#126 Sale-Ing Into July

Welcoming you into July with our Growth Edition, which focuses start to finish on Selling! 

And, according to plenty of newsletter content I consume - successful newsletter founders who now want to share their secrets - the only way to sell your newsletter, whether to advertisers or bigger media companies, is to make it electric.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds f%#$ing awesome to me. So that’s my goal today: an electric introduction.

Here we go:

Sales. Electricity. BOOM.

Mission accomplished.

Now, let’s put this energy to good use👇️ 

Pre-Fourth Fireworks Just For You 🎆 

• The Search Bar: Exploding Topics, Crypto, and Time Management 📈 💰️🚀
  

• Say It Better: 5 Foundational Sales Tips 📈 💰️
  

• Content for Your Commute, feat. Cialdini, BTG, and “Non-Sales Selling” 📈 💰️🚀

• OTF Trivia: On Emotional Buying 📈 💰️

• July’s 2-DO LIST: Work on Your Pitch, Work on Yourself 📈 💰️

THE SEARCH BAR 🔎

What’s Trending Heading into July 2025

• Exploding Topics (July 2025) - Can’t go wrong anywhere on this website, but for this Growth Edition, how about the growth of “vibe marketing.”

• Top Cryptos by Market Cap (as of 6/30 at 12:30pm) - The markets are holding strong, and we haven’t talked about crypto in a while, so…here’s what the biggest cryptocurrencies are up to lately.

• Top Trending TIME MANAGEMENT Apps - Sometimes the only thing keeping us from maximum productivity is time. Take that obstacle off the table with any of the top trending time management and routine apps.

SAY IT BETTER (SELLING EDITION) 💯 

_{*This section is designed to help you sharpen your communication skills to make a stronger impact in your personal or professional life.}

5 Things You Need to Know Before You Sell Anything

You don’t have to be in sales to know that selling is crucial to success. For me, whether it’s something with this newsletter, a future project, or myself while networking, I’m always selling. And through it all, I’ve learned a ton. I won’t bore you with everything, but here are 5 of the most crucial lessons I’ve learned, condensed and re-worded with the help of my favorite bot:

1. People don’t buy the product — they buy the outcome.

Sure people use a product, but what they really want is to fill a need or solve a problem.

2. Clarity beats cleverness.

It’s more important to be understood than to appear smart. Clear offers convert. Confusing ones don’t.

3. People buy on emotion, then justify with logic.

Your pitch needs to make them feel something: pain, relief, excitement, FOMO, pride — it has to hit. Then? Back it up with facts, proof, or testimonials to lock it in.

4. If you sell to everyone, you sell to no one.

Be specific about who it’s for and why it helps. People are more likely to say “that’s me” when they see themselves in your offer.

General = forgettable. Specific = magnetic.

5. Confidence is contagious.

If you sound unsure, they’ll feel unsure. Before you sell anything, sell yourself on it first.
People trust the person who believes in their own product.

**

Now let’s pass this over to the Professor. What say you, Prof Mike?

Well, the first thing I’ll say is I’m souring a bit on ChatGPT.

After seeing how bad it is at helping my students cheat (it just makes things up, including quoted and cited evidence) or giving my wife accurate information about shampoo, I spoke to a colleague who works in computer science, and they compared ChatGPT’s competence to that of an entry-level employee. That’s not a criticism of entry-level employees, other than to say that they’re not quite experts yet. Same for ChatGPT. Its expertise is far more fiction than fact right now, so be careful taking its word as gospel.

But its selling tips, for the most part, are solid. Let’s go through them:

1. This, to me, is just a fancy way of making the same point made in #3. Consumers desire a product for a reason, so you have to play up the root of that desire.
   

2. Couldn’t agree more. I tell students all the time: I’d rather you write like I’m 5 than try to “sound smart” and confuse us both. You don’t get bonus points for big words or unnecessarily flowery language.
   

3. “Your pitch needs to make them feel something” - Yes, this is Persuasion 101. It’s been so for thousands of years, sinc e Aristotle.
   

4. Another core tenet of language use - specific is better than general. That said, I do want to push back on one thing:
   
   Be specific in your mind about who it’s for. That’s helpful to any business with regards to target demographics and the actual development of a marketing plan. But don’t do anything that might prevent someone else - maybe someone on the fringe or just outside your intended audience - from walking away.
   
   There’s a fine line here: targeting a specific audience while being open to a general one. If you’re able to toe that line, that’s how you blow up.
   

5. Duh. You need to be confident. No uhhs, maybes, or probablies; no giving serious consideration to counterarguments or competitors unless you’re refuting them; no evidence of ill-preparedness or uncertainty.

CONTENT FOR YOUR COMMUTE 🚶🚆 ✈️ 

• ON FOOT: Elevate your brand with our Behind the Grind Interview from last week, featuring a 32-year-old restaurateur who shares his secret weapon for networking, a communication skill that changed the game, and more.

• TRAIN TIME: Read the summary of one of OTF’s favorites, Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. I’ve talked about this one so much, you probably think it’s the only book I’ve ever read. I swear I’ve read more, but none have been as impactful.

• FIRST CLASS: For your next flight, however, I do like this one: To Sell is Human by Daniel Pink. It does a great job of talking about “non-sales selling,” so the lessons are applicable to everyone.

OTF-TRIVIA 🔥 

Speaking of selling…

Click your choice, and it will show the correct answer in a new tab!

2-DO LIST💡 

July 2025

1. Revise Your Pitch - Consider a different approach when selling yourself at your next networking event. Update your LinkedIn profile and other socials to make them more appealing. Or, if you’re literally in sales, analyze your last failed lead and adjust accordingly.
   
   One thing I’ve learned from Prof Mike over the years: language is all about revisiting and revising; that’s how you become a better communicator.
   

2. Work On Your Confidence - Confront whatever’s holding you back, and then do something about it. If it’s physical, commit to exercise and nutrition; if it’s mental, find quiet time to work through it and unburden yourself; if it’s work-related, go the extra mile to learn more or be better prepared. Whatever it takes, it’s worth it, because confidence is a multiplier that can take your life to a new level.

Before You Go!

Thanks again for joining us! Next week, we’ll be back with July’s Productivity Issue, featuring Working With AI, Expert Advice, and much more!

If you happened to miss last week’s edition and want to check out our 2nd-ever Behind the Grind Interview, check it out here. In the meantime, drop us a line in the poll on your way out.

Community Poll 📊 

As always, see you next Tuesday 🤝 

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