UPDATE: This riddle has been solved. You can find the answer in the comments below. But for your own benefit, I advise you to read the riddle and mull it over yourself. It will be worthwhile, because the real answer will stick in your mind better, and might actually be at your fingertips when you need it. ORIGINAL POST: Let's play a riddle. This riddle is based on a true case study, but the names, nationalities, and animal species have been changed to protect the interestingness of the riddle. Here goes: Wang Wei is Chinese. China is the world's largest producer of pork. In the interests of capitalizing on some of their massive pork production, the Chinese Communist Party has tasked Wang Wei with increasing the export of Chinese pork. Wang Wei goes and researches the topic. He decides to zoom in his efforts on France. He finds three interesting things: FIRST, the French already consume large quantities of pork, particularly in the forms of various hams and charcuterie. SECOND, the French consume something known as "steak tartare," which is basically raw cow meat minced up and seasoned. THIRD, the price the French are willing to pay for cow meat they will consume raw in the form of "steak tartare" is FIVE TIMES as high as the price they will pay for cow meat that is to be cooked or roasted. Wang Wei sees an opportunity: ====>>> "Pork tartare" <<<==== ... basically, raw pork, minced up and seasoned, and served up to the French at a price five times higher than that of equivalent hams, pork chops, or salami. PROBLEM: The French, though they are fine with eating raw cow meat, and though they will eat their fill of pork cooked, smoked, or otherwise thermally processed, think that eating raw pork is 1) disgusting and 2) unsanitary because it can cause salmonella. Wang Wei happens to have proof that the Chinese pork, unlike pork from other countries, is perfectly safe to eat raw and will never cause salmonella. He also has tried "pork tartare" himself, as prepared by some of China's top pork chefs, and he has found it to be delicious.

I never knew this was a thing? From a blog post by the guy who has done a bunch of them: === Most newsletters would benefit from being time-boxed or run in a “pop-up” style. That is: Seasonal, or with a hard stop. Set a limit of three to six months and pick a frequency — perhaps once or twice weekly? — and a word limit — maybe 500 words? (something you can’t shirk away from, that you could refine in an hour if hard pressed) — and stick to your rules like a madperson. === Thoughts? Have you signed up for something like this? Have you tried it? If you are still waiting to start an email list that you will mail regularly, would a hard stop set in advance help you get started?

I'm gonna piggyback on Nick Bandy's poll earlier and give you a neat little trick for growing your list by... a sizable number of high-quality subscribers. I did this a couple of months ago and got 100+ subscribers in under 48 hours by partnering with a fellow biz owner who has a similar audience profile to my own. Here's what happened: 1️⃣ I had an offer ($350), and I was looking for an affiliate partner. 2️⃣ I had a free email course to promote my offer (the free 5-day course was valuable on its own, but did double duty as a sales sequence, too) 3️⃣ The deal was this: My affiliate partner will promote this free sequence. The sequence will have his affiliate link to my offer. He'll get 50% commission for each sale made from this sequence. --- This was different from a typical affiliate promo in the sense that he didn't have to promote my paid offer... he only sent one tiny email promoting my free email course/sequence. Because it was free, I ended up getting many more quality subscribers to my list than had he promoted the paid offer (100+) At the end of the free sequence, there were a few sales, and we split that 50-50... a decent sum of money for us both. Many people didn't buy the offer I was selling then, but some did eventually buy something else, and I didn't even have to split the revenue for those ;) --- The biggest caveat to this is finding people to partner with. This biz owner and I have known each other for some time, and we're in multiple communities. If you don't have access to the right people, this would be a bit of work, though not impossible.

John has given us a lot of resources to fight writer's block for daily emails. Some in this group (including me) bought John's daily emails 101. And others are getting his daily email habit emails. That means you have at least some idea about what to write. But maybe that's not enough. I know it isn't for me. I'll send out my first email on Monday, 3 August. And I plan on sending one every day. Here's how I'm making sure I'll never face writers block. I'm going to use a framework by Shaan Puri. He's the guy who co-hosts the My First Million podcast. Before that, he co-founded The Milk Road newsletter (which sold for 8-figures!). And, if you follow him on X, he's a pretty good writer to boot. So here's his framework: Think of the Best, Worst, First, Last, or Weirdest thing you've experienced and write about it. The thing could be work related, like a boss, a project, or a client. It could be life-related, like a date, a friend, or a partner. Or it could be anything else (a teacher, a book, a movie, and so on). If you combine the above framework with John's prompts, I guarantee you'll never face writers block. And if you still need more help, here's another framework from Shaan Puri. You can talk about the 5Ds: - things you've DONE - things you're DOING - things you DELIVER - things you DREAM about - or things you DORK OUT Hope that was helpful! Do you have any frameworks to share?

Have you seen it? Have you not? What did you think? Do you refuse to see it? I went to see it Saturday. As per usual, I have some online-business-related takeaway I can make about it, but I'd like to hear first what you thought, or didn't think.