Don’t worry. No soap box rant today.
Although I’ll probably be fast asleep after hitting a massive caffeine and stale cookies crash by the time you read this, so if this email makes even less sense than usual, that’s why. (Thank God for automation that isn’t bullshit)
Let’s roll…
You need to do the complete opposite of what every marketing “guru” is telling you to do right now.
And it’s not even cause I’m some contrarian edgelord who hates everything popular.
It’s more because they’re wrong.
Like, fundamentally, chronically, hilariously wrong.
These people.
The ones deemed as social media experts, the growth hackers, the woo woo crystal worshipers who promise you’ll 10x your business if you just manifest harder…
They’re all living in the same delusional bubble.
They’re chronically online.
They don’t appreciate what’s going on in the real world. They sit behind their computer screens or iPads, punching away in their own little echo chambers, completely disconnected from how actual humans actually behave.
They’re optimising for metrics that don’t matter at all. Similar to how new copywriters slide into my dm’s and ask about how they can improve open rates…
They’re now focusing on, Engagement. Followers. Virality. Going viral on TikTok. Building a “personal brand.” Posting seventeen times a day because “consistency is key.” (Christ, on FB that shit is wild right now…)
Meanwhile, out here in the real world where people have jobs and lives and aren’t scrolling social media fourteen hours a day, none of that shit translates to actual business.
And it’s weird cause they don’t really know what’s happening in the real world.
It’s about solving problems. Building relationships. Doing good work. Making offers that make sense. Treating people like humans instead of engagement metrics.
Yeah yeah, It’s revolutionary, I know.
But the gurus can’t sell courses on “just be good at what you do and don’t be an asshole.” That’s not sexy. That doesn’t scale. That doesn’t promise overnight success with their seven step framework and a $50k a year mastermind (lol)
So instead they sell you on tactics that work in their weird online ecosystem but fall completely flat when they hit actual reality.
The anti-marketer playbook is simple in that respect.
Stop posting for the whatever AI/Algorithm or Billionaire says you gotta do. Start creating for humans.
Stop trying to go viral. Start trying to be useful.
Stop obsessing over follower counts. Start obsessing over whether people actually want to work with you.
Stop doing what every other marketer is doing because “best practices.” Start doing what actually works for your specific situation with your specific people.
The gurus won’t tell you this because it doesn’t sound impressive. It doesn’t have twelve steps and a catchy acronym. It can’t be packaged into a $997 course with a countdown timer.
But it’s what actually builds businesses that last beyond the next change or platform collapse or trend cycle.
While these clowns play a game that doesn’t exist outside their screens.
And always, you don’t have to play it with them.
Do cool shit.
Make buying from you fun and a great experience.
Rinse and repeat.
It’s that easy.
Stephen Walker.
P.S. The caffeine crash is hitting hard now. It’s around 15:30ish when I wrote this… Point is this: Trust yourself over the gurus. Trust what you see working in reality over what they say works in theory. And maybe don’t survive on stale cookies and coffee. Do as I say, not as I do. Okay bye.
If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe
Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom