BLOW up your inbox with leads
A how-to guide:
Good evening homie!
Man… weekend flies by, doesn’t it?
Wrote this on Saturday. (Substack doesn’t embed tweets anymore since Twitter banned it.)
TLDR: My knee’s good but my back ain’t xD
I’ve been trying to fix it since 2019 cuz I got a 4/10 constant pain all day with an occasional flare up which is so bad I can’t walk.
Okay… is there a point here RJY?
There is, my almost-as-good-looking-as-me friend.
The point is… I’VE GOT A PROBLEM!
Not only do I have a problem, but it’s also EXTREMELY clear what that problem is.
Read that sentence again.
This is how sales works.
You’ll make your life so much easier when you home in on a specific problem instead of a broad, vague mess.
I know, I know… you’re thinking so loudly it’s deafening: “I know this.”
But you already know what I’m gonna tell you…
“…Then why aren’t you doing it?”
Good examples of solving a problem
Fixing chronic low back pain
Assisting parents with sleep training their 6-month-old so they can sleep through the night.
Helping YouTubers grow their channel
Bad examples of solving a… I don’t even know what this solves
Do you see how this is much tighter than:
Helping people feel good
Helping parents with their baby
Helping creators grow
You may be laughing but I see this ALL the time. It’s super common. It’s also a mistake.
Don’t be a generalist.
“But RJY… isn’t your very own mentor Rory Sutherland a generalist?!”
Yes… but he’s been at Ogilvy for decades. And guess where he, and the rest of the usual suspects started… copywriting!
Look at the legendary Dave Trott. One of, if not, the greatest advertising guy alive right now. If anyone deserves to be a generalist it’s him. Yet when have you seen him talk about topics other than advertising or things slightly related to his field of creative direction? I’ll wait…
I.e. He’s earned credibility over the years, which allowed him to do Ted talks, and get a platform, which now affords him to be a generalist.
Similar story with Seth Godin. (Book publisher, Yoyodyne, etc.)
I can’t think of anyone that started as a generalist from the get.
When you specialize:
It’s easier to find the people you wanna help
But…
It’s also easier for those people to FIND YOU!
Paddy Galloway only makes YouTube videos outlining how other YouTubers got big.
That’s super tight and because of that, YouTubers (For example Mr. Beast and my bro Noah Kagan) and big Fortune brands are hitting him up to consult because they view him as an authority.
If he was talking about Game Theory one day and Behavioral Economics (like some idiot whose name rhymes with RJ-BYE) that never would’ve happened.
Even the most “general theme” on YouTube like vlogging is still a theme. Every day, you get “a day in the life of”. There are no channels that have no theme. Imagine going to a club where you go from industrial metal, to Christian rock, to classical music, to blues.
Putting specificity on steroids
If you really wanna dice it to the socks though, become the person they go to after they exhausted all other options.
Going back to our examples:
I tried to get rid of my back pain and tried EVERYTHING. Every dork has an opinion. Then I found Professor Stuart McGill who dedicated decades of his life to studying spine biomechanics. In labs and patients. What causes injuries? Why? How does the spine heal? And so on. I bought his products (that I’m now using) because I literally tried everything. Sports doctors, manual therapists, went to the hospital for an X-Ray, and so on. True story btw. The next two are examples.
Tried to get my baby to sleep but she won’t sleep through the night. Bought all the books, watched all the videos, and nothing worked. [That’s where you come in.]
Tried to grow my channel for yeeears. Most people say, if you’re consistent, you’ll grow. I’ve found that that’s BS. I’ve been consistent for years and my YouTube just refuses to grow. I’ve read and watched everything online and hired multiple consultants… [That’s where you come in.]
Do you see how much more powerful this is than “I help citizens of planet Earth with everything under the sun”?
This approach also emphasizes the upside of becoming a Pro capital P. (Someone who never cuts corners and strives to be as great as they possibly can.)
So don’t pick a generic problem. Pick specific problems and hone your craft so you become the most qualified person to solve them.
A new (fifth) positioning framework
In the past, I’ve shared 4 positioning frameworks with you:
I help X with Y
I help X with Y without Z / but unlike Z
I’m a label. I help X with Y without Z / unlike Z
Storybrand: So know how [problem]? I have [solution] so that [desired outcome].
X: Niched audience
Y: Star Problem
Z: Thing that sucks / competition
Label: One-word, roughly correct, description of your profession
Storybrand: So you know how it’s damn near impossible to fix your back pain? I got a procedure to diagnose what causes your pain so we can avoid the source of pain, fix the underlying issue, and get you pain-free.
Here’s my new one:
I specialize in fixing Y for X.
E.g. I specialize in fixing back pain for professional athletes.
I like the word specialize because it forces YOU to think about how you’re actually specializing in something which, on top of all the previously listed benefits, will make you better at your job.
Why? Because you keep seeing the same problems over and over again.
You can’t become an expert on the human body but you can become an expert on human spine biomechanics.
That’s also why, at least until you’re doing $100K in revenue, like the “for X” part.
If you only fix back pain for pro athletes (to stay with this example), you’ll see the same kinds of people every time. Driven people who’re Pro capital P.
Now compare that positioning with that of a typical physical therapist. They solve EVERY problem for EVERYONE.
No wonder they all suck… their job is impossible.
Every time I got injured during my Tricking career, I ended up teaching them more than they taught me. Why? Cuz it had been years, if ever, since they last saw the literature.
When I blew my knee up, I knew more than the surgeon that fixed my knee. Precisely because I could spend a few months focused on 1 thing: digging through the entire body of ACL literature while he’s busy fixing knees all day.
Point is, the more you narrow down, the easier it’ll be to nail that “becoming the go-to guy” part.
So to wrap up, if you’re struggling with lead gen, you probably don’t have a good answer to the question: “What problem are you solving and for whom?”
Cool… hope you got something out of this and I’ll see you tomorrow.
RJY
Chop wood. Carry Water.