“Advice” has been on my mind lately. What is good advice, what is bad advice. You know good advice because when you hear it, it hurts.

The best business advice I ever got made me want to punch something.

Not that it was wrong. It was just so fucking obvious I couldn’t believe I’d paid to hear it.

“Just launch it.” (and other such bangers as “talk to your customers” and “profit first”)

That’s what a founder running a business eerily similar to mine (same market, same model, just 10x bigger) told me when I showed them my half-finished product roadmap.

What kills me is that I already knew I should launch. We all know the obvious things we should be doing.

But when someone we admire says it, suddenly we listen.

I could tell you to launch right now. You’d nod and move on. But when someone who’s built the exact business you’re trying to build (and has 10 more years and £100m on you) tells you the same thing, you’ll cancel your meetings and ship by Friday.

Nothing about the advice changed, only the source.

This realisation led me to one of my favourite discoveries: permissionless mentorship. Most of my mentors have no idea they’re mentoring me. They’re just successful people sharing what worked, sometimes in person, sometimes in a blog post, sometimes in a random tweet at 2am.

I collect their advice like trading cards. What makes a card valuable is who it comes from.

But! Successful people give completely contradictory advice.

One mentor swears by growing at all costs. Raise money, hire fast, dominate the market. Another built a £50M+ business with seven people and tells me growth is a trap. One says diversify your revenue streams immediately. Another says focus on one thing for a decade.

Somehow, they’re all right. The difference is the game they’re playing. The venture-backed founder optimising for a billion-dollar exit will tell you to blitzscale. The lifestyle entrepreneur who works 20 hours a week will tell you to stay small and milk it.

Neither is lying. They’re just playing different games with different rules.

The dangerous part is when we take advice from someone playing a different game than us. You follow the “growth at all costs” playbook when what you really want is freedom. You stay small when what you really want is impact.

Most business advice comes with hidden motivations. The course creator telling you to build an audience needs you to believe that’s the path. The investor preaching about growth needs another unicorn for their portfolio.

None of them are wrong, exactly. But what’s true in their game might be useless in yours.

The best insights come from people who don’t know they’re teaching you, because they’re not trying to sell you their version of success.

Find the people whose success you respect and whose life you’d want. The second part matters more: plenty of millionaires are miserable, trapped by their own creations.

Study what they say. They’ve earned the right to make the obvious feel urgent, and they’re playing the game you want to play.

Then do the obvious thing you’ve been avoiding.

You know what it is. The question is whose voice you need to hear before you’ll do it.

Hope that was useful!

P.S. Before you take anyone’s advice, ask what game they’re playing and what they’re selling. The best mentors are the ones who’ve built what you want, not just what looks impressive on LinkedIn.

Not the casual butterflies kind of nervous. The full-blown, sweaty-palms, second-guessing-everything kind of nervous.

Why? Because we're about to launch our newest Pip Deck in a way we've never done before: a live webinar. And I'm going to be front and centre.

Whilst I've done the odd event here and there, nothing compares to the meticulous planning and orchestration required for a product launch webinar. It's a different beast entirely.

Something's been nagging at me lately. Our product launches used to be a big deal. People would get excited. We would send an email, people buy (or don't), life goes on. It works, but barely. The spark is gone.

We've gotten lazy and complacent. The wrong kind of comfortable.

And the wrong kind of comfort is a slow business killer.

Remember how Amazon's Jeff Bezos talks about maintaining "Day One" thinking? It's the idea that the moment you think you've made it, and get comfortable, is precisely when you start dying. You just don't know it yet.

I've written before about how being "lazy and passive" in the right ways can keep your business alive, about knowing when to conserve energy rather than frantically exerting yourself at all times. But there's a crucial difference between strategic laziness and dangerous complacency.

When was the last time you did something in your business that genuinely made you uncomfortable? Not the mild discomfort of a tough decision, but the genuine fear of attempting something completely outside your wheelhouse?

For me, it's been too long. And I can't ignore the warning signs:

• We keep expecting each product launch to be bigger than the last, without putting in the extra effort

• The old reliable formula (email list → sales page → checkout) isn't hitting like it used to

• What worked brilliantly in 2021 simply isn't cutting it in 2025

So we're going all in on this webinar launch. And bloody hell, the work involved is staggering. It's like preparing for a West End show: scripts, slides, timing, tech rehearsals, contingency plans. There are the awkward practice runs where I sound robotic. The constant revisions to make every minute count. The sleepless nights wondering if anyone will show up.

But somewhere in this nerve-wracking process I realised the discomfort is the point. It means you're stretching rather than stagnating.

The process has forced us to articulate our value proposition more clearly than ever, and to create value beyond just "here's a thing you can buy".

And perhaps most importantly, it's reminded me that a critical part of building a business is being willing to step into the spotlight and be judged, rather than hiding behind landing pages and automated email sequences.

Sue Williams (the hostage negotiator I wrote about a while back) would probably say I'm building trust through authentic connection. And isn't that what we all want from the brands we love? Not just their products, but the sense that real humans with real passion are behind them?

Will this webinar approach work better than our old launch formula? I honestly don't know. It might flop spectacularly, I might freeze on camera, the tech might fail.

But the alternative, doing the same comfortable thing we've always done and expecting different results, is business suicide.

So I'm choosing deliberate discomfort: the pebbles instead of the boulder, as I wrote about before.

Like in Jiu Jitsu, the skill is knowing when to conserve energy and when to be explosive. The webinar launch is my moment to be explosive. Afterwards I'll return to the strategic relaxation that keeps the business sustainable.

So, what comfortable pattern in your business needs breaking? Maybe it's finally raising your prices, or firing that client who pays well but drains your soul. Whatever it is, I bet the mere thought of it makes your stomach clench a bit. That's how you know it matters.

Maybe this was useful, maybe not.

Charles Burdett

That week changed how I think about negotiations, and made me realise how dangerous it is to be unaware of these techniques in everyday life. Especially when you’re up against someone who is not only aware of them, but very very good at them.

What sets Sue's approach apart is that she believes negotiation should be collaborative, ethical, and result in a win-win. Yes, you read that right - sometimes you should split the difference. No one benefits from a lose-lose.

Five lessons stuck with me:

1. Never lie (unless there's a bomb). Trust is like an egg - once broken, it can't be unbroken. The only exception Sue's ever made is buying time to evacuate an area from a suicide bomber. That's it. Pretty stark reminder of how serious she is about honesty. If your counterpart gets even a whiff of dishonesty - you should expect the deal to be off.

1. The negotiator should never be the decision maker. Notice how car salespeople always need to "check with their manager"? There's a reason. When you separate the negotiator from the decision maker, you transform the dynamic from adversarial to collaborative. Suddenly, you're both working together to convince that mysterious third party.

1. Know your red line (but keep it secret). If you're asking for a pay rise, pick a number that makes you laugh out loud (especially if you're a woman negotiating with a man). Why? Because we're terrible at valuing ourselves. Your uncomfortable number might be closer to your true worth. And if you start negotiations way and above the lowest you are willing to expect, then you are far more likely to get what you want (and deserve!).

1. Never negotiate by surprise. Being ambushed into a negotiation? That's a power play. Sue taught me to politely decline and reschedule. Those "end of quarter" deadlines are classic pressure tactics. Take back control by choosing when to negotiate. But also pay close attention as sometimes you might not realise you are in a negotiation. And choose your playing field. If you are more effective via phone or email - then make sure to be clear with your communication preference. (You’d be surprised how much hostage negotiation takes place via email!)

1. Research is your superpower World-class negotiators are made by research, not clever tactics or silver-tongued persuasion. Understanding your counterpart's motivations, identifying the real decision makers, mapping out who holds sway: this is where negotiations are won or lost. As Sue says: if you don't prepare, prepare to fail.

Bonus tip: negotiations are all about relationship building. The more trust and rapport you can build with your counterpart, the more likely it is you will end up with a successful outcome. In fact, Sue is very clear that the actual “negotiating” part is something that doesn’t happen right away. Most of her time is spent just chatting, getting to know the person, getting inside their head and trying to understand their point of view. Effectively, trying to be in their shoes.

That kind of empathy gives you something others don’t have when they rush straight to the “brass tacks” of a deal. On the flip side of that, whenever you find yourself really liking a real estate agent, or any salesperson - just be aware, they know if they get you to like them, you are more likely to part with your money!

These aren't your typical negotiation tips, because they come from someone who's had to use them in life-or-death situations. We've been working with Sue to distill these insights and 50 odd more into our upcoming Pip Deck: Negotiation Tactics, launching early next year. You can get on the waiting list here.

Maybe that was useful, maybe not.

Things took off faster than expected. I teamed up with a friend for illustrations, poured effort into making the content accessible, and before I knew it, people were buying the decks.

Along the way, I made some mistakes. I hired people too quickly, without proper vetting. I brought on someone because he had a flashy title and seemed like a good fit. Four weeks in, I had to let him go. Not fun. But it taught me to be thorough, to take my time with big decisions.

We also went through four accountants in as many years. Each time, we thought we'd found the right fit, only to realise they didn't get our business model or couldn't keep up with our needs. Frustrating, yes, but each misstep pushed us to find better solutions.

But the biggest mistake of all: I discovered Facebook ads. For every pound we put in, ten came back. It felt like magic. So we scaled up. Fast. We sold thousands of decks in no time. But that's when the wheels started to wobble: we ran out of stock. Not wanting to lose momentum, we kept taking orders, promising we'd fulfil them soon. Then COVID hit. Our stock was delayed, customers grew impatient, and PayPal froze our funds because we weren't shipping orders on time.

And now, four years later we have become too reliant on Facebook ads, a single point of failure. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Antifragile (amongst many others in his “Incerto”), warns about over-optimising systems. When you fine-tune something too much, it becomes brittle. It works great for a specific set of conditions, until it doesn't. We'd optimised for sunny days, not storms. And this over-optimisation also reduced the optionality of our brand. Because our funnel, offer, price are optimised for a Facebook / Instagram ad conversion, we have locked ourselves out of wholesale or reaching “light” buyers.

Now, we're at a crossroads. We've decided to significantly reduce our Facebook ads. It feels risky, maybe even reckless. It’s like turning off the tap. But it's a self-inflicted pain, a way to become antifragile. Instead of waiting for the next crisis to blindside us (even something as innocuous as your ad account getting banned for an incorrect policy violation… it happens), we're choosing to challenge ourselves now. To find new ways to reach people, to diversify, to build resilience. To play long-term games rather than short-term ones. The ultimate marshmallow test.

This concept can be neatly summed up like this: it’s the difference between being crushed by a one-ton boulder or getting hit by a thousand kilos of pebbles. The boulder flattens you instantly. The pebbles hurt, but they build calluses. They make you tougher. Those little shocks are what make you stronger. The same thing as tearing muscle fibres from weight lifting, and your body responding by making them stronger so it can better handle that weight again.

Ultimately, over these four years - I’ve learned that it's risky to play it safe all the time. Avoiding risk entirely leaves you unprepared for when the big shocks come. Mistakes and stress are necessary. They push you to confront weaknesses and grow.

So, dear reader (sorry it’s been a while huh!) take a look at your own projects. Where are you fragile? Where are you over-optimised? Maybe it's time to let the pebbles hit you. It might hurt, but the growth is worth it.

Maybe that was useful, maybe not.

Charles.

They're probably not (mine included).

Ego is what makes you resist feedback, because you know better. It's what has you tweeting about your "journey" and chasing likes instead of customers. It gets you on podcasts to "share your wisdom" while your actual business is on fire. And in its final form it convinces you to raise millions before you have a single paying customer, because surely you're the next unicorn.

Don't get me wrong, I still let my ego get stroked from time to time. In fact this entire post is probably my subconscious finding an excuse to share this crazy news. But that accolade wasn't achieved from podcast appearances and PR interviews.

Your business is about your customers, your team, and the problem you're solving. None of those are you. Every minute spent stroking your ego is a minute not spent serving them.

You've seen the examples. The founder whose original idea was "genius", so they ignored market feedback and ran the business into the ground. The CEO who blew millions on a fancy office, a private chef and team retreats before having stable revenue. The entrepreneur who spent more time on speaking circuits than talking to customers, whose product went stale while they were busy "inspiring" people. The startup that grew its vanity metrics right into bankruptcy. The founder who couldn't delegate because "no one does it as well as me", so the business stagnated at exactly the size of one person.

The successful businesses I admire mostly shut up and build. They listen to their customers and iterate on feedback, not feelings. They don't need Twitter clout, and they're too busy solving real problems for real people to crave a podcast tour.

So the way I try to keep my own ego in check is one question, asked before a decision: does this serve my team or my customers, or does it just serve me?

If it's the latter, bin it.

Build in silence. Let your results do the talking.

Maybe that's hard to hear. Maybe it's exactly what you needed.

I didn’t close the door on my rabbits’ outdoor hutch. And all signs pointed towards a fox. They were gone. And only yesterday they were hopping around the garden in the sunshine. Now the garden, swamped with rain - was empty. Aside from some bundles of fur from whatever went down.

Why am I writing this? I suppose to process it. I didn’t imagine I would be as sad as I am. I keep thinking about all the “what ifs?”. Like what if I had double checked I had shut the door properly. Or what if the hutch had some better design that would signal if it was definitely secure or not.

So in typical Charles fashion, I look for the lesson and how I can apply it to life and business. What does this teach me? I suppose the simplest takeaway is that extremely minor mistakes can have catastrophic consequences.

How many businesses have collapsed because someone left a door unlocked?

What is the most obvious thing that will kill your business? In the rabbit’s case - it was always a fox.

And what is the most obvious thing that prevents your business from dying? In the case of a fox killing the rabbits: it’s a secure door.

Businesses die when they run out of money. That’s as straightforward as it gets. So try not to run out of money. Build up a war chest. Keep an eye on your costs. Diversify your income streams. Divest away from single platform risk.

Unfortunately rabbits are fragile. But lucky for us businesses are anti-fragile. Times of turbulence help you see the weaknesses so they can be shored up.

RIP Kevin and Elsa

When you are sparring in Jiu Jitsu, you are on the ground - grappling. Your goal is to cause your opponent to submit. To do this, you have to

a) not find yourself in a position where you have to submit and

b) gain control of your opponent so much so that they have to submit.

(Submit = tap your opponent to say “you win buddy” because you are either about to pass out from a choke or they’re about to snap your arm off)

This all sounds very violent and fighty - and it is. But when you watch experienced people sparring, it seems very calm and coordinated. But this is easier said than done. Let me show you what I mean.

As a beginner, my brain is still trying to distinguish between fight/flight mode and “this is just a game he’s not really trying to kill me” mode. What this means is that, in a five-minute spar - I am stupidly exerting myself 100% at all times. What I lack in technique I am trying to make up for with sheer strength. And this basically doesn’t work against an experienced opponent. All they have to do is literally nothing - whilst you tire yourself out.

Even in an advantageous position - if I start to lose it - I will try and use strength to maintain it. But the hardest thing to learn is that once you’ve lost even a fraction of that position, the whole position is lost. And all that energy you are exerting trying to keep it is being wasted.

Instead, the art here is to not resist your opponent but to move with them. To conserve your energy for when it’s necessary to use it. It’s knowing what positions you can “chill” in, and when you need to be explosive. This takes experience and cannot be taught.

After these hard sparring sessions I’m always gassed. Frustrated with how unfit I was, I realised that it wasn’t necessarily a case of becoming 20% fitter, but becoming 20% more efficient at exerting the right energy at the right time. This is only possible by learning good technique and being relaxed for 80% of the time.

A simple mantra for a white belt then:

Technique. Relax. Technique. Relax. Technique. Relax.

(And a bonus mantra… “control before submission”)

A small, lean black belt will destroy a powerlifting whatever-belt 100% of the time.

Just this simple truth is enough to cause me to pause and think about what energy is being misplaced or over exerted in other areas of life. Especially business. (I previously wrote about this in a similar theme)

It is not necessary, and in fact a death sentence - to be exerting 100% of your energy over a consistent period of time (especially if it’s driven by fear of loss).

How many great breakthroughs have you made from a position of rest and relaxation?

How many triumphs have you accomplished because you had great technique and execution?

How many failures can you attribute to misplaced energy or grinding without a clear purpose?

How close to burn out have you come because you’ve been relentlessly fighting a fight you had the option of walking away from?

So in summary:

• Focus on technique / execution. Brute strength is only an enabler of better technique.

• Be like water over a rock. Relax on purpose. Bide your time and only exert your energy when the time is right.

This can apply to your practice from the trench digging all the way up to the strategising.

Alright, that’s it for now. Maybe that was useful. Maybe not.

Charles Burdett.

P.S. Some notes on writing this newsletter (if it’s interesting to you).

I’ve taken to only writing this newsletter by way of procrastination. Only when I’m suitably inspired and the idea motivates me enough to write it down, do I write it down. And even then, I’m optimising for getting the general idea across. Not for world-class writing quality or depth of thought. I am not editing these. And merely correcting grammar and spelling so as to not make it a pain to read.

Because I’ve discovered this intentional optimising factor and approach to writing, it’s become a great filter for finding things worth writing about. They have to inherently be things that stop me dead (interest me) and cause me to open up Apple Notes and start typing. (You don’t have to be at a desk to write any more!)

And much like the moral of this post - I’m choosing to only exert a very specific amount of energy on the topics I write about. With a very particular technique and purpose. I am not aimlessly grinding for more subscribers. I am not trying to appease an algorithm. I am writing for me, which may be useful for you.

Thought I’d share that as I found it profoundly useful to know a) why / what I’m writing, b) how I’m writing, c) when I’m writing. Which basically goes:

I write for me (and by proxy, you) about things that move me to write about, in a way that gets to the point, at any time that aligns with my current energy levels and capacity to write.

Maybe if you’re looking to write more, getting clear on the why/what/when/how will take the pressure off. At least it does for me.

But I’ve got good news. The brand strategy secret is that it’s right under your nose right from the start. It’s simply a matter of excavating it.

You know how they say a picture says 1000 words? This illustration is on the last card of Workshop Tactics, the first Pip Deck launched four years ago. But what’s so special about it?

When the first print run was being put together, I was one card short. So I found a chance to put a part of me into the deck. I wanted to remind people of something that is so easily forgotten:

There are more important things than your work. There is a big wide world of life to be lived. Work should not get you down. But with some optimism I hoped the product itself would create space and equilibrium in people’s work lives, so that moments like these were possible. There’s more…

It’s accompanied by a quote: “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking” by your stoic boi Marcus Aurelius.

I had largely forgotten about this card. Until a little while ago when a chat got me doing some noodling on the brand marketing (he is a fantastic left-field consultant for this kind of work). His thoughtful questions brought focus to this very card.

Like a typical detective story, the innocuous character at the start of the story turns out to be the missing piece of the puzzle for the twist at the end. And the same feels true about this card. It carries the very essence of why Pip Decks exists. And in actual fact, the company Why and my Why are the same: to live a happy life. It’s simple. Fishing on a boat is simple. Enjoying an evening is simple. And how do you have a happy life? As Aurelius says, it’s in your way of thinking. Little is needed.

And so that’s Pip Decks’ brand strategy: Simple tools that change how you work and how you think about work. A happy career / business creates a happy life.

So my prompt to you: go back to the start of your business venture. What’s in those first notepad scrawls or WhatsApp conversations? What weird thing was in the early version of the product? Why did you put it there and what does it mean? The stakes were low when you were working then. And your core philosophy likely attached itself to something somewhere.

Go find it, and amplify it once again.

Maybe that was useful, maybe not.

\- Charles Burdett

There are probably a few component parts from my life that demonstrate this as an “obvious” business for me to build in hindsight - but not so at the time.

First part: the unique skill in my career. Throughout my career as a UX (user experience) designer, I got pretty good at running design workshops (getting people together and solving problems and making decisions in a structured manner). I wasn’t in love with doing it, but it yielded better results than attempting to do that kind of work solo. And it set me apart from my peers that led to a fairly lucrative career.

Second part: solving problems for myself. Since I was a boy, I had been building things. One of the earliest memories is making my own Pokémon cards because I wasn’t allowed them. So in a sense, building to solve my own problem. There was always a reason to do something. I wasn’t one of those “for no greater purpose other than enjoying the flow of creating”. I always had a selfish motive.

Third part: becoming a generalist. Later in life I began to collaborate more with other people to make something greater than I could on my own. From online gaming communities, to hand drawn animation (which I ultimately loathed the process of, but getting selected by a Canadian film festival made it worth it), to an addictive app that got to \#1 in the App Store (before being dethroned by Pokémon Go of all things). I was never turned off by the medium or a limiting belief that I wasn’t capable of doing it. I think this gave me a higher-than-average sense of curiosity about how to accomplish something.

And so when I hit the point in my career that I departed the cosy in-house role and took a leap into the world of contracting - I got exposed to many more businesses, people and problems. I sold myself on my workshopping prowess, but this created a problem. People were asking me what workshop to run, or for help on how to run a workshop.

I needed to get them off my back. So I started building.

The first version of Workshop Tactics was created, but only in earnest. I made it so I would be left alone! It went down well - but people kept asking me which tactic to start with. So, determined to get people off my back, I iterated it again. Now people could get started more easily, but now they were asking me a new question: “which tactic should I do next?”. So I iterated it again. And again. And again. Until finally, I was largely left alone. I had put my workshopping brain into a box. Workshop Tactics was born.

Then I thought “what if…”

• What if I got these cards made up real nice?

• What if I designed them in a way that stood out?

• What if I tried and sold them to people similar to those I was working with?

And so I did. And it was going great. After doing some pre-sale testing and email list building, I was off to the races. It seemed… easy? People were eager. And when I launched, this little side project was cruising at multiple sales a day by word of mouth! (Apparently this is what product-market-fit feels like). I had entered the typical e-commerce startup era where your living room becomes a fulfilment centre. This dopey little deck of cards was covering my monthly bills.

But you might be surprised to learn, I did not see it as a business. In fact I was still desperately clutching at the universe to reveal to me what my legacy defining business would be. For the best part of a year - as sales grew and as I started collaborating with Steve Rawling on Storyteller Tactics - I rejected the idea of being known as a founder of a “card deck company”. I was just having fun with this little side project.

But then I had to hire a team to help me keep up with the growing demands of the business. And fast forward three years, with a team of nearly 20 and hundreds of thousands of sales - I look back with incredulity at how long I rejected this call to adventure for. It’s only now that I’ve employed a CEO coach, and given myself this title - that I am taking the whole thing much more seriously.

You see, I don’t think my story is uncommon. I think it’s a myth that there is a magical “aha!” moment and the business is born. For years I was soul-searching, tweaking, iterating, self-doubting.

When I look back, I think these are the characteristics that came together that allowed my business to come into existence:

• I was bathing in the problem (with my potential customers and their struggle) throughout my career for so long, that making a solution for them felt obvious and largely uneventful. This creates a kind of blind spot for the potential of what you have made.

• I had an inclination for action and “finding out”. I probably owe my sense of curiosity and determinedness for solving my own problem (the real problem!) of getting people off my back.

• My skill set leading up to this point (web / brand design / UX / print design / workshopping) was a perfect storm to make the product possible.

I think ultimately, “what is the business I am going to create going to be?” is the wrong question to ask.

Perhaps even starting a business for the sake of starting one is the wrong way to go. There’s a kind of weird power in building un-ambitiously and earnestly.

It’s probably hard to unconsciously start a business in the way I’ve told you I did, and maybe I’ve cursed you with this knowledge that might prevent you from doing so.

But the maybe useful (maybe not) advice is this: be receptive to the cards the universe has and is dealing you:

• what is your unique skill that no one else you know can do?

• what other eclectic abilities do you have, that you’ve been able to do for a long time? these will be obvious to you when you ask “what work doesn’t feel like work but feels like play?”

• what struggle or desire do you have, or do you notice other people having? (this is hard because - like a fish in water - if you’ve been around it so long it’s almost impossible to see)

• how can you make something quickly and cheaply to see if it’s a solvable problem?

Now, it's your turn. Reflect on these questions: the skills that set you apart, the problems that stir your passion, and the solutions only you can offer. Even just being aware of them and going about your day turns you into a more receptive sponge that the universe needs you to be.

Then, make the leap. Just a tiny leap. Start small, stay humble, and be open to the events that unfold. Not only ask “what if?” but act on it too. Remember, the perfect time to start is now, and the best place to find inspiration is within your immediate world of people, connections and problems. Don’t fall for the trap of procrastinating building the imaginary superfluous business, one you hope you might build one day. The building happens right now in lots of tiny micro-steps.

So don’t just dream about the future, make it. Don’t let yourself have that deathbed regret. Your version of Pip Decks is out there, waiting for you to bring it to life.

Steve Jobs once said:

When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world.

Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money.

That's a very limited life.

Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again.

So, what are you waiting for? Start building!

\*\*\*

For further reading on this, you ought to consume everything Seth Godin has written (because building a product is largely a marketing exercise). He has been and is my lifelong guide and I wouldn’t be here without the wisdom he had imparted on me in his books. As a starting point, read Purple Cow and This is Marketing.

1. Use stories to show change. A story in copywriting does more than keep the reader hooked. It shows the thing that keeps us captivated in any story: the transformation of a character. For example, tell a story of someone who was once in your audience’s shoes and how your product helped them change for the better. Keep it simple, for example: Beginning (have problem). Middle (tried solution). End (transformation as a result of no problem). The aim is for the reader to see themselves in that story, undergoing a similar transformation.

1. Play to core human desires or fail. If your product doesn't promise outcomes related to wealth, sex appeal, freedom, pain reduction, annoyance removal, or peer admiration, it won't sell. Be explicit about how your product delivers on these fronts. For instance, if selling a skincare product, emphasise how it enhances attractiveness (sex appeal) and boosts confidence (peer admiration). Trust me. If you don’t do this, sales will elude you and you will forever be poor, unattractive and laughed at for having weak copy.

1. Avoid marketing-speak; be specific and human. Steer clear of generic phrases like “while stocks last.” Instead, use specific, human language: “This is the last batch of our artisan coffee we’re roasting this season, and it's been flying off the shelves. Order now so you don't miss out, I’d hate for you to miss this unique blend!” It really doesn’t get simpler than this. Just write like you talk and you have already gained some trust.

1. Make the abstract tangible. Use metaphors to make complex ideas accessible. For instance, compare a financial planning service to a lighthouse, guiding customers through the foggy seas of investment. The imagery makes the service's value tangible: direction and peace of mind, rather than just managed money.

1. Use your customer’s words in your copy. Using customer language makes your copy ring true because it’s real and relatable beyond what you could ever make up on your own. When customers read testimonials or phrases they would use themselves, it feels like a conversation rather than a sales pitch.

1. Goldilocks Three: simplify decision-making with cognitive patterns. The Rule of Three works because it’s a simple pattern our brains latch onto. Take Pip Decks, for instance. We frame it as: “Books are time-consuming, courses are costly, but our tool is just right, giving you practical steps without the fluff.” This structure helps our audience compare options by highlighting the flaws, so they can clearly see why ours is the best choice. Too hot. Too cold. Just right.

Copywriting is selling. And to sell you need to tap into the human brain; use stories, metaphors, and social proof to - in the end - help someone make the decision that they need what you’ve got.

And to understand these things, you need to spend 80% of your time researching - that’s where the magic of copy comes from. But more on that in another post.

Maybe that was useful. Maybe not.

Charles Burdett.

Ever wondered why your ads are losing you money? Unit economics and sales funnel aside… the problem often lies in the hook of your ad. It’s probably not as hooky as you think. A good hook is not rocket science, it’s more of an art. And to immediately contradict myself; here’s a really simple formula that shows you what a hook is made up of, so you can make them more effectively:

Disruptor × Qualifier × Gap = Hook.

Let me break each part down.

1. Disruptor: The Pattern Interrupt

Ads need to snap the audience out of their scrolling trance. A disruptor is that sudden splash of cold water on your face. The trick is breaking the pattern in a way that's still relevant, not just being loud or shocking.

2. Qualifier: Making It Personal

Your ad isn't for everyone, and it shouldn't try to be. The qualifier ensures that your message resonates with a specific audience. It's like saying, "Hey, I’m talking to you." Forget casting a wide net. You're finding your fish.

3. Gap: The Open Loop

Creating a gap is like starting a story but not finishing it. It opens a loop in the mind of your audience, creating a need for closure. This gap makes them stick around, eager to find out more.

The Multiplication Effect

The elements multiply each other. Miss one, and your ad is a three-legged stool missing a leg.

• Disruptor / Qualifier / No Gap? Interest fizzles out.

• No Disruptor / Qualifier / Gap? You're scrolled past.

• Disruptor / No Qualifier / Gap? It's irrelevant.

I see ads with weak hooks all the time. It's like a meal without seasoning - bland and forgettable.

Here’s an example from one of our ads:

You can see that it’s not entirely strict how often these elements occur. The only hard rule is that you respect the sequence in which they appear.

Here’s an example from the subtitle of this post:

I know why your ads aren’t performing. Most marketers don’t know the anatomy of a hook. Let me show you.

1. Disruptor: “I know why your ads aren’t performing.” - This statement immediately grabs attention. It suggests that there is a known reason for failure that the reader might not be aware of, prompting curiosity and a sense of urgency.

1. Qualifier: “Most marketers don’t know the anatomy of a hook.” - This part narrows the focus to a specific group (marketers) and hints at a knowledge gap they might have. It implicitly states that this content is particularly relevant for those involved in marketing or advertising.

1. Gap: “Let me show you.” - This is an invitation and a promise of revelation. It creates a loop that can only be closed by reading the content, as it implies the existence of valuable, possibly exclusive information that will be disclosed.

The 80% Rule

Spend 80% of your time crafting and testing your hooks. And 20% on the rest of the ad. Why? Because that’s how you make your ad dollars stretch further. The Facebook algorithm loves a good hook, and so do your potential customers. Your ad will live or die by the hook.

Avoiding Over-seasoning

You don’t want to be the “You won’t BELIEVE this ONE WEIRD TRICK” guy. Here’s how to keep it real:

• Highlight a Specific Problem: This creates a disruptor, qualifier, and gap all at once.

• Lead with a Story, Be Yourself: Authenticity is key. If you can weave a story into your hook that’s genuine and relatable, you’re gold.

Testing Your Hooks

When you're crafting your hooks, ask yourself:

• Does it disrupt effectively?

• Does it qualify the audience correctly?

• Does it create a compelling gap?

Play with these elements. Tweak, test, and learn.

Disrupt, qualify, create a gap, and spend real time on it. And stay true to your story, because authenticity is getting rarer by the day.

Maybe that was useful, maybe not.

Disclaimer \#1: I will never try and sell you anything here. This isn't agency talk. This is coming from someone who's spent millions of their own cash on ads. Real money, real skin in the game. So please share this post with someone who might find it useful.

Disclaimer \#2: I cannot take responsibility for any losses you may incur from this advice as a result of experimenting with your hooks. That’s the price of learning.

You build a landing page. The holy grail of product and business development. Building one forces you to articulate the idea's value. Who is it for? What problem does it solve? Can you convince someone to believe in an idea that doesn't yet exist? (Though you need to present it as if it does!) A landing page is a litmus test for your idea's clarity and appeal.

Now, the real test: do people buy it? Nodding heads mean nothing. The strongest validation for any idea is people parting with their credit card details. If your landing page converts, your idea has legs. If it doesn’t, that’s feedback too. Maybe the value isn't as clear as you thought, or perhaps the idea needs reworking. A tough pill to swallow, but better to swallow it now than after you've built the thing.

OK, one last piece of the puzzle. How do you get traffic to your landing page? This is where you need to commit some skin to the game. This is where you need to pull out YOUR credit card and run some Facebook/Instagram ads. If you aren’t willing to spend a couple hundred bucks of your own money testing if your idea can sell, then you probably aren’t that serious.

This is what entrepreneurship takes: living 10ft outside your comfort zone, in a continuous loop of gut checks and reality checks. You start with a feeling, shape it into a clear, compelling proposition on a landing page, and then let the market decide.

If it fails, it's back to the drawing board. Refine, tweak, maybe start from scratch, guided by that mix of gut instinct and real-world feedback, until your vision lines up with something the world wants, or better yet needs.

Just don’t be another failed startup who spent millions building a team - to build an idea no one wanted in the first place. (Yes, you can raise millions on a completely un-market-tested idea.)

Maybe that was useful, maybe not.

Charles Burdett

1. Build for one person. Develop your prototype to solve this one person’s problem - and do not stop until it is perfect. Seth Godin calls this the “minimum viable audience”. There are more people on this Earth than you can feasibly comprehend. I promise you there are at least 100,000 other people who need what you made for that one person.

1. Be remarkable. This point is only possible if you followed point 1. A product that solves a painful and specific problem is inherently remarkable (i.e., worth remarking upon). If the rash on your skin goes away after using this special cream, you are going to tell your friends who also have the same rash.

1. Stand the fuck out, or don’t bother at all. It is a risk to try and blend in amongst what already exists. Your visual aesthetic and brand need to be totally fucking wild and different - or you will be another cow in the field. Be a purple cow.

1. Design like you’re right, test like you’re wrong. You are only as good as your ability to test your riskiest assumptions as quickly as possible. For example, if you assume your new subscription business model is going to pave the road to financial salvation - you better test that offer before you invest time and money setting it up. Similarly, starting out a business - you better test people will buy what you’re offering before you build it.

1. Ship it now. Fix it later. Further to point 4, your opinion only matters in so far as it brings a hypothesis into reality. Your customers (and the market) will tell you if you’re right or you’re wrong. Use arguments (not quarrels!) with your partner/team to roadtest your thinking. Do not argue for the sake of “being right” and protecting your ego.

1. Allow your mind to change. Let data guide you. But don’t be dogmatic about it either. Economic theory and irrational human behaviour don’t play nice.

1. Delegate now you coward! You will always wish you did it sooner. So do it. Learn to hire well. Only hire A-players; people that blow you away. As soon as you allow mediocrity into your team, it will rot your business from the inside forevermore.

1. Ego is the enemy. Shut up and mind your own business. A protruding nail wants to get hammered. Don’t build in public for Twitter clout. Build with your customers. Speak to your customers instead of speaking to people on podcasts. Succeed in silence. Don’t respond to that LinkedIn DM that wants to pick your brain.

1. Don’t follow gurus. Follow your curiosity. You don’t need to be ambitious or have a goal in mind. So long as you are having fun and earnestly building something that genuinely helps people - the rest will click into place if you let it. “What happens if I…” will get you very far.

1. You will die. No one will care or remember how successful or disastrous your business is, or how hard you worked, or what your MRR was, or how much money you raised. The number one deathbed regret is working too hard and not spending enough time with family and friends. So don’t blow your life away trying to escape it by working on your business. Keep going as long as you are making money and having fun. But when one of those two things stops being true - get out.

‘til next time.

Charles Burdett. twitter.com/chburdett

I haven’t made the time to write lately for the simple reason that I haven’t had anything useful to say.

And I still don’t. But I thought it might be a good idea to at least start writing to see if something turns up.

There’s a certain pressure this newsletter has created on me which, whilst jokingly titled “maybe useful” … I do strive for being very useful. And much of that energy is exerted on my actual business (thank goodness!).

But I know you enjoyed my past writing, hence why you subscribed! So I feel I owe it to you to keep posting, and to myself to allow the act of writing to surface helpful ideas.

And that leads me to the thing that’s on my mind today. Productivity. Feeling useful. Feeling productive. Often you have days where you worked awfully hard but feel like nothing got done. Or days where you hardly worked and lots of things seem to complete themselves.

Guilt is a feeling that often crops up in this area. Guilty for not doing anything. Guilty for working too much.

Then enters this goal of being maximally effective and productive with your time. Where every waking moment must be harnessed to produce. Every care must be taken with your exact movement. No context switching. Pomodoro timers. The works.

This can be helpful occasionally, but we aren’t machines. I believe that as flawed fleshy human beings, we need to be more in tune not with our calendar - but with our energy levels.

You see, crystals do have amazing properties.

(Haha, just kidding - sorry I couldn’t help myself)

You see, we are more similar to a lion than to a factory line. A lion spends 95% of its time lazing around basking in the sun. Conserving its energy for when it needs to go ham 5% of the time to either get a kill or to ward off a rival.

My dumb advice today is this: be the lion.

Yes, have a to-do list. It's awfully helpful in knowing what you’ve got to get done. But don’t allow it to bully you. If you don’t feel like doing anything on a given day, then listen to that feeling and be kind to yourself. Just hit up the super easy items. The low-energy admin stuff. Don’t force yourself to be highly productive 100% of the time. Save your energy for the high-calorie brain activity for when you truly need it.

\* \* \*

Until next time. (Hit reply and let me know your thoughts on this one! It feels good to be back.)

The first is writing and selling.

If you can’t write a good ad headline or email sales letter - you are screwed. So let’s fix that.

Here is everything I know about copywriting (part I):

• Write simply by using simple words. Try not to exceed one or two syllables. This isn’t “dumbing” down. It makes your writing easier to read. And you want people to read what you write. Right?

• Treat every word as unnecessary until proven essential. This means going back through your writing and putting every word on trial. “What happens if I kill this word?” Most of the time, it makes your writing punchier and easier to read.

• Paint a picture in your mind. The last bullet point uses the simple, unexpected analogy of a courtroom and killing. This is how you make things stick in your reader’s mind.

• Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself. When you feel like you’re being repetitive - only then is your point starting to get across.

• Appeal to your reader's innermost unspoken desires. Then once you have landed a promise to fulfil that desire, everything after must address their objections and hesitations.

- Inner unspoken desires: “I want to make more money. I want to be sexier. I want higher status”

- Hesitations: “How much does it cost? What’s included? How much is shipping? What’s your return policy? Is it for me? Will I like it? Will I get bored of it? Is it worth it? Do people like me buy this?”

- Objections: “It costs too much. It’ll lose its value. I won’t have time to use it. It’ll get lost. The contract terms are too long. I won’t see a return on this.”

• For headlines, write about the transformation your prospect will undergo when they do business with you. What will they become? This is the story you must tell. You are the guide showing them the way.

• For ad copy, there is nothing more powerful than stating pure facts. Take Ogilvy’s Rolls-Royce ad: At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock. “It's the best headline I ever wrote,” Ogilvy later said.

• Write as if you are speaking to one person. Because you are! The more you read as if a close friend was speaking to you over a beer - the better.

But then you get the advice that - you shouldn’t sell features, you should sell benefits instead.

Today I want to remind you that there is a level deeper. In fact it’s the bedrock reason to why we buy anything at all.

We buy emotional outcomes.

Let me paint the picture of what this really looks like.

I spent 6 weeks interviewing early customers of my product. Why? Because I could not fathom why people were spending so much of their hard earned money on something I had made.

For me, it felt like a risk not knowing why people were buying. And I figured that if I knew why, it would give me a way to sell it on purpose - instead of what felt like an accident.

So day after day, proverbially shaking my customer’s shoulders over Zoom, I asked three questions:

• “What made you buy?”

• “OK … but what was the REAL reason you bought?”

• “How did you feel after you used it?”

This is a variant of the “Five Why” tactic, a way of uncovering the root cause of a problem. The same thing works with the mind of your customers - you’ve just gotta ask it in a way that doesn’t make you sound like an annoying toddler.

Anyway, after weeks of interviewing - the real reason came to light.

People weren’t buying a deck of cards.

They weren’t buying the workshop techniques inside it.

They weren’t even buying the outcomes those techniques would give them.

They were buying confidence.

The mere act of holding our product, and the potential inside it - made people feel confident - at a time they were suffering from Impostor Syndrome or feeling stuck or lost. Even professionals with decades of experience were telling me the product simply made them feel better about what they were already doing. Like it gave them permission!

After uncovering this killer insight - I changed all my marketing messaging to focus on this angle of confidence: “Career confidence in a box”.

It was like finding the right key for a lock. And turning it opened a faucet of sales. It went from feeling like I was pushing a boulder uphill, to watching one roll downhill at breakneck speed.

To find and sell to the people who need what you’ve got - you need to excavate the truth from those who have already taken a leap of faith with your product.

Ultimately, this is marketing. It’s connecting the dots and doing it on purpose.

When I tell this story - I tend to hear the objection of something like “yeh but Amazon don’t use emotion to sell”

No, they don’t. They have a very commodified offering that they dominate. It is an essential service for millions of people who need no convincing of its benefits. And the emotional outcome is implicit: peace of mind.

“Don’t worry, we can just get it tomorrow from Amazon”

Take Ferrari. The features of a Ferrari are whatever. It does the whole getting from A to B. But what people are really spending quarter of a million on, is the emotional outcome. An elevation or maintaining of status (with a dash of thrill if you take it out on track). Nothing more, nothing less.

Anyway, I hope this was maybe useful. I would implore you to look at what you’re selling and find the core emotion behind why people are parting with their money.

You could guess, but you’ll always sleep better at night knowing the truth. So speak to your customers. Find the truth. Tell the truth.

I lol’d at such a silly question - but then it made me realise the term “brand”, much like “strategy” - has a thousand different interpretations.

(What they really meant was when should you start spending money on brand marketing - which is an entirely different question)

Anyway, I’m gunna share with you what brand really means and why it matters to know it.

But first, let me try and answer the original question in earnest - which led to this brain dump in the first place:

When should you care about brand? It depends on what you are selling.

If you are selling luxury goods - brand is your biggest lever. You cannot start “caring” about brand at £50m as a luxury brand. You won’t even get to £50m in the first place.

And “brand strategy” IS your “business strategy”. Such as decisions about who your audience is, or isn’t. Or what you as a business care for, and what you don’t. What you are the ONLY brand doing. Not just a “brand” doing something “better”.

You have a brand from the moment you start a business - it’s up to you when you decide to start being intentional with it

If you are selling water bottles or wallets - your product matters more

If you are selling 1000 dollar water bottles or a 1000 dollar wallets - your brand matters more.

Ultimately - branding is signalling status

“People like me buy products like this”

“I want to be like someone that owns a Bentley”

People will subconsciously ask themselves “how does this maintain or elevate my status” - brand is the vehicle to make that story coherent in a prospect's mind.

EVERYTHING you do is a signal that contributes to this overall image.

The mere fact you cannot go to a Ferrari dealership and buy a new Ferrari - is part of their brand.

Or why you need to be on a 3 year waiting list to buy a brand new Rolex.

Scarcity creates exclusivity - which elevates status of ownership. It’s all bullshit - but when we collectively decide to play along with it - it’s not bullshit lol.

When you see someone in a Ferrari - you wonder how they got so rich to buy a Ferrari. This is the primary reason that person purchased a Ferrari, because they want that feeling of knowing that’s how you will be thinking about them.

All of human life is a Status Game. And this is not a game you get to decide if you are playing or not. Rejecting the status game is a move in the game of status.

The primary reason I can sell card decks for $200+ is because of brand. And we cared about brand from the start.

Brand is not how it looks or sounds.

Brand is all the products we decide to NOT make and what to call them.

Brand is what we do and don’t care about.

Brand is the mise en scène of business

Brand means how we do stuff. Take any given thing - like ads, website, communication. A strong brand means decisions on how to approach these things takes care of itself.

Brand is doing your business on purpose.

Brand is ultimately what people talk about behind your business’s back.

As always there isn’t an absolute answer - it’s a matter of context. If you are selling a commodity - no one gives a shit. There is no “luxury” energy. But you will find we now have “luxury” water lol. Guess what… all brand.

Brand is something I’ve personally invested a huge chunk of my career into learning and executing on.

We’re developing a Pip Deck for branding. It’s being authored by Alex Smith at basicarts.org who helped us really nail our brand strategy.

But you have to be careful because “brand” means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

So my advice would be to go absorb as much as you can. Check out stuff like StoryBrand by Donald Miller. Read Purple Cow and other works by Seth Godin.

Ultimately the brand is already within you, as a founder - it just needs excavating.

Most Brand agencies are expensive, grifty fuckers who have no skin in the game with whether executing on your brand long term will work. That’s always going to be you.

Your brand will evolve - so it’s always going to be better to develop this in-house. And remain flexible long term.

You could totally find some good branding agencies to help you execute on aesthetics - but the point I’m making is that your brand strategy is so closely coupled with your business strategy - that most agencies are only going to focus on superficial shit.

If you build your business intentionally, with a clear strategy (what you are doing and what you are not doing, who it’s for and who it’s not for), you are likely “doing branding” without realising it.

The thin layer on top is how it looks and sounds.

And again - “brand” is what people are telling each other about your brand behind your back.

When an artist creates a work - they cannot control how people will respond to it. But they certainly have a lot of control in what kind of response they hope to invoke.

Like art - brand is 50% creator, 50% viewer.

And if none of this has driven my point home… “building a brand" does not mean putting together a 40 slide deck explaining the colour scheme and what feeling #24cf2f should convey.

Anyway, hope that was useful. Maybe not.

I really didn’t want to post this - which is the surest sign that I ought to post it.

I'd like to discuss the role of luck in business success.

Lately, I've noticed that I'm quick to attribute my achievements in business, to luck. However, after reflecting with my coach (I have a coach now!) I believe this mindset can be harmful as it doesn't promote positive behaviour among those around me - or even in myself.

For instance, if I tell my children that all the luxuries we enjoy are due to being lucky rather than hard work or skilful decision-making, they won't learn any valuable lessons about achieving success for themselves.

Similarly, telling my staff and colleagues that our accomplishments are purely a result of luck is a disservice to the intentional efforts we have made along the way (and does that fill you with confidence, that the person paying you says you are only getting paid out of luck?)

That being said, I don't claim that sheer force of will and hard work alone brought me here either.

This post is me coming to terms with the fact it’s OK to accept that I am good at what I do - and that I am deserving of the success I am enjoying. As cringe as that might be to read - I really struggle with it. And pointing to “luck” as the reason kinda nullifies the embarrassment I feel of how well things have gone.

A combination of circumstances and compounding luck has certainly played a part in presenting opportunities, and having the fortune (i.e. financial security) to pounce on them when they arise has been just as vital.

I also believe I have learned to have a bias towards action, rather than inaction.

“Feel the fear and do it anyway” I think is the essence of where “you make your own luck” comes into play.

As Seneca states: "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity." So while seizing an opportunity may feel lucky at times, overlooking the preparation leading up to it diminishes its importance too.

Albeit I didn’t know I was preparing for anything as I can’t think beyond tomorrow - but looking back in hindsight - where I’m at right now is a very logical consequence of everything that preceded it. I really did work hard to be where I am - but it doesn’t stop it from feeling like I’m only “accidentally” here lol.

I have to confess to myself that I did have agency in my life to make the decisions that allowed this path to be possible.

But I really battle with the perception of others when I think and talk about this - so writing this publicly is a step in addressing that.

Growing up in the UK, people hesitate to acknowledge their own hard work for fear of appearing full of themselves. There is a strong “crabs in the bucket” mentality here. I felt this when I quit full-time work to pursue business. And the sure sign it is ingrained culture is that it was 90% all in my head (aside from the fact a lot of past mentors and bosses ceased contact with me).

Attributing everything to luck became a defence mechanism. But no more.

Moving forward requires acknowledging both intentionality and good fortune behind successes.

In future posts I will dive in more on success factors such as intentional decision making, asymmetric bets and trusting one's gut instincts. I believe these are essential elements worth exploring further.

Additionally crucial is defining personal measures for success instead of following someone else's path or materialistic markers like having numerous employees or raising X million in a seed round, a topic deserving another post altogether.

So if you’re like me - and you’re doing well for yourself (but this embarrasses you) - just own it. You’re here where you are now because you’re awesome - and it’s OK to admit that to yourself.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Maybe that was useful. Maybe not.

Cheers, Charles.

I’ve been thinking about what makes a business last, and one thing that has stuck with me from reading Taleb’s “Antifragile” is that a healthy business gets better when it undergoes stress. Like how you build muscle by tearing it up in the gym. Or how the stress of time improves the taste of wine.

Another way to think of it is like a good football team suffering a shock defeat. This doesn’t kill the football team, only it corrects their complacency and forces them to reevaluate and improve their systems. This is why I’m always optimistic when England have a poor early performance in a group game at the World Cup.

But this is the thing. The good times don’t last. And you always need to be searching for what is going to create your next wave of “good times”.

In business, one area or product tends to account for 80% of revenue or profit. But that 80% won't last forever, and that's why creating and testing new offerings should be ingrained in your “business as usual”. You should constantly be searching for the next big thing that'll take up that 80% slot because your current cash cow has an expiration date.

Now, here's the kicker - finding that next big cash cow is pure luck. You won't know what's going to become the new 80% until you launch it into the market. So you must Always Be Launching. Keep making those small bets and eventually, you'll hit the jackpot.

But let me tell you something that's just as important: brand building. When you have a strong brand (to be very clear, a strong brand means you’ve established a great reputation and built a relationship with a large group of people on the quality of your existing products), anything new you put out will get initial traction or tailwind that a weak or nonexistent brand simply won't get.

This makes your efficiency of finding the next thing far greater.

It seems the root of all brand greatness comes from creating products people want, and love. So always optimise for that - and remember, that requires speaking to your customers! So GO!

Here’s what happened. I love writing and creating landing pages, and I’m pretty good at it (in the £millions kind of good). I love how it combines design, copywriting, sales, development and storytelling - and a good one can make a shit load of money. And I like money too.

But as good as my ego claims I am, even I suffer from this blindness. So to counteract that, I hired fresh eyes. Three pairs of fresh eyes in fact. And boy I was blind to a lot. Reading through the notes, I was shaking my head in disbelief to how many obvious blunders I was making. But this feeling was coupled with excitement to iterate and put the feedback into action.

The funny thing about this is that I love helping and critiquing other people’s landing pages. So it was funny to hear the advice I would give myself. It’s a weird sensation, that’s for sure.

Anyway, I thought for this newsletter I would offer my landing page critique services - but I realised I don’t have time for that. Instead I thought I’d just tell you what I’m likely to call out on your landing page in hopes this generic advice might help you all the same.

These are problems that I see over and over again:

The first one is your headline and subheading not getting across the value of what you do in a very straightforward manner. Your headline should be something that grabs attention and gets across the problem and the “transformation promise” that your solution offers.

Combining those two things, the problem and the solution, in one elegant headline is the trick to a good headline. For example “Tell great stories with confidence” implies your current problem is lacking in confidence with storytelling (and your stories likely suck). Write with implication. People are smart.

Next, the subheading really has to be something that tells someone exactly what you offer, so they'll just get it within two or three seconds.

Consider that 50% of people visiting a page don't really scroll below “the fold”, your headline and subheading are doing 80% of the heavy lifting, so you really have to nail it there.

The next thing I notice a lot is severe lack of social proof. With any product or service, people are looking at what other people are doing (you do this all the time without realising it, like when a fire alarm goes off - the first thing you do is look at how other people react).

So, the most important thing is to make sure you have some tangible social proof, whether that's in the form of showing star ratings and reviews, actual quotes from customers with their faces and names, or showing people using your products and talking about them.

These are all vital aspects of a landing page because if someone is looking at your site, they're looking for a reason to trust you and your product. Testimonials in particular are effectively a way of helping address any hesitations or obstacles someone has to purchase. If you know a common hesitation customers have, make sure your testimonials address that hesitation first. They’ll be more powerful than any copy you could possibly write.

The third aspect is showing the transformation your product creates in a customer. Present a three-step story on how to use your product or how to get value from it, just to make it easy in the prospect's mind. Step one might be highlighting the problem someone has, step two might be using your product, and step three might be how they'll be after using the product: that transformative story in three parts.

The final thing I think any given landing page suffers from is attention to all of the tiny details. If there are parts of your landing page that look buggy, unfinished, or have typos, it's equivalent to having a door that doesn't open properly on your physical storefront. These small details all add up, and when you've got a tight, well-designed landing page that's perfect, it signals trust. As soon as people notice things that are broken, it subconsciously signals to them that something else might be broken down the line with the product or customer service. Your bare minimum, non-negotiable level to be operating at is perfection.

So, to summarise: headlines and subheadings, testimonials, and showing the transformation are all crucial. And don't forget, make the value proposition abundantly clear. Clarity above all. If you're doing these things well, then everything else is kind of secondary to that.

Maybe that was useful, maybe not.

Cheerio, Charles.

They really want to work with you. They tell you all the right things. They want a long-term partnership. They want to make a win-win situation. Your success is their success!

And then you’re in, and they’re only human - so you want them to be successful. You bottle up some of the mild red flags you spotted. You might not even pry too far into someone's experience just in case you embarrass them when it turns out they have none.

But then a few expensive months later, they sorely disappoint you. They suck at communicating. They aren’t proactive. They underdeliver with mediocre quality. Or they pull the bait and switch and shaft you with the mediocre B-team that is also serving 100 other clients.

Maybe you “see how it goes” and hope they’ll miraculously start exceeding your expectations. Then you feel like a mug, and you grumble and wonder why you aren’t trying to build this agency’s capability in-house. You have the cringey hard conversation about leaving a contract early.

Then you do it yourself for a bit. Groan at the prospect of trying to hire for this imaginary unicorn role, and start scouting for agencies again. And the cycle repeats itself.

Hiring and building a team in-house is the single most rewarding part of my job as a business owner. And I implore you to solve your immediate needs internally first. Only go to an agency if it is absolutely unreasonable to try and build an entire film production team, or a specialist animation team.

But for leg-work stuff like marketing, performance creative, copywriting, yada yada - invest in these core competencies in your team! And don’t lean on just one person. Encourage the whole team to upskill in these areas.

Treat your team like a starting 11 of a football (soccer) game. Everyone should have core competencies in being able to pass and shoot the ball. But you may get people better at defending than attacking.

I try and work backwards from making someone the best in the world in a particular area. Such as throw-ins, or free kicks. I’ll invest the shit out of them. All the courses. All the books. Whatever it takes. As long as they want to.

Not a bad analogy, but I won’t push it any further for now lol.

And that skill combined with tacit and unique knowledge of your brand and business? Absolutely priceless. You can NEVER buy that from an agency.

This post is more of a letter to myself (if you couldn’t tell). I’m building a legendary team and I love it - but it’s also not easy. I’ve made mistakes.

In a way, I’m building my own agency, and there’s only one client: Pip Decks. Thinking of it like this helps a lot. Maybe it’ll help you too.

Cheerio, Charles.

There’s nothing you want more than to grow into the biggest tree in the world. You’ll stop at nothing to get there.

Remember this tree. I’ll come back to it.

When you fixate on a goal, there’s a tendency to brute force your way to achieving it.

Whether that’s more sales, more followers, more whatever - when you fixate on a target like that, all your actions become optimised towards it.

This can be a good thing, but it can also be bad if left unchecked.

Optimising for more sales might lead you to dropping your price. It might mean taking on bad customers. Or it might mean creating new products for the sake of it. And you will eventually reap all of the consequences of these decisions.

Things can get even worse thinking this way. You might even consider hacks and tricks, or the slippery slope to outright fraud. Whether that’s literal fraud, or defrauding your own morals.

Now if you’re that little tree, you might decide to cut yourself in half and graft some metal pole to artificially double your height. Or whatever other strange way you could imagine a tree artificially getting “bigger”. Admittedly this is a weird analogy but let’s run with it.

The point is, there are severe trade-offs for this way of thinking. And I want to anchor you to it so I can show you a better way.

This better way is more of a frame of mind when thinking about business building than anything else, and I have personally found it immensely useful since my friend Ben Mosior introduced the idea to me.

It’s thinking about what conditions you need to create to achieve success, rather than the direct forceful actions you could take.

You could try and pull and stretch the little tree to make it bigger…

But you’ll likely have more success by nurturing the conditions for the tree to grow bigger.

Timely watering. Adequate fertilisation. Good ventilation. Lots of light. Thoughtful pruning.

Focusing on the conditions around the thing you want to improve. This way of thinking applies to everything. Your own well-being, your team, your ideas, your systems, products and services.

Creating the conditions for more sales might look like giving your entire team access to customer research and encouraging open exploration of ideas to help minimise objections and hesitations on sales material.

Or a step before that might be creating the systems that allows direct access for your team to speak to customers in the first place.

This way of thinking has you approaching problems more laterally rather than head on. It encourages more long-term thinking, which I think is always a good thing as that tends to encourage compounding results.

So tend to the tree. Don’t hack it down.

Anyway, maybe that was useful. Maybe not.

Cheerio, Charles.

In the sense that a business is an asset, it must continue to appreciate in value even if you aren’t operating it. This doesn’t happen if your “business” is you consulting or providing a service.

Businesses come in all shapes and sizes, and one that works without you tends to sell products, or a productised service.

This post is going to dive into some rules of thumb characteristics of business that you can use to check against before you embark on the wrong path.

This advice comes from one of the most influential books I read on entrepreneurship: Millionaire Fastlane by M J DeMarco. As cringey as the title is, it offers some seriously practical and frank advice on how to build an asset that avoids pitfalls that most businesses succumb to.

If you're about to embark on starting a business, run through these checks to make sure you aren't going to make your life harder than it needs to be.

Remember CENTS:

C is for Control

• Do you own the land you build your business on? Could someone slip the carpet from right under you?

• Are you reliant on a single platform like Amazon, YouTube, Google Organic Search alone? e.g. Amazon could end their affiliate program or reduce the rates and your years of SEO writing and link building die in an instant.

• If 90% of your sales are based on one single platform like Amazon, they could kick you off and kill your business. Similarly, Facebook could ban your ad account tomorrow without warning.

• If 100% of your business comes from an organic Google algorithm and that algorithm changes, you are in trouble.

• Are you building your business around reselling someone else's product? What happens when they decide to go with an exclusive reseller that isn't you?

• ‘A job’ violates control as well as equity control over your own business if you hold a minority stake.

• Are you building on a private technology platform (one that isn’t open source)? What if OpenAI decide to double their API call fees overnight and kills your margin? Or what if a neurotic multi-billionaire buys the social media platform you’ve built your app around and bans you with no warning or reason?

E is for Entry

• How easy or difficult is it to get into your business? If anyone off the street can start the same business by filling out a form, you are violating Entry. A business with zero entry barriers is a cattle call.

• The essence of Entrepreneurship is problem solving. It must have a level of difficulty. If you are following steps on “how to build a \[X\] business” from a PDF, you are likely building something highly replicable.

• If you think a problem is too hard, then you are not in the business of solving real problems - you are in the business of making “easy money” and this will not be as successful as the former. The latter creates money-chasing Wantrepreneurs. That’s not you.

• Leveraging your unique knowledge, network and skill set and combining it in a way that no one else can is a great example of what it looks like to have high barrier to entry (but it will seem obvious and easy to you!).

• Your unique knowledge likely took 20 years to develop. Your network likely has unique access to deals and partnerships someone starting from zero simply doesn’t have. This is your starting advantage, always.

N is for Need

• Solve a REAL problem. The only reason for a business to exist is to SOLVE A PROBLEM. If you are creating a business for any other reason (e.g. ego, status; to prove a point, because you want to impress your parents) - you are guaranteed to fail.

• Examples:

- Eradicate inconvenience that people didn’t realise was one. (Wheels on luggage)

- Provide a service for something people are doing manually, or is currently underserved. (Buying books online).

- Make things easier / optimise cumbersome processes. (McDonald's Drive-thru)

• Satisfy human wants and cravings (elevate their status, make them sexier, help them make more money). Most fashion and lifestyle businesses fall into this bucket. The best ones hyperfocus their brand on a particular type of status. (Nike promising the fat lard that they too can be an athlete)

T is for Time

• The product must stand alone without you operating it for the customer. Does it serve people while you are away? Are there systems surrounding the product in case it fails?

• Your goal is to get away from the worst relationship ever created: your time for money. Your time must be divorced from earning money, it must be solely connected to growing an asset/system that works without you instead.

• Time honoured business are usually involved in the act of creation:

- Food products

- Web software / SaaS

- Games / info products

- Anything that exist independent of you. This can include services, but product-based businesses will always be "easier" to scale because the limiting factor won't be human labour and training them up - the most expensive element of any business.

S is for Scale

• Can it be scaled or replicated with ease? Your product scales but your work doesn’t.

• Can you manufacture and ship more, faster? Does it get cheaper the more your produce?

• Can you sell more without any additional cost? (e.g. software / info products)

• Are there compounding effects? Will your existing customers keep coming back for more of your product? Or do you have to keep creating new ones?

• Is there a recurring revenue element that doesn’t require the creation of new product or material?

• Is the limiting factor to scale a matter of not having enough cash/product?

• Have you created something worth talking about with network effects that will encourage natural exponential growth? (Have you created a virus with an R number greater than 1?)

That’s all for now. Some things to think about. Maybe it was useful. Maybe not.

Cheerio, Charles.

Growth is easy when you have a product or service that sells without friction.

What I mean by that is someone sees your offering ONCE - and buys immediately without hesitation. That’s the best product-market fit you can hope for. You’ve created something new, that has a great margin, that is a no-brainer purchase decision for a huge TAM (total addressable market).

Once you’ve cracked that nut - arguably the rest is “easy”. You now have a distribution problem which largely requires careful cashflow planning (or not, lol) and pulling on the biggest lever you can find.

And today, your biggest levers are paid ads, or “going viral”. Which one do you think is most in your control?

I used to loathe paid ads. It felt like cheating. I wanted to be organic and grow slowly and gently!

But I learned the power of ads when I saw the instant return it gave - it’s hard and foolish to ignore.

I’ve come to the conclusion that if you can’t show people your product in a basic ad, and you can’t sell it with enough margin to cover the ad and the fulfilment of the product - then I don’t believe you have found the right mix of product/price/people that then opens up the lever of paid ads.

But once you’ve done the hard thing of getting the right product and the right price and the right audience - growing “in no time at all” requires a lot of “fuck it let’s double our ad spend” and “fuck it let’s double it again”.

Then the questions you need to ask are:

• How do we halve costs?

• How do we double the impact?

• How do we do it in half the time?

Thinking in these big swings will reveal to you higher leverage decisions - like fearlessly doubling ad spend - or putting in the effort to reduce your COGS by seeking other suppliers. The alternative will likely find you optimising morsels.

As Sean Frank, CEO of Ridge, says: “I’d rather have a sloppy $100m business than a well optimised $1m business”

Anyway, hope that was useful. Maybe not.

Cheerio!

So instead I am doing the next best thing which is to just start writing.

And there is the point that I’d like to make! The power of “just start.” (Thanks freeflow writing!)

A friend was telling me today a story of this guy who had grand visions for the company he will one day build. Hundreds of chains across the globe - with everything just so. He would hire all kinds of people. This is the car he would drive. And the culture would be like this. You get the idea.

He built up this fantasy in his head and SPOKE about starting a business for over two years!

And he’s done nothing. Apparently still working at Tesco (no shade, I used to work for Tesco lol)

I have a lot of empathy for this kind of person. I was afflicted by the “fantasy building” stage. This manifests in me in the form of buying domain names and designing logos. Or needlessly tinkering on something entirely useless in the grand scheme of things (a website).

I think the main problem with the idea of business building is that it seems like you have to work backwards from the end goal. In our friend’s story - the vision was super clear. And I kind of don’t blame him.

It’s super debilitating having built up this fantasy in your head. Making any real moves on it turns it into reality. And reality is gross and scary and hard.

If I knew what the size and scope of Pip Decks would be now when I had started - I wouldn’t know how to get here. Hell I wouldn’t even know where to START.

And so you never do.

Because businesses tend to start either by accident, or to fulfil some immediate short-term need.

Derek Sivers wanted to help himself and his friends sell their CDs on the “world-wide web” - which then went on to become CD Baby and sell for ~$20m.

Pip Decks started the same way. I made the first product to help one person. But I didn’t really think about it beyond “what if I made it look cool” and then “what if I tried to sell it to other people”. There was no great ambition of a “multi-million global publishing company”.

So the unintuitive advice is this: don’t try and start a “business”. Instead, start helping just one person. Do it in a lo-fi way. Do it because you genuinely want to help them. “Business building” is then a matter of refining and scaling that solution and solving for distribution.

An uncanny truth: your ambition may be inversely correlated with success.

That’s kinda useless to hear isn’t it? Sorry!

Maybe that was useful. Maybe not.

Charles.

I was holed up in a room, stuck on mind-numbing Zoom calls day after day, working on something that I already knew was heading for the scrapheap. This was the pinnacle of my design career, and I hated it. And it had made me severely depressed (I wasn’t joking about losing my will to live!)

The day I quit was a sunny one. I had given my effective-immediate notice, slammed my laptop lid, ran down stairs and sat on the lawn in the sunshine with a cold beer.

A huge weight had been lifted. I knew that was me done when it came to my UX career. And I had been dealing with a great itch to start my own business, so now felt like the right time to explore that.

But then I did nothing.

Instead I spent months wondering what my business was to be.

What was going to be fun to build?

What would I want to be known for?

What kind of business would have a huge upside?

It would be an understatement to say this “problem” consumed me. I was well and truly stuck in analysis paralysis.

So I decided to stop thinking about it, and took a break.

My son was just turning a year old. My wife was still on maternity leave. We had enough money in the bank to not worry about the next thing for a little while. So we took a trip to the Lake District, the most beautiful place on Earth.

Spending time in nature is where I truly switch off. And it must’ve done the trick - because I had a realisation.

I already had a business, right under my nose.

I had spent the past 18 months testing, developing, branding and marketing a product. I had established all of the logistics for it to be sold and fulfilled online. And it was now selling a handful of units each week (by word-of-mouth!).

This might sound farfetched to you. But I really didn't realise I had accidentally started a business. At the time I was just following my curiosity with a little side-project that was made to help out a few colleagues. I had no great ambition with it at all.

I had previously pondered about taking Workshop Tactics as a business seriously as a form of escape from my career. But it seemed ridiculous. A card deck company? LOL come on. Honestly, I found the concept kinda lame.

But it was this time away that I realised I had something immensely valuable on my hands. I didn’t appreciate how powerful it was to have a high-margin product selling without any great effort on my part. (This is what some might call product-market fit)

This realisation was like this accidental business had finally caught up to me, panting. It had grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, still catching its breath and saying “right, now let’s get to work.”

And then a few months later we launched Storyteller Tactics (which has gone on to sell tens of thousands around the globe, and the rest is history).

Why am I telling you this?

I have friends who are in that position I was - wondering what will be their “thing” - and it’s consuming them.

And I want to tell you that, if that sounds like you (or you are said friend) - I think the business you’ll find yourself starting is already written in the stars. It is an amalgamation of your experience, skills, network, interests, timing and fortune.

It’s something that has to be excavated, at its own pace.

I often wonder how people end up building gargantuan pressure-washing businesses, or building a car dealership empire - or some equally obscure and strange endeavour.

But it’s clear now. A business is just as unique as you, and it probably takes time for it to bubble up to the surface and present itself. Sometimes that might take the form of your parents handing you the keys. Or as it was with me, your career was one giant exposure to users who have a need that wasn’t being met.

So if you’re in a position wondering “what is the business going to be that I will start?” It’s likely staring you in the face. You might just need some time and space to see it.

Maybe that was useful, maybe not.

I've been pondering “recommendability”. The best marketing is a product designed to be recommendable to others, and if you have such a product, any marketing or advertising you do will be smooth as silk. At least, that's the theory. The question is: how do you design products and services for recommendability?

I think I have an answer. Maybe not the answer.

The key is to create something truly remarkable. That is to say, something worth remarking on. We tend to only remark on things that surprise us (by either exceeding or subverting our expectations).

This line of thinking comes from Seth Godin's "Purple Cow", which argues that the product itself is the marketing.

This means that the product solves a particular need so well, that people can’t help but tell others about it. This tends to only be possible by focusing on a very specific person with a very specific need. Godin calls this the “minimum viable audience”: deciding exactly who to serve (and more importantly, who to not serve).

As Derek Sivers says: “proudly exclude 99% of people” - that still leaves you with 80 million people.

Workshop Tactics started this way. It is a bunch of workshop recipes, for designers. Actually, for one (junior) designer in particular who was keen on learning how to facilitate design workshops, after only ever experiencing soul-destroying meetings.

The promise of the product is embedded in its strapline: “Ditch dull meetings. Design better products”.

This resonated with them (of course, because the solution is the opposite of their problem), and further - a tiny tribe of people I found in my network shared a similar need.

Saying to anxious, meeting-weary designers “hey, I made these just for you” means you’re already cutting through a noisy world. Especially when you go on to say “and they’re not made for anyone else - and they're going to help you confidently bring people together to put the design process into action”.

When you make a specific promise to a specific person - and deliver on it - it’s clear to see how this can become a remarkable offering.

And the coolest thing is that there tends to be thousands of these tiny tribes. There are a loooot of people in the world.

This is evidenced by the fact Workshop Tactics has sold over 100,000 copies. And to my surprise, designers remain a fairly small segment of these sales. Turns out that putting a problem-solving process in a super accessible format is… super valuable to a lot of people.

In summary, remarkable means “worth talking about” and being “worth talking about” is delivering value above what is expected. So, find out what one person’s pains are, and solve them beyond their expectations.

Thanks Brian, I hope that was useful. Maybe not.

Cheerio! Charles.

P.S. To new readers, it’s great to have you! I write this newsletter to not toil in obscurity and to help share advice that has helped me. And the best part is I will never try and sell you anything, ever - hurray!

And sure it works and it’s a neat philosophy to work with. But I think it’s really only a surface-level tactic that won’t “save” you if you’re struggling to make ads work.

And this got me thinking… what makes great ads? We run lots of ads and we’ve tried lots of different styles. We’ve seen high-production videos perform just as well (and if not better) as low-production ones. So “make ugly ads” is not a hard and fast absolute rule.

But let me cut to the chase here, what is the vital ingredient then?

In short, if you don’t mind me also boosting my own ego here - is that great ads tend to stand on the shoulders of a great product.

One of our best performing ads is simply holding up the product and gently turning it so the reflective parts catch the light. And on the front of the box is the promise it makes to the customer.

My belief is that if you have a great product that promises to solve a real problem - and you can deliver on that - then simply showing someone your product and how it solves that problem will always be enough to make them see the value and buy.

This isn’t anything new. For decades, the philosophy of any great salesperson is to partner with a company that sells a great product. Something that literally sells itself. You don’t want to have to try and convince someone. That takes a lot of effort and doesn’t scale. You want a product that you demo once, and the customer is sold.

“Selling ice to an Eskimo” is not the point. Really you want to sell them heaters!

In summary, a harsh truth: your ads are only as good as your product.

Maybe that was useful. Maybe not.

Cheerio! Charles.

My ambition for quality was limitless. I hand-drew animations frame by frame, enduring back-breaking work, a knotted shoulder, and frequent hand cramps. I spent hundreds of hours labouring, waking up at 5 am to work early and animate until 9:30 am or when the office filled up.

As a less-than-fluent animator, scenes that took a professional a day might have taken me a week. It usually required six to twelve months to complete a couple of minutes of animation. But when I finished, the feeling was magical. Seeing a vision become reality made the difficult journey seem worthwhile.

Publishing on YouTube was exciting, but the response was often underwhelming. Hundreds of hours of labour yielded just a handful of views and a few chuckles from friends. And I began questioning why I was doing it. In reality, I hated the process, and the satisfaction of completion was fleeting. It took time to be honest with myself about it, but all I sought was validation and view counts.

Then I began to wonder what might happen if I applied this effort to something with a bigger impact, like a business. Perhaps the numbers would be more meaningful? And the validation would come from genuinely helping others rather than just making them laugh?

So, I made the switch. I quit animating and chose a different challenge: one where I'd enjoy the journey rather than the destination and make a useful difference in the world.

And I still get to see a vision become reality, but now on a grander scale. And one that feeds my family.

The moral of my story is cliché but important: we all have the same hours in a day, and how we spend them is our choice.

The level of difficulty is often similar, whether you're scrubbing blood from a butcher's freezer for six hours or untangling the complexities of global e-commerce logistics. But the potential rewards can vary significantly.

Choose the right hard for you.

Maybe this was useful. Maybe not.

Cheerio,

Charles Burdett.

The number one metric that matters if you’re in the product business, is one of product usage.

Think about it. If someone buys your product but doesn’t use it, they will not realise value from it. If they don’t realise value from it, they will not deem it worthwhile - so if you’re running a subscription model - lack of product usage will be your main source of churn.

But even outside of a subscription model, if no one is realising value from your products - there’s no story to tell others about.

“Oh yeah I have that product, but I haven’t used it” - is not a great word of mouth story.

vs

“Oh yeah I have that product, I use it all the time and I love it!” is what you need to work backwards from.

And this ties into one of my rules of thumb from last week’s post:

“How can we solve our customer’s problems and make them more successful?”

When you convince someone to buy your product, it’s not enough that it does what you promise. You must help your customer realise their version of success with your product.

So that might mean educating them on different ways they can use it. Or creating a modified version of the product that suits their needs (like how Toyota have localised versions of their vehicles, such as higher exhausts for countries liable to flooding).

Proof of this point is that all of our efforts in Pip Decks’ post-purchase email marketing are helping people realise value from content on our blog.

To summarise: the name of the game is product activation. And once activated, a customer will deliver the best form of marketing there is: word of mouth. Retention, loyalty and word of mouth are all by-products of product usage.

So that’s this week’s advice. Maybe it’s useful. Maybe not.

Cheerio, Charles.

These pseudowisdomy rules of thumb seem to come to me when I notice them in action (like the 80/20 rule, or “99% of everything is shit”, or “you move a mountain one pebble at a time!”).

But here’s the annoying thing… the most important rules of thumb I need don’t come to me when I need them. I need a reminder!

And funnily enough, today I found an old Trello board from the first year of running Pip Decks. Pinned to the top of each column of to-do items was a rule of thumb that I had completely forgotten about.

I was so annoyed for forgetting and not porting them over to my new workspace, that I want to immortalise their importance by sharing them with you now.

So here we go.

Rule of Thumb \#1:

Don’t ignore your dreams; don’t work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy.

This one is fairly self-evident. It’s a reminder that no one ever said on their deathbed:

“I wish I worked harder” “I wish I had been less honest with people and myself” “I’m glad I have/had no meaningful friendships” “I’m glad that I didn’t attempt to pursue my dreams”.

Rule of Thumb \#2:

“What’s the best use of my time right now?”

This is the ultimate productivity tactic. Because the answer could be “go to sleep” or “go for a walk”. And it can also stop you from doing bullshit tasks that are procrastination in disguise. Like writing a newsletter.

Rule of Thumb \#3

“How can we solve our customer’s problems and make them more successful?”

This is just good business advice. If you keep coming back to this question, everything else seems to fall into place.

Remember: no customers, no business. Or more usefully put: no successful customers, no successful business.

You want to have such a profound effect on people with what you’re offering that you literally get them promoted, or have such a revolutionary change in their life that they tell others about it.

BONUS: Rule of Thumb \#4:

“DON’T SEND AN EMAIL WITHOUT A STORY”.

When I was doing all of the Pip Decks email marketing before my incredibly talented friend Jacob Welby took the reins, I had developed this rule of thumb to avoid ever sending a bland or ineffective email. No matter what, I always hooked the reader in with a story. In doing so, your reader will stick around to see “how you land it”.

And because they’ve invested their time with your email, a kind of goodwill builds up. Enough that your ask at the end (a call to action) is more likely to be taken.

It also sets an expectation for your next email, so your open rates increase too. There are too many things to say about why this is such a useful rule of thumb - maybe I’ll write a separate post about it (leave me a comment if you think it might be useful).

That’s all for now, I hope some of these are useful. Maybe not. I probably have a bunch more, but let’s keep things snappy. If I was going to pick one to really sear into your brain, it would be “What’s the best use of my time right now?”

And for me, that’s definitely hitting send on this and going to sleep!

Cheerio, Charles Burdett.