in the next 3–6 months.

---

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!

Ascend 101

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

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Last week we looked at the theory behind what drives value in an offer.

I gave you some action steps to think about. But that was about it for practicality.

Today we’ll utilize a more hands-on approach in creating your Grand Slam Offer.

I’ll try to keep this one as short as possible as well.

This is a 4-minute read.

Creating Your Grand Slam Offer

By now you should know what the dream outcome of your customer is.

In case you missed last week’s, email click here.

This is important because that’s where our whole process starts.

Problems

Ask yourself, “Which obstacles is my prospect facing when trying to reach their goal?”

List out every single obstacle you can think of.

The more, the merrier. Every obstacle for your prospect is an opportunity for value.

Pro tip: Think about the four value drivers. Chances are every obstacle/limiting belief will revolve around their dream outcome, their likelihood of achievement, the necessary amount of effort & sacrifice, or the time needed to reach their goal.

Solutions

Now comes the fun part.

For every obstacle you’ve written down. Write a solution.

It’s not necessary to explain how you’re going to create that solution. But simply write what the solution should look like.

Example problem: “Creating daily content for my one-person business takes too much time.”

Example solution: “How to create content in less than 1 hour a week.”

Delivery Vehicles

This is the step where we’ll fill in our solutions.

Think about the previous example.

How to create content in less than 1 hour a week.

How can we create such a service/product?

There are lots of ways we can do this actually. Think about anything you could possibly do.

You don’t have to do it. But you could. List out as many ways as humanly possible.

Examples:

• I create your content

• I teach you how to combine & repurpose your old content for infinite idea generation

• I give you access to my Notion content creation template to simplify your process.

• I outsource your content creation to an external organization

• I organize weekly group sessions where everyone brainstorms to make content together

• I give you a pdf I made with 500 content creation prompts, questions, and templates to inspire you for your own content

• …

As you can see there are lots of solutions.

Trim

If you followed every step of the way you now have a huge list of solutions (and how to fulfill them) for every single obstacle that your prospect might encounter.

Not all solutions are created equally though. So we’ll now take a look and trim the list.

We only want to keep the solutions that are high-value and low-cost to us.

While "I create your content” is a good solution. It’s not sustainable over the long term and will not allow you to expand your business. It’s a high-cost solution with low leverage.

Final Step

There we have it.

We have a list of obstacles. Completed with their solutions and the best way for us to solve them.

All we have to do now is bundle them all up together into one big offer.

Our Grand Slam Offer.

As an added cherry on top you could give your bundle a nice & sexy name.

Example: Content creation service → How anyone can create content, build an audience, and monetize all while still working your 9–5 ($2,497 value from saving 20 hours a week!

Next week

This time I’m interested to see what you want to read.

The past 2 emails have been about offer creation and I don’t want to overwhelm you with this one topic.

Beneath you’ll find a poll for 3 different topics that might be worth covering.

Let me know what you’d like to read most by clicking on one of these links!

Cheers,
Alex.

---

P.S.

If you’d like more help, I’ve got your back:

1. Book a 1:1 coaching call with me: We'll talk about how you can start building your one-person business and set you up for success in the long run.

2. Download all my products for FREE: Ranging from every resource I’ve 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.

---

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!

Ascend 101

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

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I’m a big Alex Hormozi fan.

Chances are, you’re a big fan as well. And no wonder.

The guy makes incredible and valuable content and knows damn well what he’s talking about.

There’s one quote in particular that I really like.

“You only sell because you don’t know how to market and you only market because you don’t know how to build a good product.” — Alex Hormozi

This quote is the reason for my business philosophy.

You all know my stand on cold outreach. It’s not necessary.

If your goal is to ‘get rich quick’ and make a lot of money, sure go ahead. Send those 100 cold DMs or emails a day.

If the goal is freedom, however, spend your time on your lever-moving tasks.

Building an audience & creating a good product.

Today's mail will be about the latter.

This is a 6-minute read.

Offer Creation

Let’s get one thing clear.

The goal of a business isn’t to make as many sales as possible. The goal of a business is to make as much money as possible.

You want to sell your products & services based on Value not on Price.

Competing on price is how you get commoditized and sets you up for failure.

You’ll offer the same product as everyone else. Lower your prices to such an amount that you barely break even. All to compete with every other firm that does the same thing.

And everyone ends up dead broke.

No our goal is to sell in a category of one with no comparison.

We create an offer so good that people feel stupid saying no. And at a premium price.

How do we do this you ask?

With our good friend the Value Equation.

Value Equation

The Value Equation is composed of 4 factors:

• Dream Outcome

• Perceived Likelihood of Achievement

• Time Delay

• Effort & sacrifice

We want to increase the first two and decrease the latter two.

Tip: The latter two have higher leverage so we’ll focus more on decreasing those.

1) Dream Outcome

The dream outcome is all about what the prospect wants to achieve.

Remember: Our goal isn’t to create desire. It’s to channel that desire through our offer and monetization vehicle.

As copywriting 101 would teach us: talk in terms of benefits, not features. Don’t sell the plane ticket, sell the vacation.

You don’t sell a ghostwriting service by saying, ‘I’ll write you 3 tweets a day, 2 threads a week and I’ll send 50 DM’s to qualified prospects.’

No you say, ‘I’ll get you your first 10,000 followers in 3 months. I’ll make sure your pipeline is filled with leads so you’ll get AT LEAST 2 booked calls a day.’

Action step: Paint a clear picture of what prospects will achieve if they buy your product or service. Talk in terms of how their life (and status) will improve.

2) Perceived Likelihood of Achievement

This is where a lot of people go wrong thinking they have to keep all their ‘juice’ hidden behind a paywall.

No you don’t.

People pay for certainty.

You can share everything you know. But people will still pay you to do it for them because chances are, you know how to do it better.

The chances of them reaching their goals are higher if they let you take the steering wheel.

Action step: Prove your authority and competence by sharing testimonials, case studies, and addressing how you tackle common objections people have.

3) Time Delay

The faster people achieve their goals, the more they value your product or service.

It’s not always possible to decrease the time delay. You can only lose so much weight in a certain time frame.

But you can make it feel faster.

If you’re helping someone get a bigger and more consistent lead flow of qualified clients.

Go extra hard on marketing in the first month. Let them experience a fast win. This will let them know they are on the right path and that they made the right decision.

Action step: Brainstorm how you can shorten the time it takes for your prospect to achieve their desired result. Or at least how you can make them experience a fast win to increase the chances of them sticking around for the long term.

4) Effort & Sacrifice

“How much work do I have to put in?”

People don’t like to do work. That’s simply how it is.

Find a way how you can remove the effort & sacrifice the prospect has to do and you can increase your prices exponentially.

That’s why done-for-you services are almost always more expensive than do-it-yourself.

Action step: Think about everything your prospect has to do to reach their desired dream outcome. Is there a way you can eliminate or reduce it? Can you do it for them? Can you create a product that will help them do it faster?

Wrap-up

Wow, we’ve covered a lot.

This mail turned out to be a lot longer than I wanted it to be. And I didn’t cover everything yet either.

So if you liked this email be sure not to miss the next one because we’ll be doing an offer creation part 2.

Also, hit reply to this email and let me know your thoughts about these types of emails. Do you enjoy the length or would you rather read a shorter, more condensed version?

Cheers,
Alex.

---

P.S.

If you’d like more help, I’ve got your back:

1. Book a 1:1 coaching call with me: We'll talk about how you can start building your one-person business and set you up for success in the long run.

2. 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.

---

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!