🎯 Work Smart Wednesday - May 7, 2025
Results from a talk I gave, the counterintuitive offer that boosted my client’s business, and a quote on zooming out
Work Smart Wednesday
👋 Hey there!
Here is your fortnightly dose of Work Smart Wednesday.
In these emails I will share with you 3 things to help you work smarter.
I’ve been ill for the past few days so this issue is coming later than normal!
🆕 NEW FEATURE: What I did instead
For those of you who didn’t see last time: When people hear I run a successful business working just 12 hours a week, their first question is often, “What do you do with all that free time?”. See for yourself at the bottom of this email.
1. 🎤 Results from a talk I gave
Talks have worked well for me, but that doesn’t mean I always recommend doing them.
Last month I gave a short talk at The New Monday in Leeds, UK. The talk lasted 10 minutes, I was at the whole event for about 90 minutes in total. Here’s what happened:
Results:
52 leads captured from roughly 70 attendees.
69% of leads downloaded the lead magnet, 38% joined my newsletter, 31% followed me on LinkedIn. Many did a combination of these.
I’d label 11 of the 52 as “hot leads”, people who were particularly keen to work with me right now.
4 paying clients so far, a few thousand in cash collected but tens of thousand in expected lifetime value. Still in conversation with some who want to buy.
A growing number of additional leads have been brought by referrals from attendees, I’ve had 4 referrals directly attributed to this event already (we are only 1 month on!). 52 leads captured at the event, at least 56 total (and growing).
I’ve subsequently been invited to collaborate and host a paid masterclass.
Significant insights into how to improve my business in other ways.
Above all, it reminded me how much I enjoy speaking!
The results look pretty promising overall, but what did I learn?
Insights and actions:
Far more people downloaded the lead magnet than via my normal channels.
It may be because people were warmer after the talk, or the urgency with the disappearing discount, or that it was a stronger lead magnet. Maybe even a combination of these factors. I’ve started to test it as a standalone lead magnet via my online channels to see which was the reason and to improve my lead magnet performance overall. At this stage in my business, it is better for me to test than guess.
Some people struggled with the lead magnet.
Of the people who did use the email templates lead magnet the feedback was hugely positive - within days people got paying clients by using these emails and it helped prove my credibility.
However, a good proportion of people didn’t seem to use the templates because they were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of templates and advice on the document.
I’ve adapted the template to focus on one email that will bring results, to reduce the sense of overwhelm and increase usage.
This is a good example (and reminder!) of how providing less can provide more value.
I tested a new positioning statement, it worked.
For a while I’ve been explaining my value as helping people work less. However, people often treat that with skepticism - they often don’t believe they should or could work less.
At this event I tested a tweaked positioning statement, switching to helping entrepreneurs build a calm business. My process is the same for both cases, but people do believe their business can be calmer. Belief will help them to start so they see the benefits of working with me.
I’ve had 7 different people spontaneously tell me how much the statement on calm businesses resonated with them. I’ve started testing the statement in my other online presences and plan to switch to this primarily.
Overall, the talk was successful. So why wouldn’t I always recommend it?
Simple: every person and every business is different.
People often see a strategy that works for someone else and they immediately try to replicate it. Very few people stop to think whether they should. What works for me isn’t necessarily what will work for you.
The individual uniqueness of people and businesses is the main reason I don’t have a set agenda with clients, I don’t have a single method because there is no single path to success.
If you suck at - or dislike - public speaking there is usually little point in forcing yourself down that path when you have other things you are naturally good at; let’s just focus on your strengths and interests.
We all have different strengths and weaknesses, our business are different, our situation and geography are all different. You won’t find the right answer for you by copying someone online, you are better off focusing on honest analysis and expert opinion to provide support that is tailored to you.
P.s. Interest in what I said in my talk? You can see my presentation slides here.
2. 🙃 The counterintuitive offer that boosted my client’s business
Not all offers need to drive profit in order for them to be profitable.
One of my client's most profitable offers is something that makes a loss. Doesn't seem to make sense, right? Let me explain.
My client Jen helps female BIPOC PhD students to complete their PhD dissertations. Jen is excellent at what she does, and retention is high. However, there is a natural break in the process mid-way through the time she works with the client that we cannot directly affect. Unfortunately, this meant that she lost a lot of clients at this mid-point break - not because they were unhappy, but because the pause in momentum meant they never picked things back up with her. Life got in the way.
What could we do about it?
She had tried retaining the clients in normal ways - emails, reminders to restart, incentives, all sorts. It didn’t work. People still “churned”. So we did something very different: Instead of trying to bring the client back, we made sure we never lost them in the first place. Sounds simple, but the way we did it was interesting.
We knew from feedback and experience that the customers would not keep paying for the standard offers - they just didn’t need the same kind of support in that natural break period and our customers were price-sensitive. We needed to build a custom offer to bridge the gap.
There was a problem though: it would cost us too much to provide the support needed to bridge the gap.
At this point, most business owners and most coaches would reject the idea. The offer would have been discarded as unprofitable. But that would have been a mistake.
While the offer wouldn’t make a profit itself, when we zoomed out we could see that the offer would help us to retain clients that otherwise leave. The lifetime value of retaining those clients would far outweigh the short-term cost of a loss leading bridge offer.
Even though the bridge offer itself makes a loss, overall it is a highly profitable offer. The bridge offer I worked with Jen to introduce has meant that customers now keep working with her throughout the whole process and they happily pay full prices for the second stage. The bridge offer has helped her business become more profitable and revenue to become more stable and predictable.
This is the kind of counterintuitive move that is difficult to see when you’re too close to the problem. Get an experienced external pair of eyes on your business, it makes a difference.
3. 💡 Quote I'm pondering
"Situations can initially be perceived as zero-sum are actually win-wins when you expand the horizon.
For example, talented people are attracted to those who care about them. When you help someone get promoted out of your team, it’s a short-term loss, but it’s a clear long term gain. It’s easier to attract people, because word gets around that your philosophy is to help people” - Chris Granger
The same is true for your business. When you zoom out (here is how to zoom out) you often see that the best strategy is to be kind and helpful, even when it doesn’t lead to immediate gains.
When you treat someone well - an acquaintance, a departing employee, a client - then the temporary loss can be far outweighed by the tailing opportunity.
This is the principle we employed when we introduced the loss leading offer I talked about above, by “zooming out” we could see that the “loss” in the short term was far outweighed by the gain. Happier customers, more referrals, better retention, more profit.
It looks like a no-brainer when someone points it out to you, but I’d bet good money that there are equally big opportunities in your business that you miss as you are too close to the problem. We all benefit from having an external pair of expert eyes.
👋 Want to work together?
When you're ready, here's the best way to get my help:
🔍 Clarity Call - We will discuss your business and create a step-by-step action plan together so you know exactly what you need to do next for maximum impact.
🆕 What I did instead
I hate hustle p*rn. Entrepreneurs don’t need to work harder, they need to focus. I have worked with more than 260 entrepreneurs to build 6-figure businesses, I’m yet to see one that needed to work more than 20 hours per week when we follow my system.
I walk the walk on this topic. I work just 12 hours per week, and I enjoy the rest of my time however I please. Here are some photos of things I have done in the past two weeks with my free time, the things I chose to do instead of working more.
What did you do with your free time?
What did you think about how I spent my free time?
What would you like to do more of if you had more time?
Let me know in the comments below or by replying to this email.
That's it! I can't wait to hear what you think. What did you find most useful? What do you want more or less of? Reply to this email now and let me know.
Also, if you have anything interesting to share, I want to know about it😊
Have a great week,
John
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