🍓 Fruitful outreach.
Deep work, open spaces.
Reading time: < 3 minutes
Happy Sunday!
We just got back from spending this sunny day in the park - skating, scooting, droning, and nearly overdosing on pistachios.
I’m about to read the latest edition of Growth in Reverse, one of my favorite weekly newsletters.
But before I do: Two insights and some family slowmading questions are answered…
🍓 1) Fruitful outreach
I recently helped a friend write warm outreach emails.
My approach to writing such emails is to approach them with curiosity — about the other person, who they are, what they do, and what they struggle with.
Most of the cold and warm emails you get are great examples of what not to do.
For example, this:
Wow - it’s all about them. Straight to the attempted sale.
This just gets lost in the sea of thousands of emails I receive that just offend me.
Here’s another:
There’s nothing personal about this, and it’s clear they don’t know anything about me.
Compare those to a message that includes this:
Approaching conversations with curiosity takes more time, but this approach is beneficial in multiple ways.
It helps us stand out and dramatically increases our chance of getting a response
It takes the edge off and removes the risk and feeling of being salesy
It forces us to take the time to get to know our target audience and customers. And when it comes time to scale, we’ll have a great grasp on our market.
Every time I’ve tried to do things that scale too soon, it’s fruitless.
And when I take the time to do things that don’t scale, it’s fruitful.
🏞️ 2) Deep work and open spaces
Years ago I thought that the more periods of deep work I had, the more productive I'd be.
It was a common occurrence to spend all day banging my head against a coding problem, refusing to take a break ‘til I figured it out.
Then I’d finally give in and go get food or something, and within moments the answer would jump out at me.
Over the years I realized that creativity and problem-solving require a combination of deep work broken up by periods of letting the mind wander by simply doing something else. Anything else.
Sometimes a problem requires deep attention to sort out a solution. Other times our minds need space to let solutions appear.
This is why I've started spending much less time at my desk over the years without feeling any less productive.
🙈 3) In case you missed it
My wife, two boys, and I have been "slowmading" since July 2022.
We've been to 14 countries.
Here are the most common questions we get about how and why we're doing this:
First: what is "slowmading"?
Digital nomads work remotely while traveling the world.
We're doing the… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
When you’re ready:
1:1 Coaching via chat: Get coaching and cheerleading from me privately in Discord. The price goes up by $50 for every 5 people that subscribe.
1:1 Clarity call: Wherever you are on your bootstrapping journey, chances are I've been there. I know the struggles and challenges and am here to help through a 1:1 clarity call.
Tools and resources: A complete list of the tools and resources I use to run my business, and some books that have helped me along the way.
-Mac
P.S. Haven’t introduced yourself, or updated me lately? Hit reply!