James Tollefson

@GrammarHippy Upstream by Mary Oliver

Gimme a book to read. The best one you’ve ever read.

@Zbijelic Doing well! Definitely overdue to chat soon

@Zbijelic Love reading a good story first thing in the morning Really puts persistence into perspective!

@TheSebasHidalgo "Stop getting your opinions from others" Fixed that for you If you need someone else to tell you what you should be thinking, you absolutely do *not* need someone else to tell you what you should be thinking.

@kyrinahlis Would it not be similar to retaining customers? If their involvement is 'do work -> get paid', then anyone who pays more for similar work can poach. Find a way for staff to co-author their 'story' with your business'. Get them involved beyond completing tasks and meeting KPIs.

Retaining AMAZING talent in your business is hard. I've had 10/10 staff of mine poached - it's annoying when it happens. What is your go-to for staff retention beyond money? I believe it's aligning them to your vision as a company.

@ItsKieranDrew The focus on 'what questions do I want my audience to ask?' reminds me of a quote from a horror writer: "If everything is explained and wrapped up nicely, you have no reason to think about it after it ends. Questions are better than answers." Interesting parallels

Your ideas are pointless if people don’t remember them. A must-read book.

@parkerworth Storytelling Writing for fiction Coding

Skills I'll focus on in 2025: •Sales •Advertising •Copywriting •Humor Writing •Digital Marketing What skills are you learning?

@kyrinahlis Classic

Absolutely nothing more detrimental in coaching programs than students teaching other students (unprompted) and they are giving crap advice. This must be corrected if you own any type of info/education product. See this time and time again and it kills good products.

@TyroneC__ I still consider myself in the process of tilting away from design & creative work and into brand consulting & strategy The 4 points you list here are bang on.

Drop your ego. I’m a Senior UX consultant with 6+ years working with clients like Porsche and AUDI. But as a Digital Designer, I’m a Junior with only 1.5 years of practice and little to no experience. At first I've expected the same result as a Junior compared to being a Senior which is ludicrous. When switching to a new Field you have to be willing to: - Earn less - Know less - Take steps back - Embrace learning again It’s temporary though. While upskilling feels rough initially it eventually will click and everything becomes worth it. Taking steps back now sets you up to excel later.

@kyrinahlis One more: - If so, are the only testimonials from their pals/engagement group?

How to not get scammed by gurus: - Do they state they generated somebody income? - If so, do they have a case study or a testimonial in a video format? - if not, why? Do they have text testimonials only? Text testimonials can easily be taken out of context. Video is king.

@thesamocean Just from the description alone, I think I know who this titan is HUGE win regardless Sam Kudos!

We signed an industry titan 32 days into our agency: • Owns 9 brands. • 350 million podcast downloads. • 4x New York Times bestselling author. And their products are in Whole Foods. I'll share exactly what we're going to do with them in a second... But the fascinating part? This is our first cold, inbound lead. All of this came from three simple Facebook posts on my personal profile with just 505 friends at the time. No sales pitches, no CTAs, and no problem-solution frameworks. None of the 'personal branding' advice you hear about online either. This is the first time a client like this has found us – and all I've done is talk about our business openly. Gary Vee calls it documenting the journey. The SaaS bros call it building in public. Whatever you want to call it, it's my favorite style of creating content. Because I realized this isn't just a fun thing to do... It's an actual marketing strategy. I discovered this in 2023, when I grew my X following from 300 to almost 10,000 in 7 months. All I did was post content about a big Instagram influencer I partnered with, and I gave all our strategies away for free. No sales tactics or CTAs – just sharing what I was doing. When we launched my partner's offer to his audience, we were surprised to see a small handful of the sales come from my audience... even though I wasn’t selling to them. I remember hosting a group call with all the new students of the program. I ask our star student why she joined the program. I'm fully expecting her to talk about how she's been following the influencer for years... "I joined because Sam was taking us behind the scenes and I wanted to be a part of it." The Zoom room fell silent. It was almost as if I had stolen the spotlight. My face wasn't even on the offer, yet she joined because of me and she wasn't the only one. That’s when I realized: Posting content online creates results you can't track or predict Most marketers look at content linearly – 'if I post X, it needs to create Y.' It's similar to the funnel model, where the prospect moves in a straight, logical line. But I learned content is non-linear and illogical. For example... • You can cater your content for beginners for fast follower growth, and still catch the attention of big names... • Big names will work with you because of your content, even if they don't read your content. Which I suspect is the case with the client we just signed... • The 'optics' of creating content can be more persuasive than the content itself... • It's sometimes better to talk about yourself instead of your prospect... • You don't need to sell in your content to make sales... And so much more... These are all real outcomes of creating content, and nobody's talking about it. ​​I've seen these patterns after a decade of working with brands and even doing it for myself. However, it didn't click until this last year. But that's a rabbit hole for another day... I believe in this so much, I launched a YouTube agency around it. That's why I'm thrilled to work with this new client. We're growing their YouTube channel, which is currently at 60,000 subscribers. We'll be ideating, scripting, and producing 1x long-form video a week. We're also designing 9 thumbnails per video for AB testing, and factoring in SEO for the long game. Our team has already started the long, messy process of creating winning video ideas: • Reading their books. • Studying their comments.​ • R​esearching competitors. • Going through existing content on all platforms ​And tons more... We're aiming for a recording date in October, and we're already finding some great ideas we'll produce for them. In fact, I just got off the phone with my partner... We decided we're going to write TWO scripts per video – one written by me, and another written by a different copywriter under my guidance. We'll then compare the two, and use the best ideas from both for a final script. We're putting as much effort into each content video as an 8-figure marketing company puts into a VSL. We believe one video can change a business overnight, and our goal is to create that video. You'll see our work with this client soon, but we'll share that closer to when the videos go live. This brings me to my simple philosophy: Companies should reinvest a portion of immediate profits into long-term strategies that build brand – like creating content on YouTube. Sure, you can't track every outcome and it's not an instant ROI. But that's not an argument for why it's not a useful marketing strategy... I argue it's one of the most useful strategies that exist now. One of the most profitable clients I've worked with was Charisma On Command. On Graham Stephans' podcast, they stated doing about $300,000/mo in revenue with high margins. They haven't even posted a video for 10 months and they still get 70,000-80,000 organic views a day. All they did is post two 10-minute videos a month on YouTube, sending traffic to a $500 sales page. No email marketing, no ads, no affiliates, no other offers. I saw these guys start from scratch exactly 10 years ago. They had 0 subscribers, and made $0 at the start. Bad ROI, right? Of course, but only when you look at it in the short-term. The longer you expand the time horizon, the more the ROI makes sense. This is a unicorn example, and I'm not saying content is easy. But nothing is easy. And I believe if you want a long-term brand, it's time to start the long-term journey. The best way to do that in marketing is with content. This is why One Billion Media exists. I want to help people use YouTube to build big, profitable brands that people love. I'm a believer that content is a needle mover for any company. The timing may never feel perfect, but that's true for anything worth building. So if you're on the fence about content, the time to start is yesterday. This is Week 5 of building my business in public.

@oledoteth Well... I mean I used to run media for raves so I kinda had to but I get what you mean😂

If you film at a rave, we can't be friends.

@torreydawley Knee-jerk says this year Nothing says he doesn't have years of experience behind him and just started his own thing Plus - 20 years is a good bit of experience, but people often get a certain flavor of complacency and ego when they rest on the laurels of decades.

Knee-jerk reaction: 1. Started a business this year. 2. In business for 20 years. Who do you expect to have more expertise?

@oledoteth I feel like he'd be more of a big air kinda guy anyways

Chill on a Sunday, lol.

@kyrinahlis It makes sense. If the program is scalable, you get more headspace before you hit a ceiling With more breathing room, you can focus more on delivery & client success instead of just surviving & treading water.

What most people don't realize... When you build a scalable coaching program you can actually get BETTER results for clients than working with them 1-1. Sounds counterintuitive but has been true for dozens of clients I've worked with.

@kyrinahlis @FitFastCoach ? Your expertise would be prime with Kyri

🚨 Hiring 🚨 We are looking for a MALE fitness coach for an online community. - You DO NOT need to search for your clients. - We find them FOR YOU. - $100-150K+ OTE UNCAPPED Send me a DM!

@TheEvolvedDad Future all-star NFL kicker!

And time to replace another door 😵‍💫 Sheesh when did kids get such strong feet 😏

@parkerworth Leica's marketing is a prime example of this IMO Another good example is the flagship model of a car brand They often get their own 'story' website to reaaally pull at those emotional purchasing strings.

People don't like being sold things. The like being told stories.

@evielync I've also looked at it as leaving a trail of breadcrumbs! The more you post, the more of you is out there for someone to find. All it takes is one person finding one breadcrumb of your content!

Next time you’re frustrated that a single piece of content isn’t performing, remember: ➤ Every piece you publish is like adding to a bank of leverage. It’s not about one post—it’s about building compounding interest over time with many.