I've been studying 'kings' of the newsletter business over the past few months.Sam Parr is one of those. He just exited from the Hustle for a mid-eight figure deal.I listened to and took notes from a recent podcast he did with creator lab which you can read here or get the key takeaways below. Sams advice applies to growing any business, we all need an audience to sell to.TAKEAWAY #1Building The Hustle From ScratchBorn and raised in Missouri, Sam later moved to Tennessee for college, where he opened a hot dog stand named Southern Sam’s. “Wieners as big as a baby’s arm.” While the stand helped him pay his college bills, he learned that making money on the internet was easier. So he started several online businesses, later selling a web app that funded his first edition of the hustle, a conference for entrepreneurs called Hustle Con.Sam made The Hustle Con famous by writing, blogging, and emailing about the speakers. He made hundreds of thousands of dollars in his first few conferences and parleyed that money along with an email list into the hustle.Building A Paid Newsletter BusinessSam admits that building the hustle now would be harder. So here’s what he would do differently today:Try to go viral on Twitter by writing threads and adding a newsletter signup link to your profile.He’d still blog and use social channels like Reddit to grow trafficStart a paid product right away to fund building the newsletterHe’d also go hard on social media platforms and communities right away, rather than just going after blog traffic.Last but not least, he’d never give anyone equity in his business and boot-strap the whole thing.“If I could go back in time, I would own 100% of the company and never give anyone any equity, and I would hand the company down to my grandkids.”TAKEAWAY #2Writing Copy That SellsMost newsletters fail because their content doesn’t persuade, call for action or generate interest. What you’re trying to say might be great, but no one will care if the way you say it sucks.Hire talented writers. Easier said than done. Sam thinks people either have it or don’t, i.e. don’t try to teach a lousy writer to be a good one. It’s a waste of time.Learn persuasion. Influence by Robert Caldini is a good start. Copywriting is persuasion. Persuasion to read, persuasion to care.When writing any copy, use the ‘Attention, Interest, Desire, Action’ (AIDA) framework.Care way more about your headlines. 97% of people determine whether to read an article based on the headline.If you’re looking for ideas to write about, the comments section in relevant social media threads is a great place to find them.“I don’t care if you’re in business or you’re in love. Get good at persuading people. I’m going to persuade anyone to do anything for the rest of my life. “TAKEAWAY #3Building a business on platforms and risks involvedSam holds it’s still okay to use rented platforms, i.e. social media, to build awareness. Just don’t rely on them and through all your eggs in one basket as many companies do.Even though the algorithm sucks, you can still use them to your advantage.Like, Wish, which grew to a multi-billion dollar company using FB ads.“It’s okay to have that problem as long as you can get off of it.”If you're building an audience and have any tips to share let me know below. I'm down to chat anything about growing an audience. see hubwealthy.com/wealthy
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