Hey, it’s Matt.

In today's issue:

Plus, an update about my content strategy at the bottom of this email.

BEST LINKS

My favorite finds

📈 Growth

💰 Revenue

🗃️ Misc

DEEP DIVE

How I built a $252,000+ ARR Business In 72 Hours

If you've got an email list and a few hours a week of free time, you're sitting on much more cash than you realize.

Here’s a simple playbook I used to add $21k MRR ($252k per year) in 3 days:

The backstory

Over the past few years, 100+ founders have reached out to me about 1on1 advising. My answer was always no. I didn't want to sell my time

I've been too busy working on New Media Summit, our live cohorts, leading GrowLetter’s agency team, and creating content.

But last month, I realized there's value in working with a small group of clients 1on1.

They get incredible results. I have fun working closely with talented entrepreneurs.

Plus, the questions, problems, and projects we work on give me great ideas for content and new products I could launch.

So in July, I decided to launch a 1on1 advising service limited to 6 clients.

The offer

Here's the offer I put together:

I'll work with you 1on1 to build and monetize an audience you own with newsletters, email, and SMS marketing. Pay monthly. Cancel anytime.

Clients get:

My goal was to keep it simple and not overpromise. I only want 6 clients. I'm going to be working with all of them closely. I don't want them to have the wrong expectations.

For an offer like this, under-promising and over-delivering is best.

And if you're wondering — why take on only 6 clients?

That’s the number of clients that would make me excited about the money…

But still…

6 clients = 12 calls per month, 3 calls per week.

And I deliberately made this a monthly subscription with no long-term commitment. So if I don't have time to work with 6, I can let clients go.

I don't plan to, but flexibility is important to me.

The marketing asset

I want to be able to hit my 6-client cap without:

I found the best way to do this is an old-fashioned Google Doc sales letter.

I wrote the letter (you can read it here), and built my marketing campaign entirely around this asset.

This is key.

To sell something high ticket, you need to address every concern, objection, and show how buying will provide an outcome.

Then back up your promises with proof.

A sales letter is the best way I can do that, fast. Putting together the sales letter only took a few hours (minus all the time I spent procrastinating before writing it).

Sales calls, webinars, or other types of marketing would take longer.

Sales and marketing strategy

Here's what I did:

The sales letter had a link inside to a checkout page to buy the advising service for $3,500 per month. No application. No call. No friction.

My goal was to get 6 clients as fast as possible.

The sales letter copy and the price is the filter. If someone purchases who is not a good fit, I can refund them and open that spot up to someone else.

Still, everyone who bought was a great fit. That's because I clearly described who this was for in the letter:

“Businesses with $1M-$50M in annual revenue. Newsletter/email list of at least 10k-100k+ people. And a strong team, big or small.”

Plus, the price point was high enough so only founders like that could sign up.

And yes, this is not designed to be accessible for everyone. It's my time 1on1. I have other accessible offers at lower price points (like Write, Grow, Sell).

Email marketing

Here are the emails I sent:

The best way to see how the email strategy works is to read the emails I've linked above (they’re all short). But here's an overview:

The first two emails have a call to action to reply “yes”.

It's a hand raiser.

They reply. I send them the sales letter manually via email.

I don't know exactly why, but I believe this to be more effective than just throwing a link in the email itself.

It's a bigger commitment for the prospect. It improves my email deliverability. and I can follow up with them one-on-one and address their questions via email.

Yes, it takes more time. I probably spent two hours replying to 300+ emails, but in the future I could have a virtual assistant do this.

The second two emails were only sent to people who opened the first. At that point, I felt like if they were going to reply, they would have already done it. So I just linked to the sales letter directly in the email to remove friction.

Other nuances

There are a few key factors that made this work:

And of course: To sell advising at this price point, you need to have an audience that trusts you and real experience.

After writing a newsletter for many years, working with well-known clients, and collecting testimonials from them…

Selling an advising service like this comes easier to me than to the average person. I know that. But still, there's a version of this you can implement in your business too.

You want to work with clients 1on1 or sell a high touch offer, give this a shot.

You got the sales letter, the marketing emails, and the step-by-step strategy.

Good luck.

THAT’S A WRAP

Before you go: Here’s how I can help…

1) New Media Summit — Where the best minds in the new media and creator economy come to learn and connect.

2) Write, Grow, Sell — Everything you need to build a successful newsletter.

3) GrowLetter Agency — DFY newsletter growth and lead generation.

Until next time,

P.S. A note about my content strategy for long-time readers:

You may have noticed, my content quality and volume has not been great over the past 3 months. Or at least it's not as good as I want it to be.

My wife and I had our 2nd baby. It’s summer. I'm trying to manage family and other areas of my business that take a lot of time.

I hope you understand. Hang in there. It'll get better.

Later, I'll share some updates about how I'm changing my strategy so I can still publish useful things, while running a business and prioritizing family.

— Matt