How to write a cover letter?

Here is a general structure you can use.

🧵👇

◻️ 1. Opening

- Dear Sir / Madam
- Dear *company name*

◻️ 2. Reason for writing

- I am writing to express my interest in the position of...
- I wish to apply for the position of...
- I am writing in response to your advertisement for...
- I am writing to enquire as to whether there are any vacancies...

◻️ 3. Introducing yourself

- I am currently working on... / I am currently studying...
- At present, I am working for... where I am responsible for...
- I have been working in my current position for the past(time)

◻️ 4. Talking about your education/experience

- I graduated from University X with a degree in...
- The nature of my studies has prepared me well for a position such as...
- As you can see from my CV, I have worked for... and gained experience in... working on...

We've used "seller financing" on two self storage deals in the past year.

And it raised our cash on cash return by 20%+.

And lowered the amount of capital we needed by $500k.

Here's a THREAD about a deal of mine and how this magical debt structure can work.

👇👇

My method is simple. In the late stages of negotiation I submit two offers:

One at a lower price.

And one at the exact price the seller wants but with him holding back 10-20% of the purchase price in the form of a 2nd mortgage (with a second position to your bank loan).

Contrary to popular belief seller financing rarely includes the seller holding back 70-80% and acting as your bank.

Two reasons:

#1 most have some debt on the property.

#2 most want most of their money now.

Have you heard the saying:

"you name the price and i'll name the terms?"

This is a case of that situation exactly.

Lets paint a picture here:

Last week I was negotiating with a seller on a property in a small western PA town.

Not many interested buyers so I knew I had some leverage.

His asking price was $4.5MM. I wanted to pay $4.2M.

After a week or two and a lot of back and forth I found his lowest number.

I spent the last few weeks thinking about how brands differentiate themselves

Thread 🧵

1/ Let's start with this line by Ted Morgan.

“Positioning is like finding a seat on a crowded bus”

Most brands sleepwalk onto the bus and sit on top of one another.

The smart brands look left, right, find an empty row, paint their logo on it and sing sweetly like the Sirens.

2/ Positioning is an easy thing to complicate so let's keep it simple.

*Your goal is to own a space in the customer’s mind. You do this by differentiating yourself.*

Differentiation is not a dark art. It's something you can learn. Here’s the different ways to achieve it:

3/ Through contrast

Point at the status quo and pit yourself against it. Contrast burns your brand into the customer's mind.

• Hey pit themselves against mainstream email
• Lemonde pit themselves against insurance stereotypes
• “I'm a Mac” pit themselves against the PC

4/ Through values

Think Patagonia and the environment, Ben and Jerry's and social justice, Black Rifle Coffee and gun rights.

Some will hate it. Others will rally behind you. And that's the point. Fence sitters don't buy.

The essence of Customer Relationship Management is to segment your customers as high value customers and low value customers, develop systems and procedures to take good care of the high value customers. 1/n

The belief is that 20% of the customers give 80% of the business and hence need to be nurtured.

Now where have I seen this philosophy being applied?

2/n

Let me roll the years back. I lived in a rural area. My father, being the local Executive Engineer in Electricity Board, was considered to be a mini VIP and in turn a high value customer. 3/n

We had nearby a tailor, named Aruchami. This guy had a small tailoring shop with a single sewing machine. He will make personal visit to 10 or 15 important clients in the area, take measurements at our houses, collect the materials and deliver the finished dresses in person 4/n

A kind of customized personal service. Our work used to get precedence over the other relatively non affluent working class people, whom he used to run around in circles to the extend of positively discouraging them. 5/n

The 20 Commandments of Email.

Lessons from making over $50 Million for clients and building a 7-figure email marketing agency from scratch.

//THREAD//

1) Treat your subs with respect

People didn't sub to your list to be spammed.

People subbed to your list because you have something to offer and they're interested in you.

Keep it that way.

2) Test Everything

-Subject lines
-Email length
-Sending times
-Copy
-Angle
-Preview text

"Never stop testing and your advertising will never stop improving."

-David Ogilvy

3) Have Systems

-Welcome flows
-Purchase flows
-Abandonment flows

These will keep earning money forever.

You need sleep.

Systems don't.

4) Leverage List Segmentation

Never blast your whole list.

That's just asking to land in the Spam folder.

Focus on people who actually open your emails and click on your links.

An engaged list > A huge list.

Books you MUST read to get gud at copy:

1. Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins
2. How to Write a Good Advertisement by Victor Schwab
3. A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Webb Young          
4. Influence by Cialdini                  
5. My Life in Advertising by Hopkins
6. Obvious Adams by Robert Updegraf

7. Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield
8. The Dip by Seth Godin
9. Irresistible Offer By Mark Joyner
10. The Great Formula By Mark Joyner
11. Great Leads
12. breakthrough advertising

Other notable mentions:

The Baron letters By Halbert
Alchemy by Roy Sutherland

If you build a great product and no one knows, did it happen?

@mkobach
@JunaeBrown
@AmandaMGoetz
@JuiceboxCA
@KyleTibbitts
@jenalyson
@tobydoyhowell
@ThatChristinaG
@markritson
@TheCoolestCool

10 LESSONS from 10 of the BEST Marketers👇🧵

1/ Understand Culture First

"Marketing is effective when it’s a reflection of culture. Have to understand culture and society to understand marketing"

@mkobach

2/ Four Keys

• Make your audience feel like they know u— inside look into lifestyle or clear buyer persona

• Create shareable content—audience promos for u

• Authenticity

• Interactive strategies since everything is digital. Create EXPERIENCES

@JunaeBrown

3/ Pillars of Content

Every piece of content have 3 things:

- PURPOSE
- GOAL
- DISTRIBUTION STRATEGY

@AmandaMGoetz

4/ Clear Value Prop

"If you can’t describe in one tweet why someone should follow your brand on social, you can bet the average social user can’t find the reason either."

@JuiceboxCA

How to Sell Anything Online

-A Thread-

Retweets appreciated!

Guaranteed 🔥🔥🔥🔥

1) Set Goals in Writing

- Before you sell anything there needs to be a plan.
- Create the plan and make your goal BIG!
- You are not just an designer, writer, marketer, programmer. If you are in this sales industry you are supposed to close deals. This is the end goal.

2) Establish Trust

- Can you sell things without trust? Sure. will you do it consistently, NO!
- Pay attention to everything. Use all the information.
- Take your time building the sale. Your client is not in a rush and if they are, slow them down. Lead them. Be yourself.

3) Build Value

- Be an expert in your field. Show them why your product is the best. Don't tell them, SHOW THEM!
- Be a trend setter. DO NOT be like every other salesman.
- People want a good deal, so help them find one. But do it on your terms.

4) Identify a Need

- If there is no need then you have little chance to sell anything.
- QUESTIONS. QUESTIONS. QUESTIONS.
- Ask them... mean them... listen to their answers. Listen to what they aren't saying. Pay attention to EVERYTHING!

Good copywriting is a superpower.

Amazon, the second most valuable brand in the world, puts an emphasis on teaching its employees how to write.

They know good copy equates to more customers.

These are the 8 tips to write like an Amazonian 🧵

1. Keep Your Sentences Under 30 Words.

I'd keep them under 15 words.

They should be Kevin Hart short.

And only focus on one idea.

Short sentences help break down info into bite-size pieces.

This makes the communication smoother.

Digestible info = Retained info

2. Replace Adjectives With Data

In 1880, Mark Twain said, “When you catch an adjective, kill it."

In Amazon's case, don’t kill them -- replace them with data.

Why?

Because numbers are eye candy.

It organizes info into a logical order.

3. Eliminate Weasel Words

Weasel words kill sentences.

They're vague. Boring.

If you’re going to use adjectives -- use descriptive adjectives.

NOT interpretive adjectives.

Ex:

Interpretive - We went on a long boat ride.

Descriptive - We went on a 5-hour boat ride.

4. The “So What” Test

Re-read your writing and ask, “so what?”

Can the reader understand the sentence, paragraph, or page?

Does it make sense?

Does it provide value?

Are they learning?

This helps give you an understanding from the consumer's perspective.

Over the last 5 years, I’ve helped build courses taken by 40,000 students w/ $30M+ in revenue.

Today we’re launching a *free* cohort-based course on How to Build a CBC!

At the end of this, you’ll have a full course ready to launch.

Apply here: https://t.co/kp2vyBWE9K

Read on

A CBC on CBCs is a bit meta. But it's the best way to teach a complex topic that benefits from hands-on projects, peers, feedback.

@patel0phone and I have been working 1:1 w/all-star instructors (like @APompliano @lennysan). Now we're ready to apply these lessons to your course

Our system is proven yet flexible.

It's not one-size-fits-all. We teach underlying skills & create an accountability system so you build a course that's uniquely yours.

It’s the same process I’ve used for @alt_MBA @david_perell @fortelabs

Structure and accountability:

The course creation process is complex. There are lots of interconnected
decisions & second order effects.

We help you make sense of it with:

+ Step by step process
+ Clear deliverables
+ Feedback from us & peers
+ Gut checks
+ Weekly homework

On a weekly basis, you'll know what to work on and why--so you can efficiently & effectively create a high quality course you're proud of.

It's an iterative process to get ideas out of your head, share feedback, discuss, build, refine, lock it in. Piece by piece, brick by brick

1/

Bruce Greenwald EPV valuation:

Get a cup of coffee.

Today I will help you understand the Earnings power value framework and how you can implement it in your valuation analysis.

@contrarianEPS @10kdiver
@FI_InvestIndia @Dinesh_Sairam

2/

Before proceeding, let me tell u a thing. We make two assumptions when using this approach. Those are

1. Current profits are sustainable.

2. No growth (More about this later)

Let's get started.

3/

Imagine, you have 50 lakhs of cash. You invested 30 lakhs into bonds, gold, real estate, and crypto. You plan to invest the balance of 20 lakhs into a business.

4/

An owner of a food business in your town planning to sell his biz for 15 lakhs as he was about to retire. You thought to buy that biz.

Looking at the accounts, you have understood that the biz is making 2 lakhs profits yearly.

5/

As an investor, you demand a minimum of 10% yield from the biz.

Why? Simple. The risk-free govt bond yield is trading at 6%. Since you are taking some risks, you demand an additional 4% return.

Why promoting yourself/your business/your ideas feels uncomfortable:

You must repeat things that are obvious to you until they become obvious to others.

This is why most people hire marketers or outsource the amplification of their message.

The problem with that is no one is an invested as you are, and no one knows your message like you do.

And why those who break through their discomfort reach an escape velocity that eludes most.

This is a difficult and unnatural process, hence the upside on the other side.

Another way to think about it is the famous shelf analogy:

No one wants a drill they want a hole, no one wants a hole they want a shelf, no one wants a shelf they want to a place to put books to look smart, etc.

People care about the 2nd, 3rd, 4th order effects of your work.

1/ One of the best things I did in 2020 was to join a growth marketing program called @growclass

I’d seen it hover around online, I saw some friends talking about it. But I thought, wow, that looks great but it’s too expensive for me at the moment.

[continue thread ...]

2/ Then I kept coming back and getting more nervous because the more I looked at it the more I wanted to join.

It finally came to a point where I felt an irresistible urge to join the program. And I remember I was on the landing page 10 minutes before the program closed.

3/ And I immediately thought to myself: “I need to learn how to make people interested in career coaching feel like Growclass made me feel just now”.

4/ Then I tried to think about it as an investment. “If Growclass helps me gain 10 more students over the next 12 months, it will pay for itself.”

5/ Well things have changed significantly since then.

I was inspired by others to raise my prices significantly. Now my prices are triple what they were when I first started (and waaaay undercharging).

But the copywriting and website tear downs have made a big change for me.

1 Cold Email, 10 closed deals

This email is based on “actions’ your prospect took. These actions might be a product launch, a new offer, a new blog, a press release…any action that might represent an opportunity for you to help.

Having action gives you a reason to email and

makes the email itself feel less cold and unsolicited.

You have to do some leg work in order to find relevant actions you can email them about.

Here is one way to find “actions” that you can use as a reason for your email:

Use LinkedIn or a Google Search to find businesses

you’re interested in working with. Compile a list of the names of the businesses, web address, and contact information of decision makers.

Identify potential needs of these businesses and how you can fill those needs. Can you write blog posts? Articles? Facebook Ads? Video

Scripts? Emails or Sales Copy?

Use a Google Search to determine “new” things that have shown up on their website lately. You can also use social media or LinkedIn to see what these businesses have been up to recently.

To do this, type “site:URL” into a Google search, using

the URL of the business you are looking to work with.

Next, select tools, and pick a recent time frame (1 month usually works well) to see what new things they’ve been working on or releasing.

Skim the search results for recent happenings, events, launches, or publications

Marketing isn’t a scam

Marketing makes change happen. Marketing makes your creations known

I'll share some tactics & frameworks I use

How to get lucky in marketing in 2021:

How marketing has evolved:

Marketing used to be a contest for attention

But now, marketing is a contest for CONNECTION

Whoever owns the connection, wins

Turn your product into a social statement

Products that make you feel good or defend you from being cancelled, spread fast

Ex: Make clothes out of recycled plastic

Point: People want a chance to show they stand for something

Are you working with creators?

Some of the world’s biggest brands were catapulted in the 1960s via TV

Brands bought TV ads. Captured attention

Working with creators is like buying TV ads in the 1960s

Point: Co-building with the right creators is like fishing with dynamite

Avoid ads. Build media companies

Prediction: every public company will own a media arm

It’s a magical shortcut to building true fans

Ads just don’t hit the same way