Since you didn’t ask

A lesson from a single sentence in an email newsletter.
That’s what this entire email is about.

I saw a video of an entrepreneur giving a keynote, and he mentioned something about how he built his presence online that had me taking notes to write this.

Firstly, I hadn’t heard about Jay before this video came up in my feed, but he has the cred. He’s built businesses that have generated more than $500 million in revenue, and founded SubjectLine.com and GURU Media Hub and Conference (all acquired by Constant Contact).

Jay admits that, for a long time, he hated social media and didn’t have a newsletter or podcast.

When his business was struggling, he realized he needed to start showing up. As he put it:

So he began posting online and writing a newsletter.

At first, it was what you might expect from a marketer: ideas, tactics and things happening in the industry.

Then he added a little section at the bottom called:

That section had nothing to do with subject lines or campaign performance. It was a place for the odd thoughts and stories he cared about.

He says the replies poured in after adding that, and people responded to the person behind the advice.

There’s a lesson here for anyone who has been told to build a “professional brand.”

What people responded to

Jay’s expertise was already there. His readers had a reason to subscribe, and his work gave them a reason to trust what he knew. The section gave them something else: a way to recognize him.

You can read a useful marketing tip from many people, but you remember the person who keeps showing up with something a bit different… maybe a particular sense of humour, a curious observation or a story that sounds like it could only have come from them.

You’re more likely to hit reply when it feels like there’s someone on the other end. (I’m hoping you’ve felt that with me at least once with this newsletter?)

As I mention in my workshops, a brand can help people understand what you do. Your personality, judgment and interests help them understand who they would be working with.

Those two things can live in the same newsletter, or the same LinkedIn presence. They don’t need to compete for space.

A little more room to be yourself

Leaders put a lot of pressure on themselves to make every post prove their expertise. Every story needs a lesson. Every observation needs to lead back to the business. This is important, but it can be tiring and feel repetitive.

Jay’s newsletter section gave his other interests a regular place to appear. The name made it clear that readers were getting a tangent or something random. He could share something small and specific without building a whole argument around why it belonged in a marketing newsletter.

I’m not saying everyone needs a quirky sign-off or should share their private life. I bet you can afford to leave some room for the parts of your perspective that don’t fit neatly into your services description. It could be…

• a conversation that changed your mind

• a pattern you noticed while teaching

• an honest account of something you’re still working through

It’s easier to produce a polished paragraph in seconds. The words may be clean, but clean words alone don’t tell me much about the person behind them. A specific observation from your own week usually does. (And you get to choose what stays private, of course).

Something to try

If you write a newsletter, create videos, or post regularly on social media, look at the last few things you shared and ask yourself:

• Could someone who knows my field have written all of them?

• Where would my audience get a sense of my judgment, humour or curiosity?

• What would break the pattern (from all the other sections or editions)?

For your next edition, try adding one short, true detail you would normally cut because it seems beside the point. Give it its own small space if that helps. Try it for a bit, then pay attention to what people say back.

The replies I get to my newsletter teach me something the analytics dashboard can’t. (Thank you, by the way, if you’ve replied!). See what you learn from yours.

I spend a lot of time helping leaders make their expertise visible, and I know how easy it is to edit out the details that make someone sound like themselves.

What’s one part of your personality or perspective that your professional content rarely shows?

Thanks for reading as always, and have a great weekend.

Since you didn’t ask

I’m not using this section correctly, but here’s my first post back from camp!