Do you remember when you decided to start your own business? I do. Because I was f*cking scared. I quit a good job to do it – so good in fact that my dad thought I went *crazy* and pretty much didn’t talk to me for the rest of the year. But before I could prove him wrong with my results, I had the most overwhelming and stressful time of my life. So much to learn, so little time (I had only enough savings to survive a few months without work). I felt like I had to get a university degree (ekhm…*again*!) just to make my first dollars. For the first 6 weeks or so I was spending all my waking hours […]
Continue reading“Organic reach is dead” and other horror stories…what now?!
“Organic reach is dead” said Mark Wright, CEO of Climb Online (and winner of ‘The Apprentice” show) on the recent 10X Bootcamp in London pointing at a graph showing the inverse correlation between organic reach and Facebook’s share price: Let’s face it, we saw it coming. Social media started off as a generous resource ‘connecting people’ and catered to user experience to attract as many users as possible – and to convince businesses that the are the most powerful marketing tool in the 21st century. Now that we can’t imagine our lives without Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram, it’s high time for social media to cut organic reach, limit visibility and thus force entrepreneurs to buy paid advertising. We saw it […]
Continue readingOn being a Digital Nomad and Loneliness
I am writing this sitting on the beach of Koh Rong Sanloem, a tiny Cambodian island without main electricity, reliable water supply or – you guessed it- widely-available wifi. My ferry to the mainland is late and I’m getting anxious about missing my plane to Europe. It’s been over 30 hours since I was online and – on the penultimate day of my (failed*) experiment in ‘digital nomading’ – it’s time to draw some conclusions. The lack of wifi and thus the connection with the outside world – despite some really good conversations with newly-met friends shared over a bottle of whiskey last night – made me look inside and actually I’m feeling a bit lonely for the first time […]
Continue reading3 things you should not give a f*ck about in your business
An old friend of mine (he’s a real history buff) asked me yesterday how I liked Angkor Wat. I didn’t know at that time it was a rhetorical question. – I didn’t. The most interesting thing to me was the monkeys. He proceeded to explain to me that I *must* appreciate the historical significance of these buildings and basically ‘you-must-like-it-or-you’re-an-uncivilised-barbarian-and-I’m-not-talking-to-you.‘. I kindly thanked him and moved on with my life instead of explaining myself. Ironically, I used to believe that as someone with a university degree you have the moral obligation to take interest in history, politics, literature and culture. I spent years beating my brain to memorize historical events and dates I had no interest in only to forget […]
Continue readingWhy being a Digital Nomad doesn’t work [for me…yet]
I’m writing this post sitting on a cross-country train from Urumqi to Beijing. I’ve been on this train for 23 hours so far, and still have about 8 to go. I’m sitting on a sleeper in a 6-bunk compartment, which I’m sharing with 5 middle-aged Chinese people, playing cards and drinking Baijiu* As you can imagine, it can be a tad hard to focus. I love travelling and have been lured by the ‘digital nomad’ lifestyle I’ve seen in so many Facebook groups: travelling around the world, exploring amazing places, moving to a different country every few weeks, all while *effortlessly* growing a 6-figure online business from a beach house. It looked like a dream. It looked like something […]
Continue readingHow to create a great coaching website yourself p. 1 – the HOME Page (+ top coaching websites for inspiration)
A visitor to your homepage spends on average 8 seconds (!) to decide whether they want to stay on it or not. They want to find exactly what they are looking for – where and when they are looking for! Time and attention are priceless these days. Hence, how you arrange information on your homepage is of paramount importance to your website conversions. This post will help you create an effective (coaching – this post was written mainly for coaches, but you can extrapolate a lot from it for your industry I think -especially if you are in a service industry) homepage that sells – by giving the visitors exactly what they want, when they want it. It will walk […]
Continue readingHow to write engaging newsletters in 5 simple steps
Would you like to know how to write engaging newsletters? So engaging that your readers can’t wait to get them? That your open rates are sky-high, everybody is clicking on your links, and you have more and more subscribers and paying customers? Of course you would! Especially given that email marketing has a higher ROI – on average 122% – than every other digital marketing channel, according to a study conducted by eMarketer. Let’s break it down into steps to make it short, actionable and clear: 1. Know what your audience wants to read and what is their problem This should be clear to you after you have created your email marketing strategy and done exercise 1 (p.5) from the […]
Continue readingAll you need to know about email marketing
This is a mega-roundup post that will bring you up-to-speed with email marketing. It will be useful for you both if you’re not doing it yet, and if you’re doing it already and need to learn some tricks / change your tool. The post will cover the following topics: What is email marketing? Why do you need email marketing? Benefits (especially for bloggers and coaches!) How does email marketing work? Email marketing tools – an overview How to create an email marketing strategy How to write engaging newsletters Good newsletter examples How to write good subject lines (that get your newsletters opened) What are ‘good numbers’ for your open and click-through rate? How to get your newsletters into the primary […]
Continue readingThe complete Content Promotion Process p. 1 – Content Promotion Channels
So you have written your blog post…and what next? We have already discussed what Content Promotion Plan is, now we’re gonna get to the Content Promotion Channels. WHERE should you promote your content and in what order? Read on! 1st Content Promotion Channel = Your own Social Media This may seem obvious, but surprisingly many business owners forget about it. Post your content on *both* your company and your private social media profiles. Ask your family and close friends to share. Don’t be ashamed, tell them you’re really really determined to succeed with your business and you need a little help getting the word out. They should understand. And if you’re creating really *epic shit*, there’s really nothing to be […]
Continue readingWhat is a Content Promotion Plan? What makes a good plan?
Creating even the best, most valuable content is not going to be enough unless you put the right Content Promotion Plan in place and implement it. This post discusses the question ‘What is a content Promotion Plan?‘ and what makes a Content Promotion Plan successful. What is a Content Promotion Plan? A promotion plan is a step-by-step *process* that answers the following three questions: Where, how and when you are going to promote your content (and hence your business!) What makes a *good* Content Promotion Plan? A good plan is like a good GOAL – it has to be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable (Actionable), Relevant and Time-bound. Specific You need to decide exactly what *channels* of promotion you are going […]
Continue reading