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.

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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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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.

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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.

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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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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.

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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’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.

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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.

---

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 have no doubts that you’ve put everything from last week into practice.

You’re fully aware of what content you need for growth, leads, and sales.

But there’s still one thing missing…

Traffic.

You could write the best thread anyone has ever written.

But it doesn’t matter if nobody sees it.

So how do you get eyes on your content when you don’t have a big following yet?

That’s our topic for today.

This is a 7-minute read.

Let’s go!

Getting eyes on your content

There are a lot of misconceptions about getting eyes on your content.

Especially when you don’t have a big audience yet.

Yesterday evening I was talking with 2 big accounts. I won’t reveal their identity. But I can tell you that one has 240k+ followers and the other has 450k+ followers.

You’d think they know a thing or two about Twitter. And don’t get me wrong, they do.

But not everything.

We were going over my account and they were giving feedback on my branding.

One of the critiques they gave me was about my offer. It didn’t make sense.

My bio at the time stated: “Cold outreach is overrated. I help creators make internet money while working less than 3 hours a day by leveraging warm traffic.”

They were confused as to how I was going to leverage the warm traffic of other people. The only way to get warm traffic is to build a huge audience they said. Who am I to convince people that I know how to do that?

I explained how you don’t need a huge audience to get warm traffic. Not for the right warm traffic at least.

The people I work with all have high-ticket offers. You only really need 2–5 clients a month to make more than the average US salary.

Anyone who has 200–300 Twitter followers can do this.

Now how do we get the right type of traffic?

That’s where we’ll utilize the power of the Dream 100

Dream 100

The Dream 100 was originally a sales strategy developed and popularized by Chet Holmes.

But that’s not the one we’re interested in. We’re interested in the adapted Dream 100 strategy popularised by Russell Brunson.

This strategy allows you to get your content in front of your ideal customers without having to build a big audience yourself.

This is how it works:

You start by identifying who your dream customers are. You then find out where they are congregating. Or in other words: who are they already following?

Make a list of ALL the (relatively) big accounts your dream customer might be following.

Imagine if you identified 156 accounts that your dream customers would follow. And suppose that each of those accounts has on average 20k followers — on the low end.

That’s over 3 million potential dream customers.

The trick now is that you don’t have to get in contact with all 3 million people. You can focus all of your efforts on those 156 accounts.

Sounds doable, right?

Engagement Cycle

We’ve got our list of big accounts. Great.

What now? How will this get us free traffic?

This is the fun part. We’ll start engaging with them.

This is a method that I call the Engagement Cycle.

1) Get to know them (Day 1–7)

The first 7 days are the easiest. Indulge in the content of your Dream 100.

Set a few minutes aside each day and consume their content.

Learn what they like to talk about. Pick up on their writing style. Get on their newsletter. Listen to their podcasts.

Get to know as much about them as you can.

You’ll be engaging with them in the following stages. And the worst mistake I see people make all the time is engaging someone without fully understanding what they do or why they do it.

2) Get them to know your face (Day 8–14)

After the first 7 days you have a good feel for who they are.

Now we’ll make them recognize you.

Start engaging with their posts. Comment on a tweet you thought was insightful.

Reply to a newsletter issue you thought was well written.

But keep it on the timeline for now.

This stage is to warm them up.

Your Dream 100 gets thousands of cold DMs a day. You want them to recognize your face before you send them a message.

3) Start talking (Day 15–30)

Now is the time when you send them a DM.

But don’t pitch them anything yet.

Pretend you’re trying to date them.

Start a friendly conversation. Be genuinely interested in them.

Give them a compliment and ask some questions.

Don’t start telling your story or tell them what you can do for them.

4) Provide value (Day 31–60)

At this point you’ve built a great relationship with some of your Dream 100.

You sadly can’t expect all of them to reciprocate the attention.

Now is the time to double down on giving. Provide as much value as you can.

Don’t ask them “How can I help you?” either.

Asking someone how you could help them is asking them to do the work for you.

It’s up to you to do your homework. Figure out what could be useful to them.

Do you have a product or a service they could benefit from?

Give it to them for free. No matter the cost. Just give it.

Help them out with any resources they need or help them connect with others that they could benefit from.

This opens up so many opportunities.

Wrap-up

The end goal of the Engagement Cycle is to befriend the people whose audience consists of your dream customers.

This allows for collaborations (courses, cohorts, podcasts, spaces, or just them sharing your content) where you can get directly in front of their audience.

This is the fastest way to get warm organic traffic from the exact people you want.

You’re leveraging the work someone else has done to build their audience.

The biggest upside?

Even if it doesn’t work like you hoped. You’re unable to land collaborations or befriend your Dream 100.

Remember stage 2 where you started commenting on their posts?

You’re already getting your content in front of their audience.

If your comments are high-quality their audience will be intrigued and start checking out your profile.

You’re profiting as soon as day 7. With an enormous upside of collaborating down the line if everything works out.

This is the single greatest strategy for getting eyes on your content.

Use it.

Next week

This time around I won’t forget to fill in this section!

We’ve talked about A LOT by now.

The past 5 weeks have been filled with value.

But there’s still a question that remains unanswered.

“How do you craft an offer so good that people feel stupid saying no?”

So next week we’ll dive deep into offer creation.

It’ll be jam-packed with value, just like this one.

You don’t want to miss that one.

See you 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 creator 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.

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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!Nee

Ascend 101

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

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This is the topic everyone’s been waiting for.

How to write authentic, authoritative, and impactful content that leads to growth, leads, and sales.

All writing we do can be divided into 3 categories: growth, authority, and authenticity.

When creating content you want to keep these in mind and strike a nice balance. Your brand will fail if you don’t include all 3.

No growth content? Well, that one seems self-explanatory. You’ll forever be stuck at whatever size you are now.

No authority content? People won’t buy from you. You’re not giving them a reason to. People need to be convinced you’re the right person for the job.

No authentic content? You’re just like everyone else. People will flock to the cheapest alternative. You’ll be in competition with everyone.

How you should balance them is up to you. I’ve heard The Art Of Purpose say he follows his 70/20/10 rule (70% growth, 20% authority, 10% authenticity) whereas JK Molina keeps the biggest piece of the pie for authority, because likes ain’t cash.

But enough about that.

This is a 3-minute read.

Let’s go!

Growth

Your personal brand should be growing at all times.

That’s not to say that you need to reach 10k followers before you can get meaningful results. But stagnation is never a good sign.

That’s why we’ll always have to include content focused on growth.

Some content types focused on growth include:

• Personal stories

• Controversial topics

• Current events

• Questions

• Personal beliefs

• Platitudes (Be careful not to overdo them)

Authenticity

Authenticity is what sets you apart from others.

Show people who you are, what you like, and what you’re building/working on.

There are multiple ways to do this:

1) Express your honest opinions, likes, and dislikes.

The more controversial, the better. (See this great example from my buddy Shrawan)

STOP TALKING ABOUT COLD SHOWERS.

Why tf is everyone obsessed w it?

Cold shower this, cold shower that…

Just take a f*ckin shower and work on your business bro.

Jeez.

— SHRAWAN  (@theshrawankc)
Feb 22, 2023

2) Be vulnerable.

Don’t only share your wins. Share your losses as well.

People want real not perfect. Give them someone they can relate to.

3) Document your journey

Share everything you’re working on. Every new project that you’re taking on. Every plan you have for how you’ll achieve a certain result.

Put it out there.

Authority

Authority content is everything that will make people perceive you as an expert in your field.

You do this by focusing on depth and social proof.

Show people how knowledgeable you are about a topic by diving deep into certain topics. This is best done through threads and newsletter issues (such as this one).

Keep your tweets for the more basic topics.

Social proof is anything that displays your authority by means of what you’ve accomplished for yourself or others.

Note: showing the achievement of your clients is far better than showing yours (but start with yours if you don’t have others to show yet)

These include

• testimonials

• case studies

• accomplishments

• credentials.

Next week

On Monday, you’ll [insert what next week’s topic will be about]

Have a nice week and go take what’s yours!

Cheers,
Alex.

Ascend 101

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

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We’ve talked about defining where you came from and where you’re headed. (Go read the last 2 newsletters here if you missed them)

This week we’ll talk about the topic you’re dying to dive into: How to get to your dream destination.

How to use your brand as the perfect vehicle for creating your dream life.

This is a 4-minute read.

Let’s go!

Before we start

I recently did a giveaway where I shared a new Twitter content guide that I’ve created.

As you’re an email reader of mine I simply had to share it with you in case you missed it. Take it as a token of my appreciation.

It’s absolutely free and filled with everything I know and learned about Twitter content creation. Foundational pillars, crafting your story, idea generation, and the only framework you need. It’s all there.

You can get it here.

Your One-Person Business

Using your brand as a vehicle to get to your dream life all starts with creating your brand.

But what is it and how does it work?

Your brand is your business. And it has the same foundations any other business has.

But how we define them is unique.

Let me introduce you to the 4 pillars of a one-person business. (Credits to Dan Koe)

The 4 pillars are

• Goals → Brand

• Problems → Content

• Systems → Product

• Benefits → Marketing

Let’s go over them one by one.

1) Goals

You have goals that you’re working toward in your life. That’s your branding.

People won’t follow you for who you are or what you’ve done.

In all honesty, nobody cares.

People follow you because of your dreams and desires. You see it happen again and again.

Take Steve Jobs for example. He’s been called a visionary. A dreamer.

That’s what excites people.

He dared to dream bigger than anyone else.

Let’s take another example. Elon Musk.

Why does he have such a big following? Is it because of his unrivaled charisma? His good looks? His enormous bank account? (That last one might play a small role)

No.

He’s a dreamer. He sets goals nobody else has dared to set. He goes places where people haven’t gone before. He’s leading and inspiring people to think bigger.

You can (and should) do the same. That’s what makes your brand.

(Does it make more sense now as to why setting big goals is so important?)

2) Problems

You’ve set your goal and you’re working toward it every single day.

It’s only logical that you’ll encounter problems along the way. Problems that countless others will have experienced as well.

Share those encounters.

Give people something to relate to. Show them your current problems and obstacles.

Share how you plan on tackling them.

Take your unique combination of skills, interests, and desires and show how they will help you get to where you are.

Teach people how to do the same.

Talk about your journey.

That’s your content. Those are the tweets you’ll be writing.

3) Systems

You’ll find yourself solving your problems along the way. You’ll learn what works and what doesn’t.

You’ll discover shortcuts, gain specific knowledge, and develop systems.

These can be turned into your products.

Everything that will help the people behind you get to where you are faster is a product.

If you could be able to help you from last year. What would you say? What would you give? What would you have done differently?

You provide others with the means to get to where you are faster than you did yourself.

These can be case studies, tools, swipe files, courses, communities, or coaching/tutoring calls.

Think about every single problem your audience may have and what you did (or could do) to overcome them.

Then simply turn it into a product.

4) Benefits

This relates to the first rule of copywriting. Benefits over features.

People are intrinsically egoistic. They only care about themselves and how your offer can benefit them.

So show them.

Show them how achieving your goal will improve their life. And how your method/product will aid them in getting there.

Your method doesn’t have to be the best. You just have to believe it is.

You create the belief that it’s the best method out there for them.

You attract the people wanting to use your method.

It all comes down to your conviction. You have to truly believe in your method. People can feel your conviction.

It all comes back to you daring to dream and inspiring people along the way.

Next week

You now know exactly how your one-person business functions and how to brand it. The next part is writing content that captures attention and resonates with people.

That’ll be the topic for next week. We’ll go over how to write authentic, authoritative, and impactful content that leads to growth, leads, and sales.

Definitely keep an eye out for that next Monday.

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. Claim all my courses for FREE: 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:
(Yes these are affiliate links)

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. Hence 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.

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!): Easily the most advanced and useful Twitter analytics tool. get in-depth knowledge about your audience, what they like, and who they are. As well as gaining a clear view of your best-performing content to spot trends and improve your results.

---

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 talked about creating your hero’s journey. (You can read it here in case you missed it.)

Today we’ll define your vision, mission, and values. The combination of these empowers you to carve out your path to success.

This is a 4-minute read.

Let’s go!

Vision

Your vision is what guides you. It’s what allows you to align your daily actions and choices with your overarching goal.

You’ll lack clarity without it.

How else are you going to reflect if your daily actions are getting you closer to your goal?

Ask yourself the following questions:

• If you had all the money in the world, what would your average day look like?

• Where do you want to live? In what kind of environment? Do you want to travel often?

• Do you want a family? When? How big of a family? What would an average family day be like?

• How much do you want to work? What should your workday look like? What would you want to do?

• How do you want to look and feel?

You can also establish your anti-vision.

This determines how you don’t want your life to look.

Define both visions and think about how you can best reflect that in your brand.

What colors should your brand be? What fonts? Think about all the design choices and the feeling they give off.

Color & font psychology shouldn’t be underestimated.

But that’s a topic we won’t be covering today. (Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in!)

Mission

Think of your mission as the one BIG problem you’d like to solve in your life.

And when I say big, I mean it. Feeding your family isn’t big. Feeding all of Europe, now that’s a big goal.

I never said it should be realistic. You might never solve it, but that’s the point.

You need to think big if you want to solve something incredible.

Aim for the stars and land on the moon.

Long-time readers (read: 2 weeks) remember this issue where I shared my goal of wanting to free all mankind. To allow anyone and everyone to achieve true financial freedom, both time and location freedom.

Everyone should be able to experience and appreciate everything the world has to offer.

It’s an absurd goal if you think about it.

So don’t hold back.

Think about problems you’ve solved for yourself. Big or small.

Think about what interests, skills, or areas of study you know or are willing to spend countless hours learning.

Then decide on what ultimate goal you can and want to solve in the world.

Values

Your values are a baseline of topics you care about.

Life will get tough. You will make sacrifices. The road to success isn’t a straight line.

Knowing this, it’s better to decide your values upfront. To decide on a few things that you’ll never sacrifice — no matter what.

Think about the eternal markets: health, wealth, and relationships as a starting point.

What matters most to you in each domain?

Health:

• How balanced should your diet be?

• How much exercise should you do every week?

• How often should you meditate/journal/relax to keep your mental health in check?

Wealth:

• How many hours a week should you spend on work?

• How much financial risk are you willing to take on?

• How should(n’t) you make your money?

Relationships:

• How much time should you spend with your family?

• How often should you hang out with friends?

• How many dates should you go on every month?

Some things are never worth sacrificing.

Define them upfront.

Wrap-up

Your hero’s journey describes where you came from.

Your vision, mission, and values describe where you’re headed.

Your brand is the vehicle that’s going to get you from where you are to where you want to go.

Exactly how to make your brand the perfect vehicle will be explored in the upcoming emails. So keep an eye out for those!

For now make sure to take your time to clearly define your vision, mission, and goals.

Until next week!

Cheers,
Alex.

---

P.S.

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

1. Schedule 1:1 coaching 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. Get yourself The Ultimate Content Creator’s Toolkit: You’ll find over 100 courses, books, threads, and tools. Everything I used to educate myself on all the important topics for building your one-person business.

P.P.S.

For those interested, this is the software stack I use:
(Yes these are affiliate links)

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. Hence 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.

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!): Easily the most advanced and useful Twitter analytics tool. get in-depth knowledge about your audience, what they like, and who they are. As well as gaining a clear view of your best-performing content to spot trends and improve your results.

---

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

---

Last week I promised that today’s issue will be on the one-person business foundations.

I lied.

It’s not just today’s topic. It will be the topic for the coming 7 issues!

That’s right. I’ll take you all the way from start to finish and teach you everything you need to know (in no more than 7 emails).

So let’s not waste any more time!

Crafting the perfect profile

You’ve no doubt heard all the cliche advice about creating the perfect profile picture, header image, and bio.

And sure they may be necessary. But that’s just one piece of the puzzle.

How often have you heard people talking about the why’s? About the bigger picture tying everything together?

Probably not a lot.

That’s where people have it backward. Creating your profile is the third or fourth step. Definitely not the first.

Do you have an idea what the first step could be?

Hint: it’s about you.

It’s your hero’s journey. The road you’ve gone down in life.

Your story is the central piece of your brand.

Your Hero’s Journey

And before you go on to say “But Alex, I don’t have a story!”

Yes you do. That’s why you’re here. That’s why you’re reading this email right now.

Everyone has a backstory. And here’s a simple method to figure out yours.

Ask yourself the following question:

How did you get to where you are now?

Whatever your interests are. How did you get interested in them? What made you decide on taking the path that you’re on right now? Which events in your life all participated in steering you in this direction?

Somewhere along the road you received your call to action — maybe you even needed multiple before you took action.

Discover what it was. What made you decide to change? What made you venture from the known to the unknown? What made you start your adventure — your hero’s journey?

Why is this important?

Simple.

You’re not some big multinational with hundreds of employees and a near-infinite bank account to spend on marketing.

You’re a one-person business, a solopreneur, a personal brand.

You have to play to your strengths. And that strength is that people resonate with other people, not with big corporations.

Craft your story so others can resonate with you. This is how you build trust. This is the difference between gaining followers and creating fans.

That being said, I’ll give you some homework. Yes, homework.

I want you to create your story.

Find an hour of your day to think about it.

Write down the main highlights in bullet points first. Then go into more detail for each bullet point.

Seriously do it.

It’s what separates you from the competition.

We’ll also be using your story in the upcoming emails. Be sure to get it done by then.

Hint: Do it now (or at least today). Don’t let procrastination take over.

Cheers,
Alex.

---

P.S.

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

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

---

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!