Hey Reader,
Do people actually read the intros of sectional emails?
Let's get into it.
The Messy Middle
"We have no financial arrangement, we just think they're the best."
A couple weeks ago I was visiting a friend who's training for a centurion bike ride (100 miles) this summer (I did the lazy thing and declined), and we went into a bike shop to ask about getting professionally fitted on his bike.
While they didn't do fittings, they had a stack of business cards/coupons that gave $20 off a fitting at another business where they like sending people.
Immediately our trust went up when they said there was no financial arrangement... and my friend ended up getting fitted by the other biz.
Often times we hear about affiliate programs & referral partners as ways to increase business via "word-of-mouth" (we even do affiliates for The Breakroom).
But this raised an internal question, if I trust a recommendation more if I know there's no incentive other than trying to be helpful... how do we do that?
This is in the messy middle because I haven't "solved" it yet, but I've been slowly "deconstructing" what needed to be true for it to work and a couple of the things stood out:
- The place that does fittings first built a relationship with the bike shop and showed quality results
- They solved a problem that made the bike shop able to better serve their customers "we don't, but we love this place"
- They made it easy - it's easy to hear a name in passing and forget it in 5 seconds, but a physical card/QR code allows you to refer back to it later
- Small delights - the discount wasn't huge, but it was enough to hold onto the card and not immediately throw it away, so my friend still had it when he was thinking about it later
The question I'm currently turning on - what is a complimentary business that our offers add value to their customers & makes them look better by sending their audience/customers our way?
This Week's Needle Mover
Idea 54: Provide Contextual Loom Tutorials: Provide Loom video tutorials walking buyers through exactly how to work with you.
Attention spans are at an all time low.
In 2004 average attention spans on a screen were 2.5 mins, in 2026 we're down to just 40 seconds (source 1, 2).
The average adult American can read 250 words a minute - so if you only have 40 seconds of attention that works out to 167 words before their attention drifts.
Yup - that's not very much... the messy middle (above) was ~320 words
When onboarding, sending a bunch of information, or asking for a lot of feedback from a client - try switching up the medium.
A loom video holds attention spans longer, you can fit more information per minute (when properly structured), and theres a chance it'd save you time by being quicker for you than polishing a multi page document.
And if you absolutely need something in writing, try condensing it to short bullet points and send a "companion" loom explaining each point.
Bonus points: a loom video "humanizes" you to both build the relationship & maintain trust with your customers that you're not just using AI to write them long emails/documents.
This Week on the Podcast
Many of us dream of being on stages & speaking - but how does one build a business that makes that possible?
This week we sat down with Kahlea to talk about the journey that put her on stage at 1 Billion Followers Summit in Dubai introducing Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast) the most followed person on the internet.
We broke down the three phases of her career (doing, teaching, speaking) that prepared her, and how she decided to shut down an education business that did have a half million dollars to step into her current phase.
Some of the highlights:
"If you're going to give up, it has to be when it's the best day for you."
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"I refuse to fail. That is not in my DNA to fail. I'm going to win. It's just a matter of when I'm going to win."
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"My business is my ministry. I'm doing it for something bigger than me."
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"I knew it was time for a switch when I started to resent having to show up as an educator."
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"Show up as the person who's already getting those opportunities."
β Kahlea Wade
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βListen on Apple Podcasts / Listen on Spotify / Watch on YouTubeβ
Overheard in The Breakroom
Start With Yourself by Emma Grede is our book club book of the month. Each week we're reading a certain number of chapters then chatting about it inside of Circle.
There's been a lot of people excited about this book inside The Breakroom, so I'm excited to start hearing peoples thoughts!
Resource of the Week
Okay so this is not technically a resource... but we started watching Rooster on HBO Max this week. And we may be almost done with it already.
So if you're looking for a fun light hearted comedy tv show, it might be worth trying.
βSoo... do you have TV recs? We may be about to run outta rooster recs.
See you next week!
Lyndon
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