Clarity Lab Issue 92 – Things Are Seldom What They Scream

Hey friend,

I’m curious…what are the top one or two things that trouble you most about running your business?

Send me an email at forest@claritylab.co and let me know. You can just tap out a few words or more if you want.

Knowing the answer to this question will help me help you better.

Thanks in advance if you have a few seconds to reply.

1
Fairy Sales

Outside of coming up with a product, course, or service idea that solves a problem for a specific market of people, writing a high converting sales page is one of the hardest things to do in an online business. (Okay wait…running your business in year 3 of a global pandemic while being on the edge of world war III is also hard.) I’ve rarely come across such clear, simple guidance on how to structure a good sales page as this post from Bryan Harris.

2
Grow caution to the wind

Building an email list can get expensive if you take the paid advertising route. Using paid ads or giveaways should definitely be on your desk as an option if you can afford it, but if you can’t? You’ll need to get other people to tell the story of your business. That’s essentially what content marketing, SEO, word of mouth, and social media marketing are: you’re getting other people to tell your story. Tim Stoddart and Ethan Brooks dive into the topic of how to build an email list without paid marketing in a great Copyblogger podcast episode.

3
Things are seldom what they scream

Between mid 2020 and the end of 2021 I dove into the cryptocurrency rabbit hole. I read long articles, in-depth books, and crypto-Twitter threads tirelessly. I drank the crypto cool aid and started to evangelize it. I mined cryptocurrency in my office, sold it at the peak in late 2021, and made a couple thousand dollars. I even became an active member of an awesome crypto token community and have mentioned in past issues of this newsletter that the crypto/Web 3 space is a space to watch for possible opportunities for your business.

And then…well, then I dove headlong into current climate change research and what climate scientists believe are likely scenarios that could happen based on various levels of global warming. What I found in their data and predictions was a cognitive dissonance I couldn’t reconcile. Cryptocurrency mining creates a horrendous amount of carbon emissions. I care more about stopping climate change than I do making money from crypto, so I stopped mining. And then? I started seeing more cracks in the crypto space.

My recommendation with anything related to crypto or web 3 right now is echoed by Ed Zirtron’s article, “Solutions that create problems”: proceed with extreme caution.

4
List Bump

Ever wonder how mega thought leaders grow their email list to over 1 million people? Here’s how New York Times best-selling author James Clear used Instagram to pull of this feat (if you read that fast it sounds like “pull off his feet,” which should not be part of your social media marketing method.)

5
Battle of the tightens

Facebook ads used to be pretty much a magic money machine for businesses like yours and mine. And then Apple came along in the Spring of 2021 and stuck a stick in the spokes of Facebook’s ad machine. Turns out that with one little tweak of Apple’s iPhone code, Facebook has lost $250 billion worth of value overnight. Unfortunately for those of us creators who used Facebook ads as a strong source of traffic and sales, we’re getting hit as well. Don’t worry though, you’ll be fine. And the world will be a better place if Facebook goes out of business. Here’s Peter Kafka at Recode  on the ramifications of the Facebook-Apple war.

Good luck with everything on your to do list this week, and hang in there. We’re going through an incredibly stressful time with the scale of events happening around the world at the moment.

If you could use a little light in your day, have a watch of this video about a gentle giant of dog who was stuck in a highway median and rescued by a kind family with a new friend for him.

See you next time,
~Forest

P.S. If you like this newsletter, I would be ever so grateful if you’d share it with your friends on Twitter by clicking on this magic link. If you’re on Facebook or Instagram, you can share the link to the web version of this issue here. Thanks heaps!

P.P.S. If you have a moment, let me know what the top one or two things are that are challenging you about your business by sending me an email at forest@claritylab.co and typing a few things to me. I know, I know. I’m so demanding. I’m asking you to do two things at the end of this letter. You’re so patient with me. Thank you.