Every Saturday I write to you with a practical, instantly actionable newsletter and every week I tell you it’s the best one yet, don’t I?!

Well I’m not one to break a habit 🙂

In this newsletter I’m going to share the one marketing strategy that I attribute the biggest impact to my business growth in the last 15 years. 

Let me start with a story. 

When I first started my journey into strength and conditioning as a 20 year old (20 years ago!), I didn’t have a clue about marketing or sales. I’ve shared in the past how my first gym in Leeds bombed, even after I’d spent all my savings on equipment kitting out an awesome facility. No one showed up. 

That failure led me to my first role with the English Institute of Sport pre Beijing Olympics, and to my role as (the youngest) Head of Strength and Conditioning at the time, at Durham University, 

The failure didn’t kill my entrepreneurial ambitions, I knew I wanted to make a big impact with my work and I wanted to make money too. If anything the failure gave me an even greater desire to succeed. 

A few years later I built a make-shift website using Apple iWeb and began publishing a blog sharing my learnings and mistakes. 

And then I began to deploy what was to become the most impactful marketing strategy in my career. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that is what happened. 

In fact, it was so impactful that when I ran my first paid workshop out of my new gym in Leeds it was completely sold out, people were queuing out the doors to get into the gym, and it paved the way for my company Strength and Conditioning Education to grow into a huge business over the years following. 

And that marketing strategy still serves me unbelievably well to this day. It’s helped me build a business that has sold many millions of pounds worth of products and courses to well over 50,000 people and continues to do so to this day. 

t’s helped me to build a consulting company, a marketing agency that I since have sold, and to coach athletes online from all over the work.   

The crazy thing is that this marketing strategy is still misunderstood and largely underutilised by almost every business owner I cross paths with.

Why is it underutilised? Why is it misunderstood?

Honestly really don’t know.

I think it’s down to it not being ‘sexy’. 

But I can tell you that it’s simple, very straightforward to implement, and hugely valuable. 

What I’m going to teach you can literally transform your business and your life, if you commit to it and implement what I show you. 

Enough teasing. 

I think you’re ready now 🙂

We need to talk about…

Email Marketing. 

Yep that’s it. (See I told you it wasn’t sexy 🤫🤷‍♂️). 

You see the thing about email is that it’s different to social media marketing or relationships on the online platforms. 

People choose to be on your email list and they can unsubscribe anytime they want. So that means you have to work to earn their trust by delivering valuable content that solves their problems and helps them succeed.

And the relationship is different. It’s a message that you send and that the recipient can read and respond and have dialogue with you

If you do it right. 

Let’s get into it…

There are essentially three pillars that if you nail all three build tremendous value. 

Pillar #1: Your Weekly Newsletter. 

Yep it begins here. If you commit to writing a high quality newsletter and sending to your subscribers every single week it will pay huge dividends. In this newsletter you’re reading right now I’m providing a ton of value (I hope!). I could probably charge a few quid for this content or I could write hardly anything and try to sell you a course off the back of it. There’s nothing wrong with selling in your emails or in general but you have to earn the right to do that by building trust. My goal with my newsletter is to make it better than many of the paid products out there. To give you enough value that you can implement and get results. 

The place to begin is by asking yourself what problems can I solve for the people I serve. Then come up with frameworks that have worked for you and share those. just like I’m doing here. 

So make the call now to start writing something of value every single week.

Pillar 2: Storytelling Copy. 

Today one of my business coaching clients messaged me and  told me they’d had a week from hell and didn’t know what to post on social media.
My answer to them – tell the story of your week from hell!

You see stories resonate with people and there is always a message you can bring it back to at the end. Just like I did earlier when I told you about how my gym was full because of the magical marketing strategy I was about to share…

It could be something from your childhood. Something from this week. Something traumatic, something funny. It really doesn’t matter as long as it’s genuine and you can help your people to understand themselves or their problems better as a result. 

Your email will work way better if it’s story based. You don’t need fancy headlines, graphics, banners or any of that stuff. Just write from the heart and deliver amazing value. 

There are four types of content that you can share in your newsletter. 

1. Content that teaches people something like this newsletter or a ‘how to’ type list. 

2. Content that entertains people. A funny story or event. 

3. Content that shows you understand people. You’ve been there and can help them navigate choppy waters. 

4. Content that makes them thing. It challenges their thinking a little with a new perspective. 

The main message is…

Just. get. started. 

Pillar 3: Unbreakable Consistency.  

When I first started writing regular emails I tried to do 3 per week. And I failed.
I’d skip a week, then do one email, then skip another week and do two or three. 

The real results only started coming in when I committed to three per week all of which were highly value based. 

My advice to you would be start with a weekly newsletter. Then add a second weekly mail when you have hit the groove with the newsletter. 

Then add a third. 

You can even go daily if you like. I know people who do that and do extremely well from it. 

Three per week is a sweet spot. 

Getting Started

You can’t do email marketing properly without an email account so go to mailchimp, active campaign, mailer lite or any others you know and set up an account. You can usually get a free account that will let you get going with a few contacts. 

Add your contacts to the system and start with three broad lists which are: 

1. Your current clients.
2. Your ex clients.
3. Your prospects. (People who have enquired but not bought).

It doesn’t matter if you have 5 people in total in there. The process is the key.

Everyone starts with no one. 

Getting people onto your email list. 

This is the question I’m always asked, and people resist getting into emails because they don’t have a list to talk to. It’s chicken and egg though isn’t it. You don’t have a list because you haven’t begun yet.

You’re emails need to be worthy of someone signing up. Not just spammy salesy stuff that most people do. Be the point of difference. 

Then when you’ve committed you can grow your subscribers in a few different ways. Here’s some examples: 

1. Promote your newsletter on social media each week in advance and tell people what they will get from subscribing. You can get a link from the email sites to share with people so they are automatically added. 

2. Create a lead magnet like an ebook which you promote and people sigh up that way. The top 5 mistakes runners make, the 5 things I learnt from doing XYZ etc etc. 

3. Have a link in all of your other emails and social profiles that people can access easily. 

4. Run paid adverts promoting your services that capture emails and then add to your list. 

Don’t be obsessed by the numbers. You don’t need thousands to make a really big difference to your business. The numbers will come over time. 

Over to you. 

If you like this newsletter and you think it’s the right thing for you hit reply and type EMAIL. You can add this email to your list and I will respond to your first newsletter.

That will anchor you to making it happen! 

That’s all for this week, next week will be even better, I promise 😂😂

Much love, 

Brendan. Xx

Here’s 4 ways I can help you move forwards: 

1. Follow me on instagram for video content, I did a video version of ‘the meeting’ over there for you to check out.

2. Follow me on Linkedin for business content that will help you.

3. Join my entrepreneur coaches group for free support.

4. Contact me if you want to talk to me about bespoke business coaching support.