Ditching Hourly

Summary

Kevin Friedberg shares his approach to helping freelancers and consultants create effective websites by starting with email conversations. He suggests that instead of focusing on building a website, which can be overwhelming and time-consuming, freelancers should start by writing emails that address the problems their clients are facing. These emails can serve as the foundation for a content solar system and can eventually be repurposed for a website. Kevin also shares his strategy for growing an email list using LinkedIn, where he sends personalized messages to potential subscribers. Overall, his approach emphasizes the importance of one-on-one conversations and providing value to potential clients.

Keywords

websites, freelancers, consultants, email conversations, content solar system, email list, LinkedIn

Takeaways

- Instead of starting with a website, freelancers and consultants can begin by writing emails that address the problems their clients are facing.
- These emails can serve as the foundation for a content solar system and can eventually be repurposed for a website.
- LinkedIn can be a valuable platform for growing an email list by sending personalized messages to potential subscribers.
- The key to success is providing value and engaging in one-on-one conversations with potential clients.

Titles

Using LinkedIn to Grow Your Email List
From Emails to Websites: Creating a Content Solar System

Sound Bites

"A website, it's not a one-on-one conversation. An email is."
"You'll have this conversation with someone and they go off, they like brain dump about the problems that they solve for their clients. And you're capturing, you're like, oh, this is gold. This is great."
"I DM, I'm obsessed with the very idea of a one-on-one conversation. I just don't understand how else."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Pain Points
03:05 Starting with Email Conversations
13:10 Using LinkedIn to Grow Your Email List
25:31 Transitioning from Emails to Websites
28:31 Conclusion and Next Steps

Jonathan (00:01.53)
Hello and welcome to Ditching Hourly. I'm Jonathan Stark. Today I am rejoined by friend of the podcast, Kevin Friedberg. Kevin, welcome back.

Kevin (00:10.479)
Thanks for having me, Jonathan.

Jonathan (00:12.538)
So today we've talked about many things. We've talked on this show on doing daily, your fellow daily emailer, probably other places too that I can't even remember. But today our specific entry point is going to address a pain that I see from a lot of people on my list, a lot of people in my audience where let's say someone's a freelancer or a consultant and they email me, they're on my list, but they're sending from a Gmail address. They don't have a website. They don't have a domain name.

And there are even ones that have a domain name, but when you go to it, there's no website there. And they just haven't gotten around to it. They don't know what to write. It seems like a huge job. Or maybe they do have a website, but they hate it. Their own website. They just made some stuff up. They just talked about themselves. They just don't know how to do it. And Kevin here has a very...

very novel approach to it that is what we're going to talk about today. So how to get around that cold start problem where you either don't have a website or you don't know what you just don't know what to put on it. Cool. Before we get there, can you do a quick intro in case people are meeting you for the first time?

Kevin (01:24.897)
Yeah. so thanks for that lovely intro, Jonathan. so, I have a company ironically called seven second websites, where the ironic part, is for such a long time, you know, I've been really obsessed with websites. And then at some point, maybe, maybe a couple of years ago, there was this big sea change where I think we all sort of realized like, no one is contacting us off our website.

I almost feel like I, in hindsight, like I did like a two year study where I just, anyone that would DM me on LinkedIn, or I would just straight up DM them if they, if I love their website and I go, Hey, that's a great website. are you getting a lot of, leads from it? Almost as if to say like, Hey, I could really use some help, you know? you know, give me some pointers cause your site looks great. And.

Jonathan (02:15.182)
that's a good question. Right.

Kevin (02:21.999)
invariably, 100 % of them would say, nope, haven't gotten a, no one's filled out the contact page in a year. And so that just really started a pivot with my business of just starting with.

Jonathan (02:28.346)
Wow. Yeah.

Kevin (02:36.847)
Because a website, it's not a one -on -one conversation. An email is. And that's what you and I have worked on together a lot. And so that's really what I'm more focused on now is creating these one -on -one conversations to sell productized services, packages, that kind of thing. But doing it starting with a conversation rather than a website.

It's kind of backwards, but it's a different deal, yeah.

Jonathan (03:07.034)
Yeah, I like it though. Yeah, okay, so what does this look like? So if someone comes to you, a client comes to you and is like in that situation where they know they need to update their website and they just don't know what to write and like how do you handle that situation with this kind of an approach?

Kevin (03:27.599)
I love those that this happens a lot. where either they'll, they'll start with quite a bit of resistance. Like, like, please basically like, please don't make me write a website. please don't make me launch one, create one, or they'll come and say, you know, I really need a website. And either way, my answer is almost always like, what if you just didn't do that?

Jonathan (03:41.082)
Yeah

Kevin (03:55.087)
What if we just skipped that entirely and started with email, which you can kind of get going in like a week. And just the relief on their faces is palpable knowing they don't have to sort of create this big boulder of a thing where it's like, here's my whole business.

So yeah, that, that it's really nice for me, honestly, just cause I'm a writer. That's, you know, what part of what I do. And I just know that that's a, that's a heavy lift is you're kind of saying this every business owner is kind of saying, I guess I got to write my great American novel.

Jonathan (04:42.906)
Yeah.

Kevin (04:43.311)
And it's like, who could do that? That's really tough, especially on your own. And it's saying, well, no, no, no, let's put that aside and start with what's actually gonna make you some money.

Jonathan (04:45.434)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jonathan (04:55.418)
Okay, good point. Okay, so what's the first step? So let's say I'm one of your clients and I'm convinced I'm relieved. I'm like, that sounds amazing, but what's the process?

Kevin (05:07.599)
So I want to start them off with emails just because I know that they can promote that and they can get like individuals signing up for that who are then in their niche, their specialty. And really the minute, this is another like very gratifying thing honestly is even if it's just a random sales call.

I will start asking questions and they're really the same questions that I ask in any kind of engagement. And they're all basically problem -based questions. And I don't mind asking them again if they become clients, but even if not, I don't care. I just love doing it. The minute they answer any kind of, you know, what's the problem your prospect is coming to you to solve that kind of a question, the answer is an email.

Literally within the first five minutes of a call, they'll say, well, you know, we solved this problem, but I'll tell you something interesting. And they kind of go and they go and they go. And I'm just typing furiously. I'm like, okay, that's four emails right there. And then I'm like, you can, yeah, sure.

Jonathan (06:17.63)
So let me just spell that out in case the listener is not following. So you'll have this conversation with someone and they go off, they like brain dump about the problems that they solve for their clients. Is that right? And you're capturing, you're like, this is gold. This is great. There's like excitement. You can feel the energy from them getting excited about what they do for their clients.

Kevin (06:35.759)
Yeah.

Jonathan (06:47.066)
And boom, it's like perhaps several emails or a series of emails that kind of could, I would imagine could be a starting point for like their content solar system. Like, you touched on these four key areas or something like that. Is it, am I putting words in your mouth or is that kind of what happens?

Kevin (07:01.903)
No, that's the entire thing. And that is what I am working toward. Is that at about week four, it's sort of kind of a reveal. It is like, guess what? You've created a content seller system based on problem, solution, what's getting in the way of them solving that problem. And it's basically all the things that...

Jonathan (07:12.122)
Okay.

Kevin (07:32.015)
They would need, if they did want to write a website, it's written for them, but through sequential emails. I mean, maybe your first 20 emails, they don't sound like a website, obviously. They just sound like a conversation like, hey, I'm going to offer you this, you know, wisdom or insight into your business for free. But then, each one is stemming from their website, which is...

Jonathan (07:53.69)
Mm -hmm.

Kevin (08:01.903)
I think a homepage should be a content solar system. I think you can launch all kinds of emails from a homepage if it's based on the content solar system.

Jonathan (08:16.378)
Cool, so what is the, what is this, just the setup? Like, so people love, you know, everybody wants to know what kind of pencil Stephen King uses. So what, so let me ask you that. What do, does your client need to set up to get started writing? Like they're not sending from their Gmail account, I'm sure. So like, what are they, what do you have to have them set up so that they can get started writing and sending these emails? And.

Well, let's start there. Do you have particular tools that you like to use? What's that look like?

Kevin (08:48.399)
Yeah, I usually, I like to set them up with ConvertKit just cause I know that that's my platform or my email service provider. But I mean, you can choose anyone you want. You know, the cheaper, the better. Plus I, I've been using ConvertKit so long. I know certain people that work there. So it's like, if I really have an issue with them, I can, I can email it. Michael at ConvertKit .com and just go Michael. And actually I think this guy's name is Michael.

Jonathan (08:59.162)
Mm -hmm.

Jonathan (09:05.818)
cool.

Jonathan (09:13.002)
Yeah. he's on blast.

Kevin (09:17.999)
He'll go, yeah, yeah, he's so good. But that's, it doesn't really matter. I mean, I don't get too into the technical side of it, but it's an easy one. And then I do throw up a landing page with them, even if they have a...

Jonathan (09:36.314)
ConvertKit landing page, not their website.

Kevin (09:38.991)
Yeah, exactly. It's just a homepage that, it looks like a homepage, but all it is is just basically, hey, sign up for my email, just to kind of get something going where it's like something that someone could click on.

Jonathan (09:53.658)
Yeah, for the dear listener that it's just a page hosted by ConvertKit. So if you're listening and you don't even have a website set up yet, you don't need one right away to get started with this because you can just create a ConvertKit or Drip or any of them account and they'll have, I think all of them have hosted versions of opt -in pages or subscription pages, whatever you want to call it, that you could then use that URL and send it to people to get them to subscribe to the list. So a couple of questions there.

I'm dying to ask how you grow your list because I already know you have a great answer for it. But the first thing is they do have to write the stuff that's going to be on that page. So how much how much in what's the order of operations like do you have them write a dozen emails or something first that that are just in their queue they're not sending it to anyone yet and they just write them and then you look at it and say okay the way I see this I think your value proposition is this this is the way that you would.

Kevin (10:33.519)
Yeah.

Jonathan (10:52.666)
air quotes, convince someone who does land on this page to sign up because the value proposition is clear. Or do you, can you, can you write, help them write the copy on the opt -in page right away? I'm not, I did a bad job asking that question, but, or do you put, do you put no copy on it at all? And it's just like, sign my, sign up for my list. And it doesn't say anything about what the list is for.

Kevin (11:11.055)
No, no, sorry, you cut out for like a couple minutes.

Kevin (11:19.183)
Hey John, I'm so sorry. I think you cut out just for a little bit.

Jonathan (11:22.938)
Okay, I probably recorded on my end, but should I repeat the question so you know what I'm asking? Okay, so what about on that landing page when they first start, when they first set up, let's say, its convert kit, what do they write on it? How do you figure out what to write on that page, if anything?

Kevin (11:26.255)
okay. Cocoa. Cocoa.

Kevin (11:42.959)
yeah, yeah, yeah. I really liked very much the formulaic. I think I got this from you. Like, I help these people do this thing to achieve this outcome. And that's actually a literal question I use, but it's actually like the sixth or seventh question. Just I like people to get warmed up and really get into this like, what do I do? How do I help people? I like to just have them like.

Jonathan (11:53.754)
Mm -hmm.

Kevin (12:11.119)
vomit as much stuff just so it feels really natural. And then, yeah, probably around question six or seven, I'm like, hey, why don't you fill in these blanks? I help these people do this thing to achieve this outcome. I mean, you could write endless emails just from that line. So I really like that a lot. And it really just, yeah, it gets people to start thinking, yeah, there could be some valuable stuff in this person's...

Jonathan (12:31.962)
Right.

Kevin (12:40.559)
newsletter, I'll give it a go.

Jonathan (12:44.154)
Killer. So the big question I get, you mentioned email 365 already. At the end of that, everybody wants to know how do they get their first subscribers? And there's lots of probably fairly well known tips and tricks, you know, get your mom to sign up and you know, all these things. But you have an approach on LinkedIn that I absolutely love. Maybe you could go into that a little bit.

Kevin (13:10.735)
So there's two approaches, and I'll also go into the LinkedIn approach first. It's not the approach I, it took me a year to find the one I'm about to tell you. But yeah, so the LinkedIn approach in the interest of time is great. I just love it because like it really says like, it's almost like taking, like everyone says, no one fills out this contact form.

Jonathan (13:19.642)
Mm -hmm.

Jonathan (13:28.41)
Yeah.

Kevin (13:38.191)
you're kind of going one by one to people and asking them to fill out the contact form. You know, it's just like, you're not just waiting around and maybe you'll be on page one of Google someday. So I DM, I'm obsessed with the very idea of a one -on -one conversation. I just don't understand how else.

Jonathan (13:44.538)
All right. Yeah.

Jonathan (13:51.194)
Right.

Kevin (14:02.767)
It works best for me. I think most people just, that's what you want. So I DM, and you can automate this too with a very simple script. And I just, I have tinkered and tinkered and tinkered, but in the end, the less I say, the better. And it's always something like, Hey, first name. Totally okay to say no, but I'm starting a daily or maybe it's a weekly email and would love any feedback you might have.

Jonathan (14:07.258)
Mm -hmm.

Kevin (14:32.207)
Also totally okay to unsubscribe and then I do a space and then that I end on a question Can I sign you up? I don't put my name. I don't say thanks I really also a fan of like ending on a question because it's I think you've said this to me a lot. I got I ramble clearly and not exactly news and And you're like, all right, so what's the question?

Jonathan (14:46.714)
the

Jonathan (14:54.298)
Yeah

Kevin (15:00.291)
So I just like people will respond to that. Like, can I sign you up? They'll go, no, or absolutely. And LinkedIn, being LinkedIn, they recognize when you end on a question because they will even put buttons below for them without you doing anything that says either absolutely, not right now, or no thanks or something.

Jonathan (15:00.442)
Yeah. yeah.

Jonathan (15:05.818)
Mm -hmm.

Jonathan (15:18.49)
Mm -hmm.

Jonathan (15:26.906)
Yeah, the canned default entries. Yeah.

Kevin (15:26.927)
I think it's sure, absolutely, and no thank you. I think those are the buttons that they just populate. And so people can just go click, absolutely. And then you can go into their contact form. You now have permission and sign them up through ConvertKit or whatever you use.

Jonathan (15:46.01)
Mm -hmm.

Kevin (15:46.511)
or and then I do like to circle back and say, hey, I signed up blank at blank .com. Is that your best email? And then they can go, no, actually. But even if they never get back to you, they did give you permission, which is like the number one rule. I don't like any kind of spam and, but yeah, that's, that's the gist.

Jonathan (16:01.122)
Yeah.

Jonathan (16:09.53)
That's amazing. And it's, and I'm glad you ended on the spam thing. You're not just, you're getting permission. You're asking people to sign up and, and, and it's wild that that's all you say because they are what, how do they make the decision? Do you think, how would you guess that they make the decision to say yes or no? Do you think they go to your profile or because they're brand new contacts, right? Or, or are you just going through people totally cold?

Kevin (16:34.479)
They're totally cold. They're a hundred. I mean, I automate. So some people just randomly, like I know them, but even the ones that I know, like I, there was one guy I went to grade school with in Da I'm from Dallas and I was like, my God, it picked up this guy, David. and I was, I'm always like, no, I wonder, but he acted as if we were all, nothing had changed. And how many years we'd talked. Cause it does have that like,

Jonathan (16:41.082)
Mm -hmm.

Jonathan (16:45.978)
hahahaha

Kevin (17:03.247)
Hey friend, I just want some feedback. And it's a little flattering and I'm always welcome to feedback. And it doesn't say anything about what it's about. I mean, that's the tinkering.

Jonathan (17:18.234)
So, right, so, right. So how, right, because I can imagine getting one of these and it having this even one sentence of like, it's for people like you who have problems like these. And I'm just like, it just feels like an ad or something, you know, I could, I love the less is more approach. I don't understand why it works on me, but there's just something a little bit more.

personal about it, even though it's like, so, but what did they see? So in that scenario, they're going to see your little LinkedIn picture of your face, and it's going to say your tagline underneath it. Do you know what your tagline is off the top of your head?

Kevin (18:00.367)
It's change, but lately it's I help you turn you into your most important client. Yeah.

Jonathan (18:09.626)
Interesting. Okay, so that's okay. So they're getting a little bit of a signal there. And but essentially there's anybody that says yes, essentially doesn't know what to expect. They're just like, I'm just going to get an email from Kev and I'll find out then.

Kevin (18:23.631)
Yeah.

And the crazy thing too is what I think I've learned over the past, say, it's probably been three years since I've really just been super into this stuff is people only see what is about six inches from their face. they don't go to your website. They don't go to your LinkedIn profile. Maybe they'll read the first eight words of that profile, but they're so immediate and so time starved.

They really are just taking this at face value. I've just learned as these people slowly become clients, it's just obvious. They've just never seen any, they don't know any other world except whatever happened between us and this DM on LinkedIn.

Jonathan (19:13.498)
Yeah, it's like, even if you're automating these things, it's such a parse, it's not personalized, but it just feels like it's from a human. And it's this kind of like, there's something, you know, it's leading with value in a sense. It's not, it's so strange. Like as soon as I saw that, I was like, that would totally work on me. I don't know why I cannot articulate why that would work on me. I'm trying to, but I can just feel that it would work on me.

Kevin (19:35.727)
Yeah.

Jonathan (19:43.29)
because it is a little flattering. It puts me on a pedestal a little bit. It puts because you're looking for you. You want help. You're asking for help. And I like helping people. So it doesn't think if it was more salesy, immediate turn off, it was any longer immediate turn off. If it didn't have a clear question at the end, a yes or no question at the end turn off. You asked for the no. That's a that's great. Not asking for the no would turn me off.

Cause then it puts pressure on me like, now I gotta say no and I'm going to feel bad. But if you remove, you've removed the pressure with that message by asking for the no, it's like perfect. And I'm curious, what's your, can you give us a sense of success rate or conversion rate or like how many of these do you, what's your routine like for doing this sort of thing? And what's your experience? Like what should people expect if they try this? What should they expect in terms of like, you know, if I send a hundred of these in a week,

Or how many of these should I send in a day and how many should I expect to get a yes back? Like just ballparky.

Kevin (20:45.455)
It's really like gratifying. It's just one of the more, you can do a lot with LinkedIn and automation. And I have done a lot of different stuff. I haven't done that kind of another winning script I used for a while, but it, it was too time consuming. This one is, there's months I'll get 50 subscribers in a month. It.

And it also just, I even gotten people who just signed up for a paid service. They'll ignore the message altogether. The, can I sign you up though? You know, can I get some feedback and just go, Hey, we need a website. And I'm like, okay. That's not anywhere I can see in that little script there, but okay. Cool.

Jonathan (21:30.682)
Yeah.

Jonathan (21:35.738)
lost it.

Kevin (21:43.215)
But I just, that's how gratifying this stuff is. But yeah, most people, it's just so, they know, first of all, they know they can unsubscribe. That's so easy now. I think Gmail even has like the unsubscribed thing at the very top. And so it's very low, you know, resistance. But yeah, there's months, easily 50 emails in a month. The close second I've heard about,

is like Facebook ads. And those are really expensive, but this is, I only get 50 if I automate. If I did it manually, first of all, I think I'd get really bored. I've used it a lot with just people I do kind of know. Then I'll kind of throw another, hey, it's the same script. I don't change a word. But if I really did it manually, I just know my brain.

I would lose interest. It would be more like eating some broccoli. Yeah.

Jonathan (22:43.546)
We can keep up with it. Yeah. Cool. Well, I think you mentioned there are two. Did you say there were two ways that you've grown your list? But this is the main way.

Kevin (22:55.983)
Yeah, the other big one is just, I love if you're in any kind of network, like for you, Ditcherville, for a couple years, I was a StoryBrand person. If you're in any kind of that, you know, there's those big, I used to be a member of something called V5O. It was like just a networking thing with like a thousand people. There's a ton of those. Just throwing that out there, like, hey everyone, hey Ditchervillians.

Jonathan (23:02.906)
Mm -hmm.

Kevin (23:25.327)
I'm starting a daily email. I just need, I will kind of get personal and go, I just need some warm bodies out there. I just want to know I'm not like whistling through the graveyard. I just want something. And absolutely, you have to stay on for like three or four days if you can. And then yeah, just hop off. But I just need a little boost. I'm starting from nothing. I'm just super honest. And,

Jonathan (23:35.13)
Hehehehehe

Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin (23:54.799)
StoryBrand, it was like 60 people in two days. And most of those people are still on there. But that's a, if you have a little network thing, like any kind of deal, people, and you just put it out there, you just kind of show your underbelly. You go, yep, look, I'm nervous. You and I both have a friend, he was in Ditcherville, Nate, and he's starting a daily and...

Jonathan (24:01.466)
Check that out. Mm -hmm.

Jonathan (24:13.082)
Thanks for watching!

Kevin (24:23.471)
It is like, yeah, there's some vulnerable stuff there. It's nice to just level with people and go, look, I just need a solid here.

Jonathan (24:23.93)
good.

Jonathan (24:32.026)
Yeah. Yeah, that's great. All right. So let's bring it back full circle as we wrap up. So, so once you've got someone, they've written a bunch of emails, they've got a bunch of subscribers through this landing page that's maybe hosted with the email provider. What happens? Do like, do they ever loop back and turn that into a website? Do they even care or, and if they do, how does it help them with what they write for their, say their homepage?

Kevin (25:03.247)
I'd say half the people turn it into a website. Everyone seems to keep that landing page, that email, like just knowing they're getting responses, getting the signups is so fun. I mean, that's just, LinkedIn has a little futility feel to it, or it can. You're just putting all this, or any social in general. And, but yeah, I...

Jonathan (25:17.178)
Mm -hmm.

Jonathan (25:22.042)
Yeah, I can.

Kevin (25:31.247)
My thing is pretty intense. it's 16 weeks and it's so logical where the Google doc I send out, the agenda becomes a website in and of itself with this content solar system. And you can really start to see the logic of like, that email is the second paragraph of the about section. like it's very a, the B, and it all just makes a lot of.

Jonathan (25:43.802)
Mm.

Nice.

Kevin (26:01.231)
It makes sense. At least you don't feel like you're just like, I don't know what to say. I do this thing. but you also get to ease into it. and just write something. And I think, I think, you know, this 25 minutes, that's all you get. I'm sorry, but we, you ain't got more time, any more time than that. So I just get, once people get into the groove, I write it about, I'd say week seven.

Jonathan (26:19.13)
Yep.

Kevin (26:29.071)
of just writing for 25 minutes from start. My big thing, no perfectionism, no planning, no procrastinating, just publishing. And that's what the timer kind of solves is just like, look, do the best. You know, everyone knows you're just doing the very best you can. But over time, all those little fields start to get populated. Does that answer your question?

Jonathan (26:57.242)
yeah, I love the idea of giving people a way to take small steps to sort of, you know, eat the elephant one bite at a time to mix metaphors. Right.

Kevin (27:05.455)
Yeah, because that's the hardest part is like, building a website. My favorite is Squarespace. I'm obsessed with their marketing. First of all, it's fantastic. Anytime you can get Martin Scorsese and Super Bowl spot to do your ad, I'm like, you're amazing. Plus who doesn't love Martin Scorsese?

But their whole thing is like, it's so easy to make a website with Squarespace. And it is, except it's very easy for the creator to make the website. You can kind of throw some stuff off. What's really hard is for the reader to read that website. And that's what gets everybody kind of bunched up. And that's...

Jonathan (27:47.834)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Kevin (27:52.463)
My answer to that is if you start with emails, that website is going to sort of write itself and it's going to be a lot easier for your prospect to read it. But that might be another story for another time. It's tomorrow's email.

Jonathan (27:58.906)
Exactly.

Jonathan (28:05.498)
Well, this has been awesome. This has been awesome. So thanks so much for joining.

Kevin (28:11.407)
Thanks Jonathan, I really appreciate you having me.

Jonathan (28:14.106)
anytime. So where can people go to find out more about you and what you're doing?

Kevin (28:18.127)
So this latest thing, it starts in early August. It's called Market Yourself First. And you can go to marketyourselffirst .com.

Jonathan (28:26.234)
Excellent. I look forward to that. I'm sure it's going to be great.

Kevin (28:29.711)
Thanks so much, Jonathan.

Jonathan (28:31.706)
Alright folks, that's it for this time. Nope, I screwed up the ending. It's been a while since I've done one of these interviews. Alright folks, that's it for... Alright folks, that's it for this week. I'm Jonathan Stock and this has been Ditching Hourly. Bye.

Still screwed it up, but that's close enough.