What's this? 

Part 5 of a 4 part series?

Has the Buddha of Banking finally lost his marbles?

Not yet, as it turns out. But I did realise that my cheeky four parter this week has barely scratched the surface. And while I've shared 4 newsletter based lessons that are also relevant in the world of work or life more generally, what I haven't shared are the specific newsletter tips, tricks and techniques which I've picked up over the last 4 years.   

Based on a rough, back of a beermat calculation, I've sent over 1,000 daily emails since I first dipped my toe in the daily email pond. 

That’s not to say I’m sending perfect emails each day. But I have learnt a whole bunch of stuff I didn’t know I needed to know which has allowed me to dial-in my writing and have people opening, responding, forwarding, clicking and buying from my emails.

If you’re curious, here's the tactical stuff I’ve learnt sending over 1,000 daily emails in the last 4 years:

*** How to get over the curse of perfection. If I wrote my daily emails the way I used to write a credit paper at work, I’d still be tweaking & improving that Countdown email today (4 years later!). Sure, that email would be much better for it. But the other 1,000+ emails would be wisps in the wind and from a newsletter perspective, the last 4 years would’ve been a write-off

*** The pros & cons of sending emails daily vs weekly vs irregularly and which frequency to pick depending on what you’re trying to achieve

*** 4 “tricks” I use to write daily emails on the rare occasions the words aren’t flowing and the email feels like squeezing blood from a stone. These reliable tricks have allowed me to ping out an email even when I’m feeling tired, uninspired or not in the mood to write (funnily enough, some of these emails have got some of my best reader reactions)

*** How to sell coaching via writing and why the “modality” I coach from (The Subtraction Method) lends itself so well to emails, LinkedIn posts, newsletters, blogs and so on

*** How I went from writing emails in three or four hours to penning emails from scratch in 15 or 20 minutes. I’m not saying I write all my emails this quickly (I don’t – some still take much longer than I’d like) but my writing time has certainly got a lot quicker

*** The only aim I have when I write my daily email. This aim isn’t “teach”, “sell”, “educate”, “add value”, “inform” or anything like that. But I think it’s why I can send emails every day which people don't just read but look forward to reading too (if the feedback is to be believed)

*** How to deal with the rough patches of writing a newsletter, including unsubscribes, responses from trolls, feeling like emails are disappearing into a black hole and wondering if readers are judging, nit picking & criticising the emails (let alone enjoying them)

*** Where I find an endless supply of email ideas. Nowadays I don’t sit at my laptop screen and ask “what on earth will I write about today?”. Instead, I have so many options that it’s more a question of “what idea will I pick today?”

*** How I kept going. Yes, I've skipped a few days here and there. But apart from the occasional hangover or life getting in the way, my daily email is always locked and loaded

Anyway, this email is a bit of a diversion from the norm. And I suspect a chunk of people reading this email won’t be all that interested in this topic.

But then again, perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps you're reading this email as you think about starting your own newsletter or taking your newsletter more seriously.

I guess there’s only one way to find out.

Here’s the deal:

I’ve decided to run a webinar all about the newsletter tips, tricks and techniques I've learnt over the last 4 years. So I'll take the bullet points above one by one. Then I'll open things up for questions and keep going as long as the questions keep coming.

The webinar will take place on 25th June at 7.30pm UK time (other time zones are available too). 

The webinar will also be free.

If you’re interested in downloading what I’ve learnt about newsletters over the last 4 years into your brain and avoid scrabbling around trying to piece everything together like I did, hit reply. 

In your reply, tell me what you want to get out of the webinar. In return, I'll send you the Zoom link.

This is the only email I’ll be sending about this webinar. 

Which means if you’re interested in joining, the only way to get the details is to hit reply and tell me what you want to get out of the webinar.

That’s it for today.

To fulfilment,

Tom