The email that helps you start a business by keeping things simple.

This week:

Update: Welcome to my all new newsletter! After 15 weeks of writing Sunday Scoop I decided to shake things up a bit on format and name to align with the direction I’m taking my content creation. I’m always looking for ways to improve and iterate on what I’m doing so this week we have a new name, more longer-form content and I’m testing out a new email newsletter platform. As always, I’ll keep you updated on how I find things (and don’t worry, I’m still a die-hard klaviyo fan!).

As many of you know, I started creating content alongside my full time job 18 months ago. What was a “side hustle” and a bit of an experiment, is now a fully fledged business with a community of hundreds of thousands of people and my digital products consistently generating £15k+ per month in sales (WILD I know!).

I get asked a lot about my advice for starting a business, how I manage multiple companies, what I would do to make money, how you can make money online alongside a job and all of that good stuff. Over the last few weeks, as I’ve been thinking about my return to work after baby number 2, I’ve realised that there is a common thread that weaves together how I approach most things and most of the advice I give:

Keep It Simple.

The best businesses (cash generative and profitable) are simple businesses.

The best routines (easy to stick to and actually implement) are simple routines.

The best emails, social media content and messages (that have the desired impact and convert to sales) are simple.

Unfortunately, much of the online rhetoric and advice on business makes it sound far far more complicated than it actually is. And as a result, would-be business owners and entrepreneurs are paralysed by the overwhelming list of things that are apparently going to lead to their success. So overwhelmed in fact that it stops people from taking action. Sound familiar?

I’m officially unsubscribing from that algorithm and I think you should too.

Instead, let’s keep things simple.

Each week I’ll be in your inbox as usual sharing insight, news, thoughts and musings to help you start and grow your business by keeping things simple.

Think of this as the couch-to-5k of business…

Quote: “You can be the sweetest peach in the box but some people still don’t like peaches.” As a recovering people pleaser I’m constantly trying to remind myself of this!

Food for thought: Since it’s Wimbledon this week I thought I would share this gem from Roger Federer. In a recent speech, Federer shared that despite winning 80% of the matches he played in his career, he barely won half of the points. The message? Take the shot but don’t dwell on it if it doesn’t work out. It’s just one point. You fully commit when you are in the moment, but then you move on to the next one. You can watch the full speech here >

What I shared this week:

How I went from £0 - £170k+ in 16 months on YouTube

Healthy money habits for your business on Instagram

How much tax I will pay on £16.5k revenue on TikTok *this is very specific to me, there are ways to be more tax efficient with a business if I were salaried by the company but I’m not, so if I take personal cash from this company I would be charged a dividend tax on top of paying corporation tax and VAT.

The 30-30-30 Method - how to start a business alongside your full time job

As I return to work this week after 9 months of maternity leave, I thought I would share my method for setting up a business alongside a full-time job/kids/generally full life!

After a long day at work, wrangling children into bed and squeezing in some exercise, often the last thing you want to do is spend an hour and a half on building a business but I promise you that if you commit to this level of time and follow this method, your life will be very different in 18 months…

So here is how I allocate my time to building a business alongside a full-time job using the 30-30-30 method.

• Spend 30 minutes talking to your customers and understanding their problems. If you don’t have an audience yet this could be researching via reddit threads, comment sections on social media or reading the reviews of competitors. What is missing in the market and how can you add value?

• Spend 30 minutes working on how you can solve all of their problems. This might look like working on your product itself to just spending time working on the strategy.

• Spend 30 minutes working on your marketing engine. Whether it’s creating content or setting up the automations and systems to ensure you can consistently serve your audience and your customers.

What’s working

I tested a new email this week in one of the welcome sequences for one of my digital products. It’s now been 7 days since I introduced the email below as the first in the flow and it’s improved open rates by 34% and increased sales of my Business Spreadsheet Bundle by 125%. I can’t claim the credit for this one, a good friend of mine who works in email marketing & crm for one of the largest direct to consumer beauty brands in the country, put me on to it a little while ago and I’ve since added into some of my welcome sequences. But this week I made one small change and it’s made all the difference. I put this email at the front of the queue as the first one someone receives from me.

The Ask-Them email

One of the best ways to improve your email metrics is to encourage people to reply to them. This improves your domain rating in inboxes ensuring you skip the spam filter and people actually see your emails.

Here’s the email template for you to use:

Hi <first name>,

Thank you so much for downloading <insert product>. I’m hopping into your inbox for a couple of reasons:

1. To check you’ve definitely got your download. Sometimes these things go awry and I want to make sure you’ve got what you are looking for. A simple yep, got it will do.

2. If you have a bit more time, I’d love to know more about you? What are you working on at the moment?

3. I made this extra something for you. It’s a video tutorial of xyz

Hope this helps and don’t forget to reply so I know you’ve got your template!

Speak soon!

Let me know if you use this email in your email sequence and if it works for you too.

What’s Coming Up

July is shaping up to be one of the biggest, busiest, most rollercoaster-exciting months of my career so far. Here’s what is coming up:

• My shiny new website is launching soon with an update to my Ultimate Business Planner going live in the next few weeks (if you already have this don’t worry you’ll get sent the updated version!)

• I’m hosting two free mid-year review planning workshops on the 15th and 18th of July. If you’ve not sign up yet they are completely free >

• From August I’m no longer going to be offering 1:1 mentorship or Power Hour Sessions as I plan to make space for something new… there’s a few spots left before I close the doors on this so if you were considering working with me on a 1:1 basis then you can check out how I may be able to help you here >

Have a great week ahead & remember to keep it simple.

Was this email forwarded to you? You can sign up for future issues here >