On my mind:

“Marginal gains is not about making small changes and hoping they fly. Rather, it is about breaking down a big problem into small parts in order to rigorously establish what works and what doesn’t”.
– Matthew Syed

This Saturday, I put a video out on my Youtube channel.

As of right now, it’s generated 51.8% more views than the average video on the day of release. Granted, we’re talking 59 views over the usual 30 – yet I couldn’t be happier about it. It reminds me of a conversation I had roughly 15 years ago. It was about identifying the 7 “levers” that drive your business, then improving each by only 7%. For an ecommerce store it might be:

  • Pricing
  • Shipping
  • Returns
  • Customer service
  • Order volume
  • Order value
  • Packaging

By making 7% improvements in these areas – increasing pricing, reducing shipping costs, lowering return rates, etc – the effects compound, resulting in higher profit margins and customer retention. But it’s not all revenue-based. When working with a content team, it might be:

  • Getting content published 7% faster
  • Reducing the amount of time it takes to write by 7%
  • Having 7% more research than the average
  • Increasing/decreasing word count by 7%

And so on.

As I’m increasing my own content output with videos, client work, going on podcasts, and now (apparently) a newsletter, I’m thinking about about the ways I can make these small improvements to smooth the process even further.

Maybe we can trade tips?


An interesting tweet:

 

A six step learning framework to learn anything

 

For only having so many characters to work within a tweet, Sahil drops some amazing insight and great resources on how to learn pretty much anything.

I started putting some of these suggestions into action a little while ago, and it really has helped with those marginal gains.


📡 What’s on my radar?


Track who is sharing your competitor’s content.

Decided to try something new with this video.

This is a walkthrough of setting up an automation that keeps track of who is sharing your competitor’s content, and see everything else that’s grabbing their attention.

Use what you learn for:

  • Guest post opportunities
  • Webinars
  • Partnerships

Because when you know where people are spending their attention, it’s much easier to get in front of them.