đŻ Work Smart Wednesday
đ Hey there!
Here is your weekly dose of Work Smart Wednesday
In these emails I will share with you 3 things to help you work smarter in 3 minutes or less. That leaves you with 10,077 more minutes to conquer your goals this week
Feel free to forward this email to friends
1. đšï»ż How to create a masterpiece
While creating a masterpiece is a noble goal, I like to use this piece more as a guide on how to raise quality more generally. Whether that is service quality, product quality, or simply your quality of life. The core principles are the same.
Put shortly, you want to increase your output volume and your variance. I will take each in turn.
Volume:
Most people naturally understand that if they do more stuff, it follows that some of that stuff will be good.
By increasing volume, the amount you do something, you increase your chances that what you do is amazing. It also helps increase your average ability, by doing it more you learn and improve. This is true across almost every area of your life, from email outreach and sales calls to sex and social activities. You should probably do more.
HOWEVER, doing more doesnât mean doing as much as possible. You donât need to do as much as you think. Donât spend every waking moment cramming in more in the name of volume. You need to have a reasonable amount of volume, not a deluge. You want volume so you can spot trends, patterns, problems. This brings up one of my favourite quotes: Do as little as needed, not as much as possible â Henk Kraaijenhof
Variance:
This is the counterintuitive one. You want some of your stuff to suck.
I donât mean you should actively make things bad, but that you should be trying new things and doing things differently often enough that they donât work out sometimes.
If none of your stuff sucks, you arenât varying things enough (and you probably arenât doing enough volume either!).
Having variance within the range increases your chances that you will strike gold, that the thing you do will be good or even exceptional. You want that. Nobody wants to be mediocre, or buy from somebody who is mediocre. Everybody wants exceptional.
Exceptional has a cost, sometimes things will be only okay or even bad. That is a cost worth paying. High quality clients know that. The cost of bad is far outweighed by the value of exceptional. Stagnant mediocrity is death, apathy is the enemy. The Pareto Principle holds true, 20% of inputs are responsible for 80% of outputs. The 20% that is exceptional pays for the variability.
Much like volume, variance also helps increase your average. By trying different things you learn and improve. Your average level of ability improves.
Now, much like avoiding a deluge of volume, you donât need to go out and try something that has very low chances of success in the name of variability. Approach it like a scientist. Make calculated bets. Create hypotheses, track data, and test your assumptions. Like scientists, most experiments will be incremental. A slight tweak to something we already do. Some experiments should be bold, a potential step change. A little scary, but still calculated. When something works, incorporate it more. The experiments will pay off. You will improve much quicker than you think.
Try that new content idea, or a new structure for your sales calls, or that new social event. There are many benefits to having the variability, from cognitive improvement to skill development and improved ability to predict. Importantly for this post right now, variability increases your chances to stumble on something amazing.
2. đï»ż Recurring notifications, Metaâs new feature
This new feature is great for businesses, but I believe it will somewhat be a âspike and crashâ feature. There is a high likelihood of these new notifications getting annoying for users. That being said, you are extremely early to the game. Very few people, creators, businesses have even heard about this feature and even fewer are using it. You can capitalise on the early opportunity.
Put simply, the new ârecurring notificationsâ feature allows businesses to send newsletter-like (mostly automated) messages direct to leads/customers.
This is particularly powerful because Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram open rates are significantly higher than the average email open rates. WhatsApp have a 98% open rate & a 45-60% click-through rate, not to mention their 2.7 BILLION monthly active users. It is like email newsletters just coming into existence, but consumers already ubiquitously use it and you are the first business to have thought of it - if you use Metaâs ecosystem within your business, this is worth implementing.
This is a big deal. From Metaâs own studies, Outer Aisle, a health foods company, sent promotions and product alerts through Recurring Notifications. Customers were excited - Outer Aisle saw a 20x increase in notifications CTR versus email. ChicMe, a womenswear retailer, drove a 13x increase in revenue per customer versus email campaigns.
With Recurring Notifications, businesses can:
Send tailored and timely messages that drive action: Businesses can create personalized messages about their chosen topic, for example automatically notify customers when their size is back in stock:
Discovery: Product discovery recommendations, brand inspiration content, newsletters
Consideration: Product alerts, behind-the-scenes news, pre-sale alerts, recommendations based on past purchases
Conversion: Discount codes, promotional content, loyalty rewards, partner offers
Engagement: Tips, community stories, cross-sells, product service remindersMessage across the customer journey: Messages can be sent daily, weekly or monthly so businesses can reach customers at any moment in their journey.
Initiate messages that deepen relationships: To help ensure a high quality experience, customers are shown the topic and frequency in advance and must opt-in before businesses can send recurring messages. Also, they have one-tap access to opt-out at any time.
While recurring notifications is a new feature that Meta has openly announced that it intends to charge businesses for in the future, it is currently available to all businesses using Messenger Platform as part of a free trial period. The feature is available in WhatsApp too via the API, but it is paid. Both are good, probably worth starting with the free messenger version but the price of the WhatsApp use is more than worth it.
Important: being early is a big advantage, but it doesnât give you a free pass. You still shouldnât spam or misuse the feature. While that almost certainly will happen and will ruin it for everybody eventually, you shouldnât add to the problem. It is counterproductive long term, shortening the life of the benefit of the feature and undermining your relationship with leads/customers. Use it responsibly.
3. đĄ Quote I'm pondering
"Luck is the residue of designâ - John Milton
That's it! I can't wait to hear what you think. What did you find most useful? What do you want more or less of? Reply to this email now and let me know
Also, if you have anything interesting to share, I want to know about itđ
Have a great week,
John
P.S. Did someone forward this to you? Subscribe here
P.P.S. Thank you for trusting me with your time. If these emails ever turn into a burden, I encourage you to unsubscribe. I strive to provide real value and I am here to help you to make the most of your time
đ Want to work together?
When youâre ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:
đ Clarity Call - we will discuss your situation and create a step-by-step action plan together so you know exactly what you need to do next for maximum impact
đ StartSmart - Achieve a 6 figure income within 6 months, whether you only have an idea or you have already started your business
đ§ Overload to Optimal - reduce your workweek to 20 hours or less within 90 days while running your 6-8 figure business
Thanks for reading Work Smart Wednesday! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work