By the Ocean
A Few Clouds 71 Degrees
5:59 a.m.
I’ve been buying ads on Facebook since 2008.
I’ve been going against my better judgment for all that time, giving money to the Borg, because I didn’t have a better idea about how to find new people to help with these daily messages. Over that time, I got really good at doing this. Lead generation is an art. And if you can wade through a world where you fail over and over again, eventually you get really good at attracting attention from strangers. My last campaign was generating email optins for about $1…in 2025.
But in the final quarter of last year, I turned it all off. I haven’t deleted the account yet, but it’s coming. My X account is already in the trash and I don’t use LinkedIn or anything else. It’s just me and the written word, the kitchen table, my family, three dogs, my mind, my Soul and these messages.
What I noticed near the end was that the lead quality had become exceptionally poor. It was now in the toilet. And given my tendency to no longer trust anything in the Matrix, my stats couldn’t really tell me if I was dealing with REAL HUMAN BEINGS. Would a Borg create bots to bump its balance sheet? Say it ain’t so Zuck!
After that, I decided to ZAG.
I started mailing letters. Not email. Letters. Just like the old days. I started sending my insights, opinions, strategies and tactics to people I put on a list. People I respect. People I know of. People I would like to show-up for.
So far, I’ve got a 20% response rate to these letters. Not “open” rate. RESPONSE.
I write ONE letter and I create real connection with real human beings I know are interested in what I have to share.
It’s slow, it’s extremely targeted, it’s simple, it’s real.
I call this, The Art of Zagging.
Look at the way everything is going right now in business. Zagging means you go another way.
- Instead of automation, you create connection.
- Instead of volume, value.
- Instead of faster, slower.
- Instead of bleeding edge, tried and true.
- Instead of scaling, focus.
This is not a tactic, this is strategy.
The strategy is that, when everyone is going in a certain direction or doing a certain thing, it opens a space which becomes an opportunity for you and your brain to use.
How many letters did YOU get in the mail last month from someone you maybe heard of, that offered insight and perspective, without asking for anything in return?
I bet it’s less than the number of emails you got.
THIS IS NOT HARD.
All it takes is guts. Guts to put on the brakes when everyone is pressing the accelerator.
Guts to watch as the crowd speeds by and leaves you “in the dust.”
Guts to believe in your own value and know that your time is far too valuable to waste it acting like a rat begging for cheese.
Is competition real? Or is competition a manufactured prison of the mind to keep the slaves running forever so they never stop to pay attention to what is really going on?