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  • #005 - Cutting out the noise, reprioritising and doubling down on the one thing

#005 - Cutting out the noise, reprioritising and doubling down on the one thing

Author

Fernando Cao Zheng
February 19, 2023

Hola amigos,

Welcome to the 5th issue of my newsletter.

This week was tough and I burned out/procrastinated a lot (which ironically I said I overcame last week lol) but I needed it to come to this one realisation...

What went well?

I started the week off strong by writing 60 tweets and scheduling them in ~3hrs.

That was a big W for me. tweets have gotten to a point where writing them is more or less second nature to me.

Lessons:

  • To write a high volume of tweets fast:

    • Take the tweets from the body of past threads

    • Take content from previous giveaways and turn them into tweets

    • Go on to Twitter analytics, export the data for any given month on excel, and then sort by profile visits. Either copy or repurpose those tweets as you see fit

What can I improve?

I set my expectations too high for what I wanted to achieve this week and inevitably burned out like crazy.

I barely wrote any threads this week which was the part I needed to nail down.

I just wasn't interested in most of the ideas I had on my list and felt that they would be crap if I rushed to post a thread that was half-baked.

I had a massive realisation that I don't need to play the volume game of writing 3+ threads/week.

That was January's goal and I already achieved what I set out to which was to grow my account as fast as possible in a month.

After doing some journaling and jumping on a clarity call with my boy Connor Widmaier, I came to the conclusion of ramping down the content on my personal brand.

Personal brand is not the focus and I don't need to put so much weight on it.

The focus is on client acquisition, everything else is just noise.

  • The podcast

  • Writing content for my personal brand

  • Writing for another guy's agency

  • Creating giveaways

  • Even this newsletter

Are all noise.

I'll still write this newsletter because it doesn't take too long and it basically doubles up as my weekly evaluation lol

But I'll stop writing for another guy's agency, put my podcast on hold, and cut down on the giveaways.

My personal brand is a long-term play so I still want to grow it at a certain rate.

But for now, I want to only hit the minimum effective dose which will allow me to grow consistently (the aim is 1k-1.5k followers a month).

Another thing is that I want to write high-quality threads and if I have to worry about hitting the numbers, I will rush them.

So my aim this week is to slow down, write less but higher quality, and focus on one thing - client acquisition.

Even though I'm playing this game with all of my Twitter homies, I'm running in my own lane.

That is to say, just because someone is growing fast, doesn't mean I need to catch up.

I know the game I'm playing which is to make enough money to quit my 9-5.

That is my WHY and it should be my sole focus.

Nothing else matters for now.

Lessons:

  • If you ever feel like you're overwhelmed by your workload, or not making progress on anything:

    • Get out your journal

    • Write "Why?" at the top

    • And then brain dump all your problems and feeling

    • You will eventually come to the conclusion that you're doing to much and that you should cut down

  • If you're stuck with the direction of your personal brand or need help monetising it, I highly recommend you reach out to Connor to work with him. Here's his Twitter profile if you're interested: https://twitter.com/CopyWriteConnor

  • There's no affiliate or anything, I just had a great call with him and I believe in the guy

What I am focusing on this week

I didn't get to batch one month's worth of content last week, so here's the new content strategy:

  • 3 tweets/day

  • 2 threads/week

  • 1-2 giveaways/month

With this in mind, here's my plan for the week:

80% of my time will be focused on all things agency related:

  • Setting up an LLC

  • Setting up a payment account

  • Setting up a business bank account

  • Drafting a contract for my prospect

  • Close him and receive payment

  • Delivering for the client

20% of my time will be focused on writing the rest of the threads for the month (with the aim to focus on quality>quantity):

  • 6 high quality threads

In practice, this will look like:

  • Mon-Fri 5-7/8am: Agency related activities

  • Sat-Sun 6am-12pm: Agency related activities/Thread writing

I appreciate you taking the time to read this as always.

If you have any feedback on how I can improve, let me know.

I want to make it as valuable for you as it is for me reflecting on my journey.

See ya next week.

Big love, Fernando

P.S. If you want more of my content, follow me on Twitter @thefernandocz (where I'm most active), or my podcast - The Fernando Cao Zheng Podcast. Links below:

If you’re a 6+ fig CEO or Founder and want help growing your personal brand and generating leads, fill out this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe0CUdcj5Dh9H3QS-ibG-hnihx754ZL8x5hjcvOKwPm26oBEA/viewform