Captain’s log, stardate 20200715

The Method To The Madness

A long-time list member wrote in to ask for some clarification about the point of all these emails I send out.

This is totally understandable because I jump around between a lot of topics, and I very much appreciate the question (Thanks FM!)

Even though the central theme is crystal clear to me, I don't always do a great job connecting the dots between my daily musings and the core mission of this list for you.

So here it is:

The central theme of my daily mailing list is this:

TO HELP YOU STOP TRADING TIME FOR MONEY

Other ways that I sometimes articulate this central theme include:

Ditching hourly billing
Stop billing, start pricing
Increasing your profitability
Making more money without working more hours
Selling results, not deliverables

Okay, so... where do all the individual topics come from?

There are three non-optional core competencies I see that support a service business owner who wants to stop trading time for money:

Pricing
Positioning
Publishing

Underneath each of these competencies, there are loads of smaller tactical topics. You'll probably recognize many of them if you've been around these parts for a while:

Pricing

Understanding value pricing
Creating productized services
Selling advisory retainers
Increasing your altitude of involvement
Anatomy of a project proposal
Asking for 100% up-front
How to conduct a sales interview
The Why Conversation
Pricing curves
Offering guarantees
Avoiding deadlines
Controlling scope creep
How to write an effective sales page

Positioning

Three types of positioning statements
Creating a laser-focused positioning statement
How to tell people what you do
The difference between the menu at the bar and the sign on the sidewalk
Writing Heck Yeah headlines
How to collect killer testimonials
Optimizing for conversation
Pigeonholing yourself
The difference between a specialization and a niche
The pros and cons of a platform specialization
The pros and cons of a horizontal specialization
Playing The Introduction Game to figure out what people think you do
How to tell when your positioning is focused enough

Publishing

Getting speaking gigs
Launching a podcast
Going on a podcast tour
Maintaining a daily writing practice
Writing a book proposal
Writing a book
Self-publishing a book
Using webinars to validate ideas and generate leads
Owning your platform
Leveraging social media
Building an email list

So, yeah... lots of seemingly disparate topics that support the central theme of ditching hourly billing.

Whether you're new to the list or have been reading for a while, I hope this message will help orient you to the Content Solar System that I'm dragging you around in ;-)

Yours,

—J