Myth Buster1:26:30
Headcount is a poor measure of business success
“I equated success with head count”
“you're literally bragging about the fact that your overhead is going up and your profitability is going down”
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Nicolas Cole16 June 2023
5 Ways To Make $1 Million As A Writer - Nicolas Cole
8Frameworks
12Insights
Frameworks in this episode
Communication5 steps
Ghostwriting by Deletion
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Entrepreneurship5 steps
Reader-First Monetization
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Sales5 steps
The Free-Work Acquisition Flywheel
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Marketing6 steps
The Lean Writing Feedback Loop
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Marketing5 steps
The Paid Newsletter Barbell
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Entrepreneurship6 steps
The Service-to-Product Ladder
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Marketing6 steps
The Two-Year Test
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Strategy5 steps
The Unlikely Intersection Strategy
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Insights & moments
The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.
Myth Buster· 2
Myth Buster1:53:30
A personal blog is not a distribution strategy
“the reader doesn't care about any of that”
“the only people who know your about your website or your blog or your mom and your dog”
Hot Take· 1
Hot Take2:17:30
Writing is learnable, not an elite calling
“Legacy writing has this elitism to it where it's like not everyone can do it”
“anyone can become a writer all of these skills are easy to learn and it's possible”
Explainer· 3
Explainer1:11:00
Business buyers evaluate saved time, not just price
“I make decisions not on oh how much does it cost I make decisions around well how much time is that going to save me”
“it wasn't the price they would ask me how much time is this gonna consume of mine”
Explainer1:16:30
Sales copywriters can charge for outcomes instead of effort
“you have to not be compensated for the effort but for the outcome that you drive”
“if I'm being paid to drive an outcome it shouldn't matter whether it takes me 20 hours or two hours”
Explainer1:42:30
Traditional publishing versus self-publishing economics
“if you have an audience you could and should just self-publish because you're going to make more money”
“you need to sell like close to 10 times more books with a traditional deal than if you just self-publish”
Story· 3
Story05:30
Rejecting publishing’s permission model
“then in six to 12 months they're going to mail you back a rejection letter”
“I noticed that I didn't have to wait for permission anymore”
Story45:00
How an Inc. column funded Cole’s leap from employment
“literally every single day for a year and a half I wrote an ink magazine column”
“I probably was making three to five grand a month writing for ink”
Story1:20:30
The agency valley of death
“I call it the valley of death for uh Freelancers who want to build agencies”
“if you can't get to 10 million plus your agency is gonna just make you gray and unhappy”
Takeaway· 3
Takeaway30:00
Make the first dollar before targeting a million
“the goal is to make your first dollar on the Internet it's not to make a million dollars”
“the moment you feel that there's a different direction that's possible that's when you become excited about it”
Takeaway26:00
Master skills instead of chasing titles
“your life is long a year is not that much time”
“I am way more obsessed and interested in mastering a skill”
Takeaway2:12:30
Build an email list after clarifying the message
“the email list is an inflection point and it's a decision after you've clarified your writing in Social environments”
“you've learned what works you have a clear understanding of who you're trying to reach and help what questions they have”