My son turned 1 last weekend.

It was one of the best days of my life and the momentum has carried into this week at work.

I can’t recall ever feeling so energised and productive.

Today, I want to quickly share some wins with you guys (as I’ve had so many L’s recently, so F*ck it - I’m going to gloat lol) as well as some key business learnings.

There’s no structure to this newsletter so I’m just going to spitball random points. Try to follow along!

Moving back to Magnet Monster already seems the correct decision

In the last 2 weeks, I’ve been heavily involved in Magnet Monster’s rebrand and GTM positioning for 2025.

The amount of energy circulating in the business again since my return has been infectious.

And guess what’s happened since I’ve started posting again about email marketing?

Content Army is generating pipeline!

We signed 1 new amazing SaaS client and also won back a previous client who had taken a break.

Whilst this isn’t exclusively down to my move back to MM, it’s undoubtedly helped being front-and-centre in everybody’s face again.

One prospect reached out to me last night and scheduled a call for Monday and said “I am seeing your content EVERYWHERE”.

This, combined with our thought leadership ads on LinkedIn, brings me to my next point…

It is hard to abandon content leverage

As you all know, I built a very strong audience through talking about email marketing.

Since I stopped talking about that and moved to content marketing and agency growth, my impressions are down over 60% and comments are down over 37% YoY.

It’s not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison since I’ve posted less this year, pivoted my content AND LinkedIn is harder to grow on than it was before.

But since modifying my content to post more about email and less about founder-led content, my impressions are now back towards last year’s average and even exceeding them on certain posts (this one at the time of writing is over 15k so far).

It takes balls to abandon this type of leverage and a giant leap of faith. And I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was begrudgingly doing it at times as I do enjoy posting about content marketing and agency life more.

But the proof has been in the pudding so far: I have a lot of leverage and authority on this subject, and I’m here to serve my audience. I’ll be applying the 80/20 rule for the foreseeable future until I’m in a better position to speak more about those other topics again (I’ll continue to go deep on them in YT videos & this newsletter).

Your best customers come through lurking

Speaking of content, here’s something I want you all to understand deeply: your best customers always come through lurking.

I’ve worked with 5 9-figure brands at MM, and only one of them had previously engaged with my content.

Decision makers are present on social, just sitting in the shadows so that they don’t get bombarded by service providers like us.

This coming week I scheduled 3 sales calls off the back of content this week.

Not one of them had engaged with the content but it certainly left a mark on them.

Keep the faith in the process even when it feels like nobody is listening to what you have to say.

If it’s worth reading, they are - trust me.

Your positioning is so important - constantly re-analyse it

Myself, Wiehan and Andy just finished a significant exercise in analysing our historical message-market success with MM and what made us great before.

I don’t want to reveal too much here as we’ll likely make a big song and dance on this on social in the coming days, but all I will say is…

Speak to your customers - constantly.

Ask them where they get the most value from your services and why they originally signed with you.

Avoid vague reasons such as “trust” and “communication”; look for specific problems you solve for their business and go deep on them.

That’s what will help you gain market share in 2025 and build a narrative around your business.

Speed trumps all in business

We’ve been working at such a breathtaking pace the last 2 weeks.

Amongst the BFCM rush, we’ve been planning OKRs for next year and already making serious progress across the business.

Just today, I was talking about unifying our data across sales and marketing more accurately to enable us to forecast more effectively in Slack.

Before I even had a chance to model a spreadsheet, Andy had already integrated several KPIs into our financial planning sheets for monthly tracking.

This is exactly the type of behaviour that facilitates growth in an organisation.

Less procrastination and more action.

We also had an OKR that we were “meant to” start in 2025 Q1 (website redesign).

Myself and Wiehan have practically hashed it all out between us in a day with our new positioning and have it ready for design.

I LOVE working with people who just get shit done. It’s infectious.

Your team must evolve with your business

Across the lifespan of your company, you will work with many great people.

But at times, it becomes clear that some are no longer aligned with your version or you theirs.

That’s OK to feel that way. It doesn’t make either party a bad person; it just means we’re on different paths in this universe.

But you cannot hold on to these people if they are not aligned, and equally, you cannot begrudge them success if they are not bought into your mission.

Whatever side of the fence you’re on, making a decision and not deferring this is paramount.

A future message to my son

Max, if you’re reading this in the future, I love you.

Every day I try my hardest to be the best father and role model to you.

I’m not perfect, but you are.

And if AI cyborgs have made us all obsolete by the time you’re reading this, just know that once upon a time Daddy tried to build an epic company which was the most exhilarating ride of his life until you came along.

I hope one day you get to experience the same fulfilment I have building this company.

Love,

Dad