Always Be Building

Have you built and circulated an asset today?

I’m starting to measure a day by the number of assets I’ve built that day.

And when it gets late in the day and there’s a zero on the scoreboard, I get a little twitchy.

If you can relate to this, now you know you aren’t alone and you’re doing it right.

If you can’t relate, maybe this newsletter has found you at the perfect time—you need to get with the program!

Daily Assets

When I talk about building an asset portfolio, most of the time I’m talking about big standalone assets.

Like a newsletter, a course, an ebook, and so on.

But those big assets are often built as a composite of a bunch of smaller assets that you can build in a day or two or even a few hours.

It’s like stacking bricks—an apropos builder metaphor.

If you’ll stack assets hour by hour, day by day, month by month, you’re going to eventually have a nice piece of property.

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Building for Pleasure

I previously spoke about The Price of Netflix and in a roundabout way, I was trying to point out the opportunity cost of whiling away your time watching shows.

You might have to initially trust me on this, but you might be surprised to find that building an asset becomes more fun and entertaining than watching the latest Yellowjackets episode.

More than a few of you know what I’m talking about.

For the rest of you, give it a month and come back and tell me I was right.

Once you get the dopamine flowing, you’ll be in a virtuous circle.

Get to this point as fast as you can and it will increase the probability of your success.

Always be building.

A Day In The Life of a Builder

I feel like I need to illustrate this with a story.

A few days ago I decided to implement SparkLoop which I have access to from my ConvertKit Pro subscription; SparkLoop is a referral tool that I see successful newsletters incorporate as part of their growth strategy.

How SparkLoop Works

SparkLoop integrates with your CRM (e.g. ConvertKit) to enable your subscribers to have their own referral link.

Using their own referral link, a subscriber can refer friends and contacts to your newsletter. SparkLoop keeps a count of referrals attributable to each subscriber.

You can then set up rewards to be earned as referral counts grow.

Pretty simple, but requires a few assets.

My SparkLoop Assets

I don’t want you to be intimidated by this list, but I wanted to itemize the number of assets that I built to put SparkLoop into circulation.

Here’s the list:

• An image to represent the first referral award created with Canva
• An email sequence of a single email to notify a subscriber of their first referral
• An automation to send the first referral email sequence
• A landing page to help a subscriber claim their first referral award
• A form on that landing page to collect details required for that award
• An image to represent the fifth referral award created with Canva
• An email sequence of a single email to notify a subscriber of their fifth referral
• An automation to send the fifth referral email sequence
• A landing page to help a subscriber claim their fifth referral award
• A private Facebook Group as the fifth referral award
• An image to represent the tenth referral award created with Canva
• An email sequence of a single email to notify a subscriber of their tenth referral
• An automation to send the tenth referral email sequence
• A landing page to help a subscriber claim their tenth referral award
• A collage of the three referral award images to include in the newsletter referral widget
• The completed referral widget; later embedded in the newsletter template
• An email sequence of a single email to encourage subscribers in their 3rd week to start making referrals
• An automation to send the referral invitation email sequence.

You get the idea.

I know that looks like a lot, but a lot of those assets could be cloned and customized.

That’s actually a pattern you’ll see in your building process. It may take you some effort to create assets for the first time, but then you’ll be able to leverage your efforts by cloning them.

Circulating My SparkLoop Assets

My list of SparkLoop assets represents an automated way to encourage subscribers to make referrals.

It automates their referral counts, notifies them when they’ve earned a reward, and enables them to claim their reward.

The emails tell referring subscribers what reward is next; keeping them motivated to refer more.

Those few hours of building have led to assets that will now run 24/7 on my behalf and help grow my newsletter.

My SparkLoop assets are circulating!

Other Types of Assets

SparkLoop is a pretty unique case requiring a cohesive suite of assets, but you can work on much simpler assets one at a time.

Here are some examples:

• Write a newsletter (content asset)
• Write a review (content asset)
• Write a tweet or a tweet thread (content asset)
• Shoot a video (content asset, monetization asset)
• Record a podcast (content asset, monetization asset)
• Create an email sequence (content asset, distribution asset)
• Create a lead magnet (content asset, distribution asset)
• Register as an affiliate (monetization asset)
• Deploy an affiliate link or display (monetization asset)
• Add social media followers (distribution asset)
• Create a Notion template (system asset).

These are straight off the top of my head.

There’s just so much you can do no matter what kind of time you have available to you.

Stack bricks.

Always be building!

— Bill

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