The 3-Hour Newsletter Academy - London Workshop
Grow your newsletter while saving hours each and every week.
This workshop is me sharing everything I have learnt from the last 12 years of building two businesses with a simple newsletter. I started with zero knowledge and zero subscribers, but I did one important thing that changed everything...
Back story
I started sending out a newsletter over a decade ago.
Like everyone else, I had zero subscribers and even less knowledge about how to grow a newsletter.
I bought every book on it; I did every course out there.
I learnt. I learnt. And l learnt. After a while, I got to know the basics.
But, in truth, my most valuable learning came from sending out emails.
I found out what worked. What did not. And the huge ocean in between.
I remember getting to 100 subscribers and celebrating. I could not imagine ever having 1,000.
In our first couple of years at Hiut Denim Co, our marketing department was me. I was head of customer service, head of dispatch, plus head of PR. Many hats.
That did not leave much time for the newsletter.
But my gut told me the growth and profitability would come from my newsletter.
Somehow, I needed to find a way to keep doing all my other jobs but also invest time in the newsletter.
So, I started building a system to make it easy.
My lack of time drove me to build it.
Plus, I wanted to stay healthy and sane and far away from being overwhelmed.
My 3-hour system was the best thing I ever did.
I called it this because that was the MAX, I could give it.
Even that was pushing it.
My system had to deliver easy to do within 3 hours.
It took a bit of time to fine tune at the start, but each improvement made it a little easier. It allowed me to do in hours what others took all week to do.
I now spend less than 6 hours doing our two newsletters for our companies, but they have delivered at least 80% our growth.
As of today, our two newsletters go out to around 84,000 people.
We send out 4-5 million emails a year.
It seems like it was only yesterday that I was celebrating 100 people.
The businesses have turnovers in the millions.
The newsletter is the best investment I have ever made.
I have since written a book all about how to grow your business with a newsletter, I have taught workshops in real life and online about newsletters. When The Wall Street Journal wrote about the ‘Renaissance of Email’ they talked about what I had done with Hiut Denim Co.
People who have taken my course, read my book, have written me letters, have sent me emails, and have told me in person that what I taught them
changed their lives. Took them from struggle to thrive.
I think it’s no overclaim to say that my newsletter has completely changed my life.For years, I tried to convince everyone: Do this. It works.Some people listened. But truth is, most people did not.Because most people’s attention was on all the other social media channels.I was a lone voice for a long time.Then last year social media stopped working like it once did.
Then suddenly… I kept getting asked ‘tell me about that newsletter thing again?’My reply was the same now as it was back years ago: If you play the long game, and figure out the basics, design a system to work hard work so that you can sustainably grow your business, a newsletter can change your life too.
How to do it?
How do you start from zero, and grow a sustainable and profitable newsletter? It’s a good question…Well, it is easier than you think, if you…
The “Secret Shortcut” to 84,000+ Subscribers.
Over the last decade, I have learned what you must do to start from zero. I've learned what it takes to keep going when the results aren't going as fast as you want. I learned to consistently provide value to my growing community. And I have learned how to sell and feel good about it.
I went on a quest to learn from the masters. I have spent over £100,000 pounds in courses, in workshops, in Masterminds, in sending the team out to learn all over the world, adding up to thousands of hours of learning, all in the pursuit of finding the ‘Secret Shortcuts’ to help me grow my newsletter and, therefore, my business.
And for sure I've learned incredible skills, amazing tactics, and insightful strategies that I'd never thought of before, but my biggest learning of all is there is ‘No Secret Shortcut’ to building a life changing newsletter.
At the end of the day, it boils down to these core obvious things:
- Give value. In essence, give more than you take.
- Be consistent. Both in quality and time.
- Keep going. Play the long game for 2-3 years.
(Important Note: Build a system that makes it easy for you to keep going.)
Is that it?
Yup, pretty much.
Even though it is simple to do, people do not find it simple to do. Hmmm.
A note on why:
The human brain is designed to save energy; therefore, it is designed to seek out shortcuts. It will always be this way. Until the end of time. But it will always be a truth that ultimately there are no shortcuts to building something great. Do the work. Keep doing it. And boom: Overnight success.
We know the tortoise wins. But it does not stop us chasing every shortcut. The hare is a cautionary modern-day tale. Shortcuts provide a dopamine fix. Our brain is wired to hunt down easy, even though as a rational human being we know it is another false promise.
When I say newsletters work, I speak from experience. They work. Our newsletters built our businesses. I know that for real. But they are a tortoise. They require patience. They are a slow fix in a world that wants a quick fix.
But know this, if you follow these 3 simple steps, your business will change in ways you can’t imagine.
You will learn how to do the basics, you will build a community all over the world that will give you great pleasure to serve, and you will learn how to sell with pride. Because you do it to help your community.
Plus, your 3-Hour content system will make your business work for you. Rather than the other way round. You may even get messages from your community telling you that you changed their lives.
But deep down, you knew there was no secret shortcut, right?
More people start a newsletter and then stop.
People who just keep going are rare.
But why?
Even though all this advice is common sense, it is not common practice.
In real life, other stuff comes into play.
Building a Newsletter is hard because it takes time.
Most people want instant results.
When they don’t get them…they quit.
Their impatience defeats them.
If only they knew…
Everything they ever want is available to them on the other side of patience.
There are skills you must learn. And some these can only be learnt by years of doing. This is not an easy sell. Selling a short cut to life changing results is an easier sell. And people fall for it every day. And get disappointed soon after when they find out it was another false promise.
Only when people who have chased so many short cuts with disappointing results that they finally realise there are no short cuts to doing the work. Ah, too much truth in those words…
The hard thing about business is it pulls you in so many directions.
You go from one urgent to the next urgent.
Urgent competing with urgent.
You know deep down that your newsletter will NOT only save your business but get it to thrive. But you are too busy saving your business to spend time on the thing that will make it thrive. This is bonkers. But it is… real.
And, building a newsletter when everything else wants your time, is a tough ask. You are spinning too many plates, already. And a newsletter is just another thing to do.
♟️ Strategy + Purpose
There are over 300 billion emails sent a day. The inbox is not empty. So how do you stand out? What is your reason to exist? How can you provide value that no one else is providing?
🧠 Infotainment
Attention is hard to get. And is getting harder. You want to give information to your community that will really help them, but to do that you must first get them to read your newsletter. Chicken meets egg. The art is understanding information must also entertain. That is why creativity is your bestie.
⌨️ Subject Lines
A newsletter is all about writing. Especially the subject line. Good writing requires time. Great writing requires even more. Gulp. But you are spread too thin. The thing that needs the most time from you gets the least. So, you bash it out. And you know deep down, you can do it better. And the results show it. But is there a system that can help you?
🧭 Narratives + Themes
You will have to sit down and work out what the focus is for this week. Like every week, for years. What insights will you share related to your narrative. What is your point of view on this and the world. Oh boy, it’s a lot. You need a system to make this easy. Otherwise it is strugglefest. Yup.
🪧 Editor + Choosing
You find all this gold throughout the week. Then you must whittle it down. And you know how important that is. This will say something about you. This will say something about you. This will say something about you. Your reputation is on the line each week. If it’s not good enough, it can’t go in. That might mean you have to go and look for more gold. More time. Eek. If only you could make this process more effective.
☑️ Compiling + Check Listing
Then you need find the links. Find the photos. Find the credits. Then you must build it on this complicated platform called an email provider. Seriously? Then you must check it for all the mistakes you put into it. And you can’t spot them because you blind to them. Living the dream…If only there was a check list system that you just ticked off each week.
💷 Selling + Feeling Good
Then after giving and giving and giving, you come to sell. But you don’t like to ask. It does not make you feel good. In fact, it does the opposite. So, you fudge it, you kinda sell without the ask bit. Which gives you a poor result. Then you say…ah newsletters don’t work. La la la…What if you could reframe selling to helping people decide?
🥇 Never Settle
Tactics change. Strategies change. Things that used to work, stop. This new app is the answer. This way of writing works. Tuesdays are best. Mornings begin to work. Oh boy, there is a lot to it. Your system can make this easy. How can you keep up without heading to overwhelm?
Phew.
Now, you can 100% figure this all out on your own.
The hard thing is doing that while you are juggling all this:
- Hiring.
- Raising money.
- Product development.
- Finding Premises.
Then throw in trying have a life:
- Family.
- Friends.
- Fun.
All while trying to stay sane. It’s a lot.
I figured it out. But it took me over a decade. Plus £100k+ in courses. And not forgetting, tens of millions of emails that I sent out. Oh, the stories I could tell.
And yes, you can go spend the thousand plus hours that I spent on learning all this, but learning is paid in one of two ways: Time or money.
Or put it another way: I spent a decade learning this, and if you can learn all this in a few hours, you are way smarter than me.
So, what is the answer to all this: You Build A Content Factory System.
THAT IS THE SECRET.
Practical example.
Each Wednesday at 10 am, we have a 20-minute meeting.
We call it our ‘Creative Breakfast.’
The team shares one or two ideas that got their attention.
And why it earned their attention.
(Important to understand as this helps the team to find more gold.)
As people shout them out, one of the team adds them to our system.
They are tagged and filed ready to be used later.
The meeting finishes on time after 20 minutes.
When all your team are involved in finding gold, you find more gold.
From this, we build our two newsletters.
We always have too much content – nice problem.
Because of that it means our standards are kept high.
Yet, it has only taken 20 minutes of time.
That is what your content system is built for…
If you build a content system that makes it easy, you will keep your standards high, you will keep going - without going to overwhelm. You will grow your newsletter by giving more value.
Your system works hard. You do not. Your system saves you hours and keeps you away from burnout. Yay.
Now, Creative Breakfast, with all its coffees, cool tables and fancy chairs, seems very far from McDonald's. But it has more in common than you think.
McDonald's has defined its process, down to the last shake of salt on the fries. People may come and go, but the systems remain. Standardisation is all down to a system. Systems save time. Increase consistency.
Your system expands time. It allows you to do more in less time.
Short-term pain of setting it up. Long-term gain of easy.
That is how you grow your newsletter while saving you hours each week.
This is the secret sauce: Build A System.
That is what I did when I started out because I was so short of time.
I had to fix my own problem.
I Developed My System: ‘3-Hour Content System’ Out of Necessity.
- Build a system for finding content.
- Build a system for capturing it.
- Build a system for taking out mistakes.
- Build a system for growing your community.
- Build a system for making selling easy.
- Build a system for analytics.
Your system does not make you less creative. It gives you back more time to allow you to be more creative. Your system should do the work, not you. Your system saves you hours each week. And raises the standards.
Yes, setting up the system initially takes time. But once it is done, it is done.
I have built this system for my business. And yes, it will work in yours too. 100%. I can help you build yours too.
The Who, What and How
Who this is for?
- Founders.
- Company of ones.
- Brand owners.
- Marketing Directors.
- Direct-to-consumer brands.
- Freelancers.
- Creative and digital agencies.
What will I learn?
- How to Give Value. You will learn to ask: ‘What am I uniquely qualified to help my community with?’ The marriage of your skills and their desire for them. That intersection between what you know and what they are desperate to know is the sweet spot of life and business. The framework helps you figure that out. Then you deliver on it relentlessly.
- How to Write Better? You will learn the different writing frameworks we use for our emails. They will become your secret recipes so that you are not starting from scratch each time. They make you a better writer because you follow the framework. This is gold.
- How to Decide Your Content Recipe. You will learn to design your content recipe. Every newsletter should have its own recipe. The more defined the recipe the more consistent you will be. You decide this once. But most people decide this each week. No system. No consistency.
- How to Write Subject Lines That Work? You will learn this art. How to create ones that get opened. Plus, how to test them. Your newsletter must be opened for it to work. The subject line is the front door. Your job is to make them walk through it. The best subject lines contain certain ingredients. Once you know them, you write for it.
- How to Defeat Overwhelm? You will learn planning makes you MORE creative. The short-term pain of doing a 3-6 month content plan sure beats the stress of a 3-6 day plan. Trust me, I know. That way, you get some headspace. Your content plan sounds geeky, but it will become your rock.
- Fearless Ideas Meeting. These meetings are the best. There is no deadline. Yay. No strategy. Yay. Just you saying: What would be fun? Yay. These meetings produce some of the best content we have ever done. They are the easiest meeting to skip. But they are the future best ideas.
The Framework:
- The framework for giving.
- The framework for a 3-hour content system.
- The framework for growth.
- The framework for selling.
Where is it?
Friday, January 19th
9.30am - 5pm.
At Cecil Sharp House.
2 Regent's Park Rd, London NW1 7AY.
To give you a sneak peek of what you will learn as you go through the academy, this is a little taste.
Who's running it?
There is no shortcut
The problem is most people stop before they see them. It is a long feedback loop, and people want a fast one.
But what ‘The 3-Hour Newsletter Academy’ will help you with is the system that makes it easy. The importance of easy is that you keep going. Keeping going is the unsung hero in all successful businesses.
Also, the importance of the community is a secret sauce…
To keep going when the evidence that this will pay off is slimmer than a smart phone, is vital. We lift everyone up here. Slack lifts all ships. (More on that once you enrol.) This will be the most surprising element of this Academy. The community is full of fellow optimistic rebels. I won’t oversell its importance, but know this, this will be the nice surprise.
So to round up, yes, we can teach how to make this easy, how to increase your chances of success, but the effort and patience will come for YOU.
🚩 Red Flag Alert
Here are some reasons why this course is NOT for you:
- You want the dream, but not the work that is required to make it happen.
- Your impatience is out of control. When results are slower than you hoped for, you stop turning up.
- You prefer to get rich quick schemes to get rich slow common-sense promises.
- You want a guarantee of life-changing proportions by end of the month.
Alternatively, I will do this for two years like clockwork and see how that level of giving and consistency will change my life. Because it will. I just don’t know by how much, and by when. But I know it will.
If the latter sounds probable and achievable, then yeah, this is the course for you. But if the red flags hit a nerve, then it probably is not for you. Even so, I hope there was at least something of value here for you.
But beyond this point, is where the dabblers stop and those who are committed read on…
You have decided, and it is ALWAYS a decision, to build your Newsletter which means making another decision, to serve your community, and if you do that, your business will grow. Givers get lucky. I believe in that.
There will be a truck load of value here for you, and my promise to you is to do my best to share with you what I have learned in order that you start growing your business sustainably. And, let’s remember, it’s fun growing a community and a team, too. Let’s not forget that metric.
Now, there is a lot here. So, let’s baby step this.
Our Zero Risk Guarantee to YOU..
I am not asking you to decide yes or no today. I am asking you to make a fully informed decision. That is all. The only way to make a fully informed decision is to view this course on the inside, not the outside. So you do this LIVE course, and you see that everything on this course is what we say. And if it is, then that is when you decide to keep it. If it is not for you, no hard feelings. Just let us know, and you will get a full refund. But you can’t make that fully informed decision today because you are looking from the outside. For the same reason when you buy a house, you take a look inside. So give it a try today. Then, you can make a fully informed decision. And know this, if you are not happy, I am not happy. For whatever reason you want your money back, you will get your money back in full. I only want to keep your money if you are happy. Just email us, and your refund will be done. I am happy to make this guarantee because I know this course can help you, just like my previous courses have helped thousands of founders. So, give it a trial. Then you will know 100% that it is for you. Or not. Fair enough?
We've got the answers
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