If I had to give a lecture series on marketing, here's 11 points I'd include:

1. Data is like protein:

It’s valuable - but it shouldn’t be your *only* input.

If all your decisions are guided by A/B tests, you’ll eventually end up with a porn site.

THREAD: The top 0.1% of marketing mental models.

Compressing a 6-year career into the best 8 ideas:

1. Contrast Is A Drug

• Rolls Royce stopped exhibiting at car shows

• They started exhibiting at private aircraft shows

• "If you've been looking at jets all afternoon, a £300,000 car is an impulse buy. It's like putting the sweets next to the counter" - @rorysutherland

2. The Best Content Involves A Red Pill

• "If you want to build a good podcast, following, or blog - you've gotta create your red pill"

• Hand society something they're not hearing anywhere

• Society says blue pill. Your content says red pill.

(@finnscave via @ShaanVP)

• The irony is that the red pill metaphor is itself a red pill - once you see it, you can never unsee it.

• The best content creators on the internet all have their own red pill, which makes their content so enticing.

E.g. @jockowillink's red pill:

• Society's Blue Pill: Writing is a boring activity from school

• @david_perell's Red Pill: Writing online is the fastest way to accelerate your career

THREAD: 15 of the most useful razors and rules I've found.

Rules of thumb that simplify decisions.

Bezos' Razors:

• If unsure what action to take, let your 80-year-old self make it.

• If unsure who to work with, pick the person that has the best chances of breaking you out of a 3rd world prison.

Skinner's Law:

• If procrastinating on an item, you only have 2 options:

1. Make the pain of not doing it greater than the pain of doing it.

2. Make the pleasure of doing it greater than the pleasure of not doing it.

Luck Razor:

• If stuck with 2 equal options, pick the one that feels like it will produce the most luck later down the line.

I used this razor to go for drinks with a stranger rather than watch Netflix.

In hindsight, it was the highest ROI decision I've ever made.

Bragging Razor:

• If someone brags about their success or happiness, assume it’s half what they claim.

• If someone downplays their success or happiness, assume it’s double what they claim.

The map is not the terrain.

Marketing is the ultimate meta skill.

Lifehack: Most people are awful at marketing.

Flying is accidentally the best ever environment for DEEP work and reflection.

Writers like @rickygervais do their best work on airplanes.

Here's 6 reasons why.

THREAD...

What looks like a bug - can often be a feature.

“A change of perspective is worth 80 IQ points.”

The restrictions we face on airplanes is what makes the experience so liberating.

AIRPLANE FEATURE 1 - HIGH EXIT COSTS

You can't find any escapes.

If you try to escape, you face death.

Negative incentives are built into the system.

"Incentives are a super power." - Charlie Munger

AIRPLANE ADVANTAGE 2 - NO INPUTS

There's no newsfeeds to refresh. No emails to reply to.

It's like knowing your heroin dealer is in a coma.

Boredom is built into the system.

Your monkey mind can't access dopamine - so it starts creating its own.

It is a distraction-free environment:

1. No socialising - You don't know anyone. No small talk.

2. No sound inputs - The engine acts as white noise.

3. No visual inputs - The seating structure means you see barely anybody.

I promised threads about recruiting for the next week. Here's the first one on referrals. In growth/marketing speak: referrals are your organic growth, inbound is your brand, and outbound/sourcing is your ad spend. You want to growth-hack your referrals. Here's how. 1/n

2/ Referrals (people on your team referring candidates into your recruiting pipeline) is great because it scales with your org size. They also convert higher since one of their friends is trying to convince them to join, plus they are generally not interviewing at many companies.

3/ The main disadvantage is that they tend to re-enforce your current team makeup. So if you have a diverse team, referrals will continue that diversity, but if you do not, you'll be entrenching your existing makeups which can have some real cons.

4/ A common tool for incentivizing referrals is the referral bonus (the coolest version of which is in equity IMO, although $ works well too), but I think you can do a lot more by leveraging process (referral parties) and culture (creating real pride about your referral culture).

5/ Referral parties are about making a game out of referrals by (virtually) locking 2+ teams in a room for 60 minutes and asking them them to go all out putting together a referral list. Here's how to do it.

3 email sequence
$20,000
1 week
A SUPER happy client

What did I do?

It's funny, I only changed one small thing

And my client had a face palm moment

But they knew that my "outsider's perspective" was what they needed

Here's what I did...

This client of mine was selling a high-ticket offer ($5,000 program)

They were having TERRIBLE click through rates on their emails

The product was super cool and their results were amazing

The emails didn't SUCK that bad

So I knew it was a strategy issue, not a copy thing...

These were the steps of the funnel:

Step 1: Email
Step 2: VSL
Step 3: Phone call
Step 4: Purchase

After digging in, this is the fatal mistake I found:

They were selling step 4 before they got to step 2

They used their emails to talk up the product before they ever got the prospect to the VSL

I took a few steps back

Revamped their emails to sell the click to the VSL

And all metrics went up 2x in just one week

We didn't continue working together so I don't know how much more money they made

But I know it's a lot based on the first week of data I received

The 20 Commandments of Email.

Lessons from making over $50 Million for clients and building a 7-figure email marketing agency from scratch.

//THREAD//

1) Treat your subs with respect

People didn't sub to your list to be spammed.

People subbed to your list because you have something to offer and they're interested in you.

Keep it that way.

2) Test Everything

-Subject lines
-Email length
-Sending times
-Copy
-Angle
-Preview text

"Never stop testing and your advertising will never stop improving."

-David Ogilvy

3) Have Systems

-Welcome flows
-Purchase flows
-Abandonment flows

These will keep earning money forever.

You need sleep.

Systems don't.

4) Leverage List Segmentation

Never blast your whole list.

That's just asking to land in the Spam folder.

Focus on people who actually open your emails and click on your links.

An engaged list > A huge list.