Welcome back 🤝

This edition started at my desk in my office last Friday. I was on a call with a founder and I immediately jotted down 3 words in my notebook: 

Voice to market. More on that in a minute.

Btw, if you missed the last two editions, here's the catch-up:

If you didn't see them, please check your promotions or spam folder and move them to your inbox — they may have landed there…email can be wonky sometimes. 

Anyway, last Wednesday I went to another networking event in NYC right outside Grand Central. 

This one wasn't as large — probably fewer than 50 people — but it lasted 1.5 hours and the convos I had were shockingly awesome…just like how the Jets and Giants both won their season opener games, something that hasn’t happened since 2009.

Let’s jump in. 

Go Voice-to-market

So, back to those three words in the $6 notebook from Amazon. 

At this point, I've met 30+ startup founders who have given me insight into what they're building — the type of product they're bringing to market, their plan to acquire customers, how they're handling current customers, etc.

It’s been extremely fascinating to learn about tbh and it’s taught me that founders are so well positioned on what they're offering b/c they've put so much damn time, energy and effort into what they're working on.

In other words, their GTM (go-to-market) strategy is dialed in. Here's what a GTM strategy is from what Gemini gathered:

But to me, "Voice to market" is muuuuuuuch more interesting. 

VTM represents how a founder, instead of bringing their product to market, brings their…you guessed it…voice to market.

Or in other words, how they communicate their voice and brand online to attract more attention to themselves and their business. 

A founder can be so obsessed with what they're building and can easily envision the solution to a problem someone is experiencing. 

Or they envision that cool, dope website that is optimized to convert curious buyers into customers. 

But when it comes to putting their voice out there on platforms like LinkedIn or Substack? 

It’s a different story.

The most eye-opening and alarming part is that every single founder I've talked to so far — not one has their story written down somewhere, pen to paper or thumbs to keyboard, from the minute they were born until literally today.

Not one. 

And hey, I’m not saying you write an entire 499-page book about your life, but if you want to put yourself out there online, it helps to first understand where you’ve been and how you got there; in other words, truly knowing your own story. 

Writing out your story helps you get clarity and structure for yourself because writing online isn’t just about sharing the wisdom and insights you have on a particular set of topics. Like sharing a ton of value for your audience is mission-critical, but it’s not the be-all and end-all.

People who have decided to follow you want to learn more about you. They want to be able to relate to you. They want to connect with you emotionally. 

And knowing your story helps you check these boxes.

Cringing Learning Publicly

I experienced the challenge of bringing my voice to market in my corporate career. I decided I wanted to get my voice online more b/c I understood the value in building up a personal brand. We can get into this another time.

But I had the hardest time figuring out what it was that I was going to communicate to people, why, and how it could benefit them.

A lot of what I had to do was, honestly, learn by doing…publicly. 

Three years ago, when I launched this newsletter, I put my voice to market on LinkedIn.

I began to test what posts got engagement, and which ones didn’t. I tied some back to the newsletter and others I wouldn’t. I talked about one topic one day and another the next. My focus was getting as many reps in as I could.

I then started studying other creators & founders who were putting themselves out there to learn how they were creating content and what was working for them.

The long and the short: the best way to learn what works and what doesn’t is putting yourself out there publicly.

But here's the thing — if you've never publicly put yourself out there online, you don't think to first ask yourself questions about what it is that you even want to talk about in the first place. You also don't think to ask yourself how what you’re talking about ties back into your business or what you're offering.

It takes a while to figure out, but I’d make the bet you can.

Your Story = Infinite Leverage

When you have your origin stories – all the fun, wonky, and the semi-ego-boosting-pat-on-the-back stories – from middle school to high school to college to your corporate career (or whatever career you were in) to all the way to today — you begin to spot the patterns and understand why or how you got there.

That gives you this confidence to communicate about your life, your insights, your experiences, and all that.

To me, this is one of the most severely underrated things you can do.

Once you understand your story and you’ve got it out of your head, you need to define what you want to talk about online and the strategy behind it all…which is the hardest part.

But that’s where Ink Equity comes into play.

Remember: people buy into people, we don't buy into companies. If the person behind a company isn't out there speaking for themselves and their business, how are people going to buy into the company?

Going into the event last week, I knew I'd be connecting with people on LinkedIn.

I made a QR code and put it as my phone wallpaper. If someone wanted to connect on LinkedIn, they could just pull up their phone, scan my wallpaper, and it would bring them directly to my LinkedIn. 

It was a fun thing I did and actually sparked good conversation. The feedback I got was great. Consider making one if you have a networking event soon. It's something small that could help you stand out at the next one.

Btw, you can easily make this with Claude. Here’s a prompt you can save:

On your way out…I have a question:

Last week’s poll: What AI tool do you use the most??

Thanks for reading. See you next Tuesday!

PS — if you prefer the written word over making videos, and you need help getting your voice-to-market as an aspiring or current business owner, I’d love to help you out. Find time here.

To building together,

Dan

Find me on LinkedIn