I made more money and had more free time this year

It’s Wednesday, December 6th, and today we’re talking about my highest ROI learnings of the year.

First time reading? Sign up here.

Got some praise or feedback? Hit reply.

This year was packed with learning from people way smarter than I am.

Community frameworks, growth strategies, efficiency-- the list goes on.

Today I'm going to cover the most useful things I learned this year and how they've made me more money in less time (cliche sounding but quite true, this was my highest income, yet mellowest year-to-date. ).

It was hard to prune this list down to five, so you can count on them being real gems. 💎

First: Thank you to everyone who stuck it out as I told my story. When sharing something so complex and vulnerable, trusting my people to stick with me is a make or break.

As we return to business as usual, I felt this week’s newsletter needed to be three things:

• Quick

• Useful

• Light-hearted

This year had its normal share of setbacks and wins, with one notable difference: I made more money and had more free time than ever before. It was no accident. I’m a voracious learner, and more importantly, I spent a lot of time prioritizing implementation.

According to my Audible, Libby, and bookshelf, I read 52 books this year. I didn’t finish all of them (but finished most), and my Harry Potter re-read is disqualified, so we’ll call it 40 books. I listened to an alarming number of podcasts. Read even more newsletters. Took a few courses.

I’ve pruned this down to just the handful that have over-indexed for me in terms of revenue and freedom. Categories include community, marketing, writing, and creativity. I hope you find something useful.

Note: I hold no affiliation with any of these outside of being a big fan.

1. Start right before you get eaten by the bear: How to avoid backstory scope creep by Wes Kao

I first read Wes’ piece on pithiness in 2020. Since then, it’s been updated and expanded, and it has found its way into my daily existence.

I’m a fine writer, but my writing was immeasurably improved by Ethan Brooks, who gave me a lot of at-bats and generously critiqued me with words like “cliché” and “fluff”.

Wes built on that foundation during a live meeting in 2021, directly challenging my communication skills and willingness to have a spiky point of view. (I squealed out loud when she mentioned me in this interview. Wes is a huge inspiration for me)

The big idea is that we often give way too much backstory and can be far more captivating if we pick a more compelling starting point.

This has helped me get more ideas out in less time with better clarity.

It also translates into other areas of my life. I am currently wrapping up a gorgeous piece of choreography on four beautiful dancers. It hits the stage next weekend. As we’ve been creating work, I’ve found myself saying “start just before the bear” aloud on several occasions. Both to myself and my dancers. No one wants to see a 10-minute dance for a three-minute story.

PS: For my creative types, please check out…Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s TED talk on How craving attention makes you less creative.

2. How to get your first 1,000 email subscribers + Community Newsletter Playbook

How to People has been one of my best decisions. It’s done well in terms of crystallizing ideas and connecting with some wonderful people, but I almost didn’t start it. Watching the stratospheric success of newsletters like Morning Brew and Milk Road left me feeling like a Sweet Summer Child.

I don’t love ambiguity when it comes to business. Give me some clay and let me get to molding, but don’t ask me to make the clay without a recipe. These two resources were the perfect recipe for getting a newsletter off the ground quickly.

Matt McGarry’s writing on How To Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers was my blueprint for starting. I remember sitting in a small Starbucks last March on a cold day in Gloucester, MA and manically reading, taking notes, and turning it into a to-do list.

Not long after, Ethan Brooks dropped his Community Playbook Template. The combination of the two became my cornerstone. I did indeed get to 1,000 subscribers and systemized the entire approach using just these two resources.

Bonus: I think every community should have a newsletter. For each of my clients, we’ve implemented one using Ethan’s template. It’s given me a very low-lift process for building a high-engagement tool.

3. Community Case Studies through Community Inc.

Community strategy never goes stagnant. It’s almost annoying. Just when you’ve wrapped your head around one framework or best practice, someone comes along and breaks the rules.

It’s also one of my favorite things about community. The types of events, programming, collaborations, and conversations look different in every community.

For Wondry, my interest lies in the intersection of great community and great business outcomes. It can be hard to keep up, particularly because most companies aren’t telling their secrets.

Discovering Community Inc was a big win this year. Gareth Wilson does a wonderful job building deep-dive case studies on some of the highest-performing communities in the world; Canva, Sephora, RevGenius…he even has a gallery of onboarding examples.

I’m a big fan of the "Steal like an Artist" philosophy, and having a ton of tactical examples at my fingertips has been a major unlock.

4. Revealing Our Million-Dollar Marketing Strategy

Dickie Bush and Nicolas Cole have become marketing lore with the wild success of Ship30for30.

One of my biggest gripes with most “how I built this” breakdowns is that they’re not granular enough to be useful. When I saw the title of this video, I was skeptical. I watched at 1.75 speed while making tea.

Since then, I’ve watched three more times at regular speed.

Revealing Our Million-Dollar Marketing Strategy is a step-by-step breakdown of Ship30’s stupidly simple marketing funnel. Personally, it cleared a ton of fog from my brain. Having consumed so many marketing books and podcasts, the whole subject often feels complicated and tiresome. After studying their funnel, I purchased the startyourcommunity.com domain, set up a simple funnel, and moved on.

It’s still working.

5. How I Reduced Scheduled Meetings by 90%

I made four critical decisions this year:

1. I don't check personal email more than 1-2 times a week.

2. I don't schedule any meetings outside of paid client work (or meeting with a friend).

3. If someone wants to "pick my brain," I ask that they send along their top 2-3 questions in writing, and I send a written or loom response.

4. Lastly, if for some reason I need to have a sync call, it's audio only, and I walk my dog.

These four decisions have been the best I've made in years. An empty calendar is my version of wealth. Once upon a time, I'd be too scared to stick to my guns, afraid I'd be missing out on opportunities or making someone angry. But I'm 43 years old. My life is half over, and there is no greater gift I can give myself than more fresh air and freedom (plus my dog really likes it).

How I Reduced Scheduled Meetings by 90% by David Spinks was the catalyst behind these decisions. After I read it, I immediately texted and grilled him, certain there were more exceptions than he was letting on. It can't be that easy?

It is that easy, and I will never go back.

Money Well Spent

All of the above resources are free, so I thought I’d toss in my favorite learning purchases of the year:

Books

Oversubscribed: How to Get People Lined Up to Do Business with You by Daniel Priestley: Wondry has had a waiting list since we launched. I used to feel sheepish about telling prospects we couldn’t work with them. This book helped me understand why this is both good and necessary.

10x Is Easier than 2x by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan: While I find the principles in this book to be both remarkable and insightful, my advice is to skip the book, which got a little dicey, and watch the summary video instead.

Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Adam Grant: Adam Grant, in my opinion, is one of the greatest thinkers of our time. In terms of personal development, this read was pithy and thought-provoking.

Courses:

LinkedInOS and ContentOS by Justin Welsh: I purchased both of these hoping they would lift the cognitive load I felt whenever I heard the word “content” (🤮). They did. I use them both every day.

Workshopper Master: While a much higher ticket item, this course + community is insanely tactical. I have found that most of my clients get far better results when we incorporate custom workshops into our engagement. They make decisions quicker and with more clarity, and this course was instrumental in helping me create a perfectly tailored suite of offerings.

Phew! Ok, maybe this wasn’t as short as I’d hoped, but I hope it was useful.

Reply and let me know?

Onward,

April

Solve any community challenge in a week

We’ll build and facilitate a custom solution for your team 👉🏼 Schedule here

Other options:

1. Just getting started? Here’s a free 7-day email course 👉🏼 Start your community

2. Check out the CommunityOS Masterclass, a pithy, low-cost video course covering all of the basics of community strategy 👉🏼 Get it here