Growth // Codex Newsletter
A Weekly Digest Dedicated To Helping You
Produce // Promote // Profit Better // Smarter
Welcome back -the feedback to the first edition was pretty badass and inspired us to explore better, smarter ways to source info, share experiments and much much more
If you missed, or would just like to reference the other issues later
If you missed, or simply would like to reference the first two issues, here they
Let’s get started shall we:
Pro Tip: All work and no play makes you an employee
I was super close to defending and elaborating why it’s absolutely ok to take time off
But Fcuk it
It would be like explaining the importance of diet and exercise to a glutton
Moving on
The idea here is to arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage
Specific knowledge is found by pursuing what you’re genuinely curious about, rather than whatever the latest gooroo is telling you is happening right now
In our latest of many tweaks to our workflow, one adjustment included incorporating the concept of “be water” that Bruce Lee described as that we’re huge fans of
Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless – like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.
Bruce Lee
Do you ever feel scatter brained?
Try to do too many things at once?
Lose interest in some things easily?
If you’re anything like me, who has ADHD – you’ll know exactly what this brainstorm feels like
Luckily, we’re a team here
Fun Fact: We’re about to go through how a procrastinator taught me how to double my productivity
Produce
The Formula he follows is
- Be honest about your strengths
- Give yourself a BIG target, and a starting point
- Squeeze your time
IF you happened to have started your welcome gift.. cough cough… you know…
the Thrival kit
Then you’ll recognize some of this, how we’re tackling Productivity by working LESS
Documenting daily//weekly goals
Here’s our outline (Written out so you can copy // paste and customize to your liking)
My #1 Goal this week is ____
I want to do less ___
I want to do more _____
This week I want to feel _____
To feel this way, I will ____
If I get stuck, I’ll remember ______
Breaking work into bite-size chunks (perfect for those of us who get bored easily)
For the week, we gave ourselves 3 BIG goals
For the daily, usually after a shower, during coffee it would be writing out
- 3 things I’m grateful for
- 3 things I’m curious about
- 3 things I’m going to achieve that day
You see that build up? The first few days the things to achieve looked like “email so and so back”
By the end of the week, we were writing down goals that would normally take us a week (our head of biz dev, Sean is gonna kill me, cause he’s the genius at sales and thinks i talk to much, but one of those experiments involves real estate, and applying something sexy to it…)
Having struggled with execution in the past, years of tinkering has shown us that less is more, and shrinking the to do list changed something, for myself, if it’s not creative, interesting or a power move, i encouraged myself to delegate it
If you can’t delegate it, what i did in those moments was to break it into a goal such as “i have to ship x by end of day” and boy did i get creative with getting it done – made it fun once by convincing a camera crew to get us into Art Miami
Letting ourselves rest, guilt-free
Don’t fuss or tell yourself that rest // sleep is for the dead, we’re people of science and getting sh*t done here, treat yourself Rogue
Time has taught us that how you do anything, is how you do everything
So if you improve how you “productivity”, and have it leverage your strengths – then Skys the limit
Which takes us to the second part of this segment
Some approaches to improve how we
Promote
From the first edition, there were a few people who asked about case studies // others about campaigns
I say let’s have our cake and start baking one too – focus – execute – measure
Pro Tip:
Those who chase two rabbits, catch none
Russian Proverb
First things first, case studies
If you’re anything like us, you love the hustle, you love going after bigger clients, more interesting problems
WHY?
Cause we’re ROGUES
Whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned pro, the process that’s hard to forget and cray beneficial
- Identify who you would love to work with (pick 3-5)
- Spend 15-30 minutes minimum researching each one
- Use LinkedIn // Twitter to engage with them
- Be transparent about your ambitions and the problems you love solving
Ok so once you’re rolling
- Have you solved the problems they have before? If yes, write out your case study
- If no, identify what problems they might be facing through talking to them or guesstimating
- Write out a plan of action you would take – publish it publicly (wait and see who’s watching)
Here’s the template we use to start a case study
Here’s an example of one of ours – what one looks like once completed
Next week we’ll break down campaigns more but for now let’s get you started
Pre put any paid campaign together Checklist
- How well do you know your customer?
- Focus on improving your reach // engagement organically FIRST (paid is meant to scale what already works)
- Exhaust all options before paying for a single ad
Here are some free ways to test your abilities before spending money on ads
- Engage with people who align with your brand values (comments // likes // shares)
- If you hit it off with one. of them at least, invite them to do a “takeover” where they take over your posts for a day or just one post
- Got to quora.com – search for questions in your field – practice answering them in a way that fits you
- Have you helped anyone with your skills? Ask them for a testimonial today
- Use your email signature as a call to action
Here’s an example of one i use
For example, one of my goals was to put out less content than other media companies
We just do the damn thing for the right person
By this point, this makes a perfect segway to a segment that’s near and dear to you and i…
Profit
Pro Tip // Monthly Reminder
One person can be financially free on $1,000 a month in passive income
Another person can be broke making $10,000 a month from a job
It’s what you keep that matters // Money is a tool
Fun fact: 20% of all US Dollars to ever exist were created in 2020 🤔
If you’re into economics like i am, there’s a good read on that here
If you’re not, i’ve got something for you too
Moving on….
So throughout 2020 finances are something that we have proactively been learning more about, me mostly because you can throw a crazy problem like helping a California city develop, train, and support their local businesses and I’m jamming, dancing, making a mess of my whiteboard and shipping within days, more on that later
Finances… ehh i know enough to be dangerous, but no whiz
Lucky for us, we’re working on a divide and conquer approach here, Head Of biz Dev Sean Gray is a former speaker, teacher, and consultant for Robert Kiyosaki, Author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad
So far, something I’ve been exploring is what he calls his “fast path to cash” method which in its simplest form is about taking stock of yourself, your resources, and your skills (this is a good time to go back and check your welcome gift – your Thrival Kit…
Then we met Christian Williams, Harvard ass kicking CFO from Tampa – who like Sean and myself, is a fan of testing, tweaking, improving wherever he can
The first thing we didn’t want to. do was depend on ads // or VC’s (a field i’ll discuss happily with anyone on why it’s not all it’s cracked up to be)
So what’s a guy to do?
We started blending Sean’s fast path to cash (you’ll find the resources and how to in your Thrival kit phase 1)
with Christians’ approach to money, specifically, Business Credit
The first thing he tackled was explaining the biggest business credit mistakes and what you can do about it
The old credit monitoring system will be obsolete and businesses will be evaluated based on cash flow and account activity
Christian Williams
Myth // Truth
Myth:
You need a good credit score to get started
Truth:
Set up your business properly, if you are profitable there are plenty of funding options available
His checklist to anyone about to explore business credit:
- Start your business profile at Dun & Bradstreet
- Make sure all information is accurate
- Confirm // check your business credit file via Equifax
- Sign up for Nav – a robust platform that is jam-packed with resources (it’s free)
Pro Tip:
- Build a stronger business credit profile by making sure your credit lines report
- Pay all bills that report on time
On average, Christian is able to find anywhere from $10,000 – $50,000 in capital for businesses in a few short months
Now, with revenue climbing, the idea is to borrow when we don’t need it – focus instead on making recurring revenue, then using capital to scale
How you do anything, is how you do everything
Proverb
That wraps up the second edition of what we strive to be a fantastic resource and discourse between you and i, we have some fun updates for you later this month
One that if we play together, would result in a
- Win for you
- Win for us
- Win for your (potential or current) Customers
and another expanding on a project we’re tackling that might just come. in handy to help you, help your city
More details once we’ve completed our current experiment that wraps up in the next 2 weeks
Till next week, here’s to escaping average
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