I gave a live call to Justin Welsh’s private community last week. Funny story: I was visiting a friend a few months prior and explained proudly that I was giving this training. She replied, asking if I was getting paid for it. I wasn’t. I felt embarrassed because my friend gets paid well to give training. But I asked Justin if I could give the talk. My monkey-mind kicked in—feeling small by comparison. “If I was a better writer maybe he would’ve contacted me,” I thought to myself later. Anyway, fast forward to the training. Mr Genius over here accidentally agreed to give the talk during the launch of my new course, Productize Your Knowledge. As if I weren’t busy enough. But I rolled up my sleeves, wrote, and delivered a training called The 5 Pillars of Magnetic Writing. Despite being exhausted, it went well. Many listeners reached out to say how much they enjoyed it. But because I was so tired, I forgot to promote the product link. “You are such a tit,” I thought afterwards, collapsing onto the sofa. But then Justin messaged. He loved the training and said he would send an email. I thought he meant to his private community, and I was grateful for that. 30 minutes later, I got a text from 5 friends saying the same thing: “Did you see what Justin Welsh just wrote?” I checked my email. I couldn’t believe it. Justin had shared my story with his wider audience, including a graph of my results and commitment to writing. That’s a whole load of reputation for giving a presentation I loved delivering, regardless. And this leads me to my point: The best way to build your brand is to give without expectation.Everyone is so transactional online, which is why being generous is so effective. This works on two levels. First, with your audience. You earn a reputation through overdelivering. Over the past 5 years, I’ve given away a tonne of free courses, lead magnets, sent hundreds of emails, and haven’t missed a day of content. If I only focused on paid offers, I would never have the brand I enjoy now. As a result, I’ve sold over 3,000+ products, various high-ticket offers without a single sales call, and grossed $1,250,000. The more you give, the more you get. But don't just give to your followers. Give to other brands, too. Because everyone wants to serve their audience better. If you have a complementary skillset, why not offer it? Sure, it takes you time. But you’re trading it for attention, and that’s a smart deal. Worst case, you speak in front of a small group of people. Best case, the creator reciprocates with more exposure. Either way, you’re building ‘authority by association’. It may not feel like it day-to-day, but when it comes to trust, every effort adds up. Like Warren Buffett once said, reputation is earned in drops (but lost in buckets). So Reader, How can you provide more value? Who is serving a similar audience? What would happen if you put yourself out there? It only takes one big break to change the trajectory of your business. Set yourself apart through service, Kieran P.S. If you’re concerned about not getting a return on your effort, here’s a great question: How can I get more from what I’m already doing? For example… It took me several hours to write and practice the training, not including delivery. Whilst I made a few stupid mistakes, I had a plan. See, I’d spent a lot of time and effort selling Productize Your Knowledge, so I wanted to create more free assets for my audience. This ‘balances the scales’—showing my readers it ain’t all about the money. So I wrote a ‘Lead Magnet Builder Prompt’. I copied the transcript, prompt, and call notes into Claude, including a writing-style document, and it built a complete guide in my voice in 30 seconds. Now I just need to edit it (minimally) and turn it into an e-book. I’ll have an asset I can send to you, which will deepen our relationship. Plus, with automations, I can use it to collect email addresses from followers on social media. They enter my world and get my automated welcome sequence. This contains my best ideas, essays, podcast interviews, and pitches my products. One live training can become hundreds of hours of extra content consumed and thousands of dollars in revenue. This is the art of leverage. And it’s how every writer should approach the online game. I’ll send over the guide next week. But in the meantime, if you’re interested in the prompt and many other cool ones like it, you might enjoy my AI-Vault. This is a database of every prompt I’m building for my business. Marketing, copywriting, decision-making stuff, and more. Every cool idea I have goes inside, and there are already 51 ideas. Over 270 entrepreneurs have lifetime access. You can join them here: https://kierandrew.thrivecart.com/ai-vault/ |
On a mission to become a better writer, thinker, and entrepreneur • Ex-dentist, now building an internet business (at ~$500k/year)
This month, I crossed my 5th year as a writer. I can’t find the exact day because I spent my first summer fumbling through attempts to get going. But I can safely say this: Deciding to write was the smartest decision of my life. I’ve never worked harder or dealt with more doubt, fear, and uncertainty. But I’ve never learned more about life as a result. And if I had to boil down my early success to one thing, it would be this: Persistence. Because you can overcome 99% of problems simply by...
Earlier this year, I started writing my first book. My first challenge was deciding what to write. I had two choices: Digital Freedom. How to build your online brand and business from scratch Magnetic Writing. How to build your brand and business by writing online The difference might seem minimal, but the vibe is completely different. One is focused on beginners who have zero clue what they want to do (like me as a dentist). The other for people passionate about building a writing-first...
"I was undercharging, doing way too much work for what people were paying me." That’s how Hussain felt when we began working together in January. He wanted a high-leverage business where he didn’t have to sell his time for money. He’d bought courses from popular brands that promised the usual results, telling me he’d spent “more than $5,000, and almost never made my return back.” Despite these investments, he felt stuck. "I had too many ideas that all seemed important. But it turns out 90% of...