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Kickoff Sessions
Weekly podcast episodes with the sharpest minds in the world to help you live a richer & more fulfilling life.
Previous guests include Luke Belmar, Justin Waller, Sahil Bloom, Gad Saad, Peter Schiff, Stirling Cooper, Jack Hopkins, Sadia Khan, Matt Gray, Daniel Priestley, Richard Cooper, Justin Welsh, Arlin Moore and more.
Kickoff Sessions
#301 Kieran Drew - Why Writing is the Most Valuable Skill for Entrepreneurs in 2025
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(00:00) Using Writing to Build a Business in 2025
(02:58) Why Action Beats Waiting for Clarity
(04:04) From Dentistry to Discovering a Love for Writing
(06:02) Following What You Enjoy
(08:18) Turning Writing Into a High-Value Business Skill
(12:38) The Power of Storytelling
(16:43) Mindset Shifts: Playing the Long Game
(18:24) Life Lessons From a Near-Death Experience
(24:26) How the “Neck Story” Went Viral and Changed His Career
(32:24) Building a Sustainable Business Ecosystem
(35:16) Email vs Social Media for Growth
(38:59) Building Deep Trust with Your Audience
(44:34) Scaling From $5K to Six-Figure Launches
(46:05) The Tension-Building Formula for Product Launches
(52:56) Balancing Launches With Evergreen Offers
(53:50) Creative Campaigns That Drive Sales
(55:47) Spotting & Serving High-Value Clients
(58:32) Designing an Offer Ecosystem for Long-Term Growth
(1:02:15) Why Client Work Improves Content Quality
(1:08:20) Evolving Offers as Your Audience Changes
(1:14:18) Turning New Customers Into Long-Term Clients
(1:17:24) Share Your Best Ideas – Even If They Sell
How can anyone use writing to grow their business in 2025?
Darren Lee:I think a lot of people don't appreciate when we're writing. We've got reach, relationships and revenue, and so I think people, I've come to realize recently that freedom is not like a lack of commitments, it's being able to commit to the thing you love.
Kiernan Drew:If you're in that bracket and you don't know what you're going to do, you have to just do something.
Darren Lee:Someone would say you know the audience. First approach is stupid because you haven't got anything to sell. But most people that I've spoke to don't know what they want to do. Why do you think people quit?
Kiernan Drew:on those things. All right, man, let's kick off. So how can anyone use writing to grow their business in 2025?
Darren Lee:Sure, well, we're writing and we're creating content right, and so I think a lot of people don't appreciate when we're writing. We've got reach, relationships and revenue, and so I think people you want to just start writing on social media to start, ie, attracting an audience. Then we get people onto an email list where it's kind of story-driven writing and on the back of that you know like you're talking about the thing that you're good at, talking about your challenges, whatever you're building, and you're attracting attention for your business from there. So if it's done for you or done with you or do it yourself, um, it all kind of just based on you know, sharing your ideas online, attracting people who feel the same and then solving their shared problems what do you think about building an audience first, before you build an offer?
Darren Lee:I'm a big fan of the audience first approach. Yeah, I mean, I think you can kind of skin a cat both ways, right For sure. And someone will say the audience first approach is stupid because you haven't got anything to sell. But most people that I've spoke to don't know what they want to do, right, like they've fallen into a career that they want to build around. And so I always say if you're not sure what offer you want, start by building your brand. Yeah, because that would teach you marketing, that would teach you copywriting, teach you a lot about bloody persistence as well, and then from there people will tell you their problems. So you know, you don't have to kind of sit there worrying about what am I going to build? Like, if you can attract a good relationship with a few people, uh, you can just start asking, you know, and then start from that dude.
Kiernan Drew:Uh, even in my instance, right. So I, if you, if you do know what you want to build, obviously you have that idea first and you write it. But taking my example, I started in 2020. I was working in finance. I hated my fucking life. I needed a way out. I'd built a bunch of businesses. They all went to zero. It was time to slow down, listen and learn. Yeah, so I was just putting a podcast man. Yeah, they weren't generating revenue, but I was just getting better at not being a potato talking on internet, yeah you know and it's.
Kiernan Drew:It took me like two years to figure out how to actually record still not make money. But I mean, what's the alternative? The alternative is to do nothing. So it's kind of like doing something. Like, of course, if you know your offer is and you and you've been, uh, in a industry for so many years and you're ready to sell something for that, yeah, fair enough, you might have to offer first, but I feel like if you're in that bracket and you don't know what you're going to do, you have to just do something yeah, to get moving.
Darren Lee:There's a good um expression nothing comes from nothing and just a reminder that like I mean my mistake when I was a dentist man, like I was doing everything except the work. So you know, you're listening to all these podcasts, you're reading all these books for like two, three years and like just dreaming about doing something, and then you just don't know what to do. So you don't do anything at all and it's actually just taking that first step right, like I've. My journey has been so like I was going down a completely different way to where we are now, but the path reveals itself the more you walk, and so I always remember. Remember like nothing comes from nothing, like just get going and like you'll figure it out as you're moving.
Kiernan Drew:Double down on that if you don't mind. So how did you? How did you know that you're on the right path?
Darren Lee:Sure, I'll tell you what I did. So the first thing I was like a dentist, and with dentistry it's a very mechanical job and so you're just drilling and filling, right. And there was no creativity and I was like I really I feel like I'm missing something here, because the more money I was making, the more unhappy I was becoming. And so I was like, well, let's kind of just start exploring your curiosity. And the first thing I did was teach myself how to produce techno music.
Darren Lee:No way I was like that sounds fun, right, and like I would go in the weekend. I would go like just learning how to produce, and I was like the whole time would disappear, which is the first taste of flow, the only thing with techno music like I sucked right, I'm not good at music, uh, didn't have like the ear for it, uh. But I then got the creative bug. I was like, oh, this creating thing is really fun. And so when COVID hit, I was like what would be the coolest job in the world if money wasn't real. Because it was money. It's like the fear around that, like, oh, it's not going to work. And I landed on stand-up comedy. It turns out I'm not very funny. The only people that heard my jokes were my girlfriend and my hairbrush. And as COVID started ending, I was going back to treat my patients. I was like hell man, I don't want to be a stand-up comic, even though, where we are right now, I don't want to go to clubs every night. I like a better nine.
Darren Lee:I'm an introverted writer Well, not a writer at the time but when I started to think I was like, well, why is this so fun? It was the writing and the four hours every stories. I was like, oh shit, like that is amazing. And so then you just started to follow the energy right, and I've been doing that ever since. So I like to work in 90 day sprints and always just asking it what went well, what went to hell, what could we do better next time? And it's kind of like a snake shedding its skin, you know, and it gets closer and closer to the thing that you want, just by following the joy we move any further.
Kiernan Drew:I have one short question to ask you have you been enjoying these episodes so far? Because, if you have, I would truly appreciate it if you subscribe to the channel to help more business owners grow their online business. Today, I feel like a lot of people don't do the refinement. You know they're moving forward or they could be making progress, but they're not actually slowing down to refine. When you mentioned about kind of flow and just actually moving, like doing something that you forget. You forget time, right, it's interesting because even we're in london, right, I feel like a lot of people have that, but they don't pursue it because they fear that it's like unknown and what they're known is kind of like discomfort.
Kiernan Drew:Okay, let me give an example. Let's say you're a fucking Kelly and she works in finance and she's in accounting. She knows what it feels like to get up and go work for KPMG every day. She knows like the feeling of like just average lifestyle and she doesn't enjoy it. But then when she does something else, like painting, it lights her up, but it's unknown to her and then therefore, instead of following that, she slows down on that, and I think that that was actually the essence of when I was younger too, or even when I started getting into my podcast, I kind of felt, okay, it's actually interesting. I always was following down my path when I started my podcast, but in previous businesses that's something that held me back. Why do you think people quit on those things?
Darren Lee:why they quit or why they don't follow why did?
Kiernan Drew:why did? Why did they quit on it? Because they obviously enjoy it, right? This is the whole thing. Like you enjoy it yeah why not pursue it?
Darren Lee:I think it's because we're it's where you're getting validation from. I think you know, like when you're, let's say, you're doing art and it lights you up, but then when you start thinking about, oh, maybe, maybe I should do that more, it's like how am I going to get paid for this? You know, I'm not very good at it, so people are going to judge me for doing it. And then you've always got two paths right. You've got the path like it's fear-based, where it's like it's the scary thing or what you said, and it's so easy to keep doubling down on what you know because it's comfortable. And then you just get busy, you get distracted, you go deeper and deeper.
Darren Lee:I can say, like when I was a dentist, I knew I hated my job. Within like the first year I was like, man, this is not cool and yeah, I was doing it. I was like, oh, what do I do? It's like let's go do a diploma in it and you just go further and further. And then, like let's go do a diploma in it and you just go further and further. And then, like I don't know, you just start, you begin to persuade yourself. It's a bit of a silly pipe dream to do something that you love, and then you. It depends if, like you're exposed to the right kind of information. But in hindsight, I just didn't know about the internet.
Kiernan Drew:Yeah, because, because yes 20 years ago, it was a silly pipe dream to do what you want, especially to be a writer. Right for sure, the concept of being a writer was known to not make money, right you're either a best-selling author or living in your mum's basement and even if you're a best-selling author, like, how much money are you actually making?
Kiernan Drew:right, because at the end of the day, even what you've done is usually the back end of writing. It's the same with podcasting. So, for context, I always say that I'm not a creator. I know that you say the same as well. You're not a content creator, but I'm a business owner who uses content and I think that the traditional way of writing doesn't make money of just writing words, same with the traditional way of podcasting Just recording doesn't make money. Right, we're not in a fricking AdSense game, but there's a backend opportunity that is only exploding.
Kiernan Drew:But if you think about writers like James Clear and so on, I know he's made money from the book itself, but in theory, you know he speaks at Google. It's like a hundred K, you know, for like a half a day, right. So I think those things did exist, but now it's like been amplified. Yeah, for sure, but it goes back to getting the message correct and having that message correct. So how does someone have that right? So you have experience or you may not have experience. How do you articulate your message online and how do you position yourself online, because the reps that you've put in has been hundreds of thousands?
Darren Lee:Yeah, well, I think that's the the answer yeah it's reps um at least when I'm chatting to newer writers.
Darren Lee:I mean, you, even now, you're kind of focused on the end result, like being perfect, and you don't appreciate that, like, everything about writing or everything about business is it's not a, um, sort of one-time decision, it's an evolution, right. So you need to be out there putting your ideas out into the world and paying attention to feedback, and so that's why I think writing is the best skill in the world for an entrepreneur, because it's not, it's not just words on the page, it's not just creating content, you're thinking. And that's why it's so hard, because when you start, your message is scrambled. I don't know what you're saying, I don't know who you're talking to, you don't know how to communicate, how to basically persuade people. The more you write, the clearer you think, and the clearer you think, the clearer you write.
Darren Lee:And the cool bit with writing I mean, like you said, um, the idea of like a well-paid writer is quite a new thing, but the idea of a writer is one of the oldest professions in the world, right, like it's always been the best signal of authority, and so it's a really cool combination that's going on now because, uh, even whilst we're doing video and stuff, and the internet is built on words, and so if you get good at writing by putting in the wraps, you know, and just by thinking on paper and just seeing what's coming out and refining your ideas over and over, it's kind of like a cheat code to getting to your top of your niche, right? Uh, because there's a lot of video creators, there's not that many writers, and but I don't know if I find anyone that can write, regardless of niche. I'm always reading because it's a lot of video creators, there's not that many writers, but I don't know if I find anyone that can write, regardless of niche. I'm always reading because it's like you know what you're talking about.
Kiernan Drew:Interesting. And also there's a you said about the refinement and how it should be sloppy. Yesterday I put out a post, my podcast with Roy Sutherland, and in the second line I forgot a word and I posted it. And I looked at the post as I posted it and I said, well, it doesn't make sense. The second line you clearly know there's a word missing, but at least you know it's not AI. Yeah, sure.
Kiernan Drew:And I was like it's probably better off and I just fucking left it and it still got like 5,000 impressions, got like 120 likes, and I was like like you know what? Fuck it like it's a, it looks more well. It obviously looks more real because there's a word missing and I missed the word wit. I left the word wit out and I said, okay, fuck it, it's more real. Someone looks at it like, oh well, it wasn't written with AI and I think that's a very important point, because my speech has come from my writing, and what I didn't tell you earlier was the reason why I started a podcast was because I'm dyslexic. Okay, I was afraid to write online even though I wanted to, because I was afraid of what people would say and through my podcast, I had to write anyway and to become a better speaker. Writing enabled that. Yeah, and I think that's a beautiful part, which is, if it is scrappy and messy, at least it's giving you a positive feedback loop yeah, definitely it's crazy man and I'm all for the typo stuff.
Darren Lee:Like my mom still texts me, she reads all my emails and she's always like, hey, you've missed a word here or you spelled that wrong. And I'm like, look, I'm putting out so much work here, there's gonna be mistakes, but, um, people are attracted to the rough edges. You know, like it's kind of nice to see when people are screwing up and like if you can at least be humble enough to like put your hands up and be like, yeah, it was an error not deleting it and all that stuff.
Kiernan Drew:So what do you think you've grown so much on Twitter?
Darren Lee:I mean there's an element of luck. I mean I always try to like point that out to people. You know I started writing in COVID and so there was that trajectory. But I think the other side at least for my brand we've been very I've been very um open and honest about the journey. Uh, like, I have told a lot of stories. Um, I have basically built my whole brand by screwing up in public and sharing how it goes, and I think people have been really drawn to that.
Darren Lee:Um, I just always find it fascinating how writing is you're kind of putting relationships at scale and if you're really writing to one person and like genuinely trying to give as much as you can, uh, in both value but also like entertainment, um, it pays off.
Darren Lee:So I mean, at the start I think I gave away 12 free video courses. Obviously, we were writing every day loads of emails just giving, giving, giving, giving. And then it just started taking off when I started taking risks, you know, because I think it's a brutal truth, but, like most writers, fail because they're not interesting enough. No one's interested in a disgruntled dentist. It doesn't like his job, but when you quit and go, all in, people start to pay attention and I've been doing that with my business, trying to build the way I want to build it, and I've been explaining, like the fears around that you know where, like oh, I'm not. You know you've got quite a big audience, you should be making millions. And here you are like last month I made like 3k and I'm like, oh, my god, you're such a failure.
Kiernan Drew:But you've got a plan right like you're building the way you want to build, and I think people enjoy that, enjoy to watch it let's double down on that, because what you kind of highlighted there with risk is kind of what, uh, matthew dicks talks about in story worthy, which is called stakes. So how does that add gravity to the situation and how it pulls people into your audience?
Darren Lee:Yeah, sure, I mean, if we do an example, if I was to tell you let me give you 10 writing tips, you might not care, you might maybe kind of interesting.
Darren Lee:But if I was to say something like in the past three years I've managed to go from making $1 in 18 months to making $1.1 million and I went from dentist to entrepreneur there's such an interesting story there that like the framing is completely different on the advice that you give. So I think people kind of respect risk. You know, everyone kind of wants to be courageous and like, don't get me wrong, I shit myself all the time, constantly shitting myself, but it's kind of action in spite of fear. Uh, it's nice to read because people like to be inspired and I found that's a really fun feedback loop as well, because I'm always asking myself like, uh, if you were to live your life like it was a headline, uh, like what would the decision be there instead? And uh, it's always kind of pushing me to like keep, like get out of the lane, like see where the discomfort is and follow it.
Kiernan Drew:So it's basically getting out of your own way, but this is an interesting kind of dichotomy, because it's getting out of your own way but then also building the business that you want to build. How do you balance?
Darren Lee:that I don't know. Man, like I think sometimes you I'm actually just trying to. We said this earlier. I'm trying not to think so much about it. Yeah, yeah, like at least I'm someone that likes to be in control. I mean, we're entrepreneurs, that's why we're here, right, like you don't want to be answering to someone else and I realized I was spending so much mental energy trying to control the direction. Like, oh, I want to be doing this in five years. I want to set rules for everything you know. And I actually thought, actually, I mean, that's a sign that you don't have confidence in how you're acting at the moment. And so 90-day sprints and I'm always just thinking what did I enjoy most? And if that means making changes, cool. But yeah, I just like following. Like follow your curiosity and just see where it goes and bring your audience along for the ride um, that's super interesting.
Kiernan Drew:How do you, how do you analyze what's working in there or what do you enjoy? Because I guess, like you, could do something new that's going to be great, that's that's going to be beneficial for you, but it could be difficult. So therefore, you don't like it, but it will become enjoyable when you get good at it I used to hate sucking at things.
Darren Lee:Yeah, yeah, like, yeah, like I was never good at sport, I was never good at anything really and I think it was just because I hated looking like a loser. I think, if you actually just reframe that bit where difficult doesn't mean bad, now, like everything I start, I'm like this is so good, how bad it is, and just like enjoying it from there, because I think it's just doing new things I find really fun, and so, because you're keeping your mind fresh, right, you're like agile and stuff, so I'm not really judging it by difficulty. Uh, I think some things are meant to be hard, right, like, um, everything worth doing is hard work, but really trying to pay attention to like how is this making me feel internally, not chasing an outcome is the mistake. So, like I saw a question from Sal Bloom yesterday which was do you want what winning looks like? And I was like that's a very interesting question because you might end up building dentistry, for example.
Darren Lee:Like I was going down this path and I was like I don't know what winning looks like, like I've seen what my boss is doing at 50. It looks like hell and I think it's. Do you know? What are you like? Do you want what winning looks like, or are you chasing how winning makes you feel? And that's where the error goes wrong, like where you're chasing money and status and fame and you keep going and going down that path without actually thinking internally like am I having fun?
Kiernan Drew:double down on that if you don't mind. How do you so? Why do you think so deeply about this? Like what was the driver for you to be really like conscientious of, like the inner work, of how you're building something, because sometimes people do a lot of inner work but they're still separated from their business, but it's really integrated. I'd love to just kind of it's quite unique though your perspective on this.
Darren Lee:Man, we're going to die someday. Yeah, yeah, you're going to die someday. And like you've really got to enjoy what you're up to. I think, if you look at it from a purely incentive point of view, I know that in a long timeframe I'm going to build my best business by really enjoying it. So I'm more than happy to like have faith, even if it takes 10 times longer to get there, like if you're building something that you're having fun the whole way. Like no one can tell you that's like the wrong path. But um, yeah, I mentioned it to you before. But like I had like quite a close brush with death and I think that's set a bit of a tangent where I'm like shit, man, like you've got to enjoy yourself now, because everyone, even myself, I forgot about this but like my plan as a dentist was to work as hard as I could for 20 years, even though I hated my job, so that I could retire at like 45 and I was like wow, like that was almost one of the most stupid things you've ever done.
Darren Lee:Your life is like gone gone gone and like there's that expression where, like, if you can do this well in a career you hate, imagine if you're doing something you love and um, so now, yeah, like I, I just think it's, it's very important, like I say this to my friends with the time, like you've got to enjoy yourself, man, because this is all we've got so let's, let's go deeper again, because I think this is so much layers to this.
Kiernan Drew:So, as you're optimizing for things that you enjoy, or building a business more more so like freedom, right, because you're not going to enjoy everything, it's not like you're going to enjoy like fucking building out some stuff, right, it's going to be everything part of it. Yeah, um, how much do you think about that in relation to the vehicle that you're picking and how you do it? Because that's obviously going to this is going to dictate, like, the type of offers you can build and what you can do and maybe potentially, the money you can make. I don't know, have you, have you thought about this much more in detail?
Darren Lee:I have a few simple constraints for me. For me, writing is the best thing in the world. It brings me so much joy to wake up every morning and write. It's what I think about. It's all the reading, the writing, the walking, the meditating, it's all kind of all playing into one thing, and so one of my main constraints is that nothing gets in the way of that.
Darren Lee:I follow a few online writers, writers, and I heard them all express the same regret, where they're like I started off writing a lot and now I don't get to write much because I'm busy with my business, and I've always said, cool, well, I'm always going to write for like six to eight hours a day and the rest happens like on the side. So that's my main rule from there. Man, is that if I find I mean there's some periods where you have to dial it back a little bit, right, but, like you said, like business is intense, like you need to sprint at certain points, but if I notice like if it's been like three, four weeks and I'm not doing anything that I want or it's really squeezed, then like you're kind of going a bit wrong, like you're chasing a different outcome than what you said is important like an internal game instead are you familiar with tom nos Nosky?
Kiernan Drew:Yes, I had a podcast with Tom recently and we had this debate going back and forth a lot.
Kiernan Drew:Sorry, it was a debate. What he had with himself, which was he goes through periods whereby he really wants to optimize for freedom, but then the business phase that he's in at that time forces him basically to have more time in the business, but then he's balancing between the two because he has high opportunity, um, but then at the cost of or maybe there is a cost or there isn't a cost. There's always this basically like debate going on his head and I think the way that we kind of discussed it was like it still has to be enjoyable and then understanding that are you getting the things that you really wanted to do anyway done right, which is like cycling for him, running for him, spending time with, like his, his missus or whatever. So it's almost like separating out these two different things and then having the constraints in your business is going to be the best way to get there yeah, and also when I was a dentist, I used to dream of freedom.
Darren Lee:Right, I heard that word and I'm like, wow, I would love to be free right now. Like I want to be in south america on a beach somewhere writing, and, um, I've come to realize recently that freedom is not like a lack of commitments, it's being able to commit to the thing you love, and so I can tell that with tom. Like, I read his emails all the time and I'm like this guy loves what he's building, and so you know, the freedom doesn't mean a no work. It just means that you're building something that genuinely means something to you as you go. So, um, there has to be periods where you're putting in the graft, but to me, like I said, like the freedom element is like this craft is building the thing that I really enjoy and again, as you said with tom, when you recognize in tom's emails, you can feel it.
Kiernan Drew:Yeah, you know we're writing. You can feel if someone's going to love it or not man how you feel seeps into the page.
Darren Lee:Yeah, like I've learned that so much, like I've built products where, gosh, I've got to sell this now, like a swipe file, for example. And like I'm reading the emails, I'm like this is missing something and it's harder to write. It's hard, it's longer, I'm editing it more, but then if I write about writing, or if I write, I mean for me, man, if I write about deep life stuff, it just pours out my fingers and every time people like that was the bomb, and so that's another reason why I'm such fun of the energy man like that. That's where it leads. So, yeah, I mean it's hard to make money doing something you don't enjoy, and I mean that's same with sales, like same with writing.
Kiernan Drew:It's all the same thing well, I guess it just shows up right, seeps out, as you said. It just appears in different aspects of your life. I'm curious to know, like, what other like deep areas do you like explore, because you've obviously talked about this very, very deeply and how it comes into your life. Like, what other things have kind of popped up for you like realizations, even since you've left industry and you've built a business and stuff? What are realizations have you had about how you want to frame your life as well? Are you an agency owner, coach or consultant looking to scale your online business at folks? We help business owners scale their online business with content. We help them specifically build a high ticket offer, create content that turns into clients and also help them with the sales process to make sure every single call that's booked in your calendar turns into a client. If you want to see more about exactly how we do this, hit the first link down below and watch a full free training on how smart entrepreneurs are building a business in 2025.
Darren Lee:Yeah, it's interesting with writing. Like most people, I got into it just to get paid online and have a skill, but the more I started writing, it was like peeling away layers of your thoughts that you hadn't even considered and um you know, for example, the the first time I went viral was a story about my neck, which which I'll tell you.
Darren Lee:But, um, I we'll go through that first and I'll kind of explain from there. But um, when I was 16 I had scoliosis bending spine and they took you in for a scan. You know, on the NHS, you go for a scan, you hear back four months later, right. And they called us a week later and they were like, would you come back in? We just need to double check something. And I went in and the good bit was I was writing about this at the time and I'd never even considered this story before. I was always like just breezing past it. But anyway, we went back in and, um, they're like we just need to take a scan a little bit higher up. And so did my mom cool, no worries went for the scan and called us back in, laid the x-rays out in front of us and he was like it's gonna be a little bit scary what we tell you, but you have a brain tumor and you've got a broken neck and at the time I I was getting these migraines right and I was like migraines in my arm. I started to feel a bit funny. I was like, oh, I don't know what that is, it's just treatment growing and degrading my nerves. And I just remember him saying where it's like, look, screwed up, but if we didn't find this thing, you'd be permanently disabled by 30.
Darren Lee:And at the time, very socially anxious kid, very overweight, all this stuff, and like I had a pretty tough couple of years going back to school from there, I didn't want to do the operation too scared, and so this is where my relationship with fear came in and this is what I've been writing so much about. But I didn't know it at the time, because if you don't write, you're not really like building any awareness. And anyway, I had the operation when I was 18 uh, 16 hours, 14, 16 hours, uh. And I remember waking up and, uh, sun shining, nurses are all smiling and stuff, and I'm like this is amazing. You know, if you have 16 hours of anesthetic, you are fucked for like three, three days right flying. And I remember waking up again uh, busy nhs ward, uh, beeping, like just everyone was busy. And it felt like what they'd done, which is they cut away your skull, they'd hammered your neck together and it took out a tumour. And since then.
Darren Lee:Anytime I get stressed, I always think back to that night and I'm like things can be worse, right, like it's all good, like it's all about perspective, and I mean that that's really, really helped with the writing side the business, because we're always trying to reframe things for people you know like, always trying to turn an obstacle into an opportunity, and it just carried on. Like I was in hospital for about three weeks, couldn't even take a shit by yourself, like it's very humbling to go right back from the bottom. And this is where I found about the love of learning, where, like, I got home and I thought life would be normal, uh, it wasn't. You know, like you're completely screwed. And I found out about, you know, getting a little bit better every day and how, like, if you were so focused on a distant outcome, like I had to get into uni within six months, so I was like, lose my spot. Um, I was like, okay, well, if you just start, let's get out of bed by yourself, let's walk down the stairs by yourself. You're doing that every day and like I still remember the first time I done a pull-up and you know again, I was like 25 kg overweight and it was a nice sort of trajectory, about a bit of a change in terms of you learn that you can we were speaking about this earlier like you can pretty much do what you want. Like you can learn anything, you can get good at anything if you're willing to put in the reps. And so I discovered that.
Darren Lee:Then got to uni, uh, and I went brilliant first year in newcastle. So a lot of drinking and um, but the only downside was my back is still bending and it got to 56 degrees. So we're past the right angle now and they're like well, you need to get this sorted, um, and it's about eight hours, which is light work compared to the first one. And the good bit is, you know, like I, I went in five foot six, I came out five foot nine. No, which is cool, man, because you know five six. You got a bit of a graft like uh, with smaller dudes.
Darren Lee:But like five, nine, you can be funny, like you can get away with it. And um, yeah, so anyway, like dentistry was cool, um, you had a good time. And uh, when I graduated I was like you've been given this gift of life, let's make the most of it. Let's work really hard. But the thing is, my making the most of it was money. I come from a poor family. We were always like I just always believed that money was the coolest thing in the world. And so that's where you start going down these scripts. I remember telling the school I want to be a dentist immediately and was like great, go do that. Like that, that's, that's a great thing in society. And like I'm working away and my, my paycheck's getting bigger, I'm getting more miserable. Too busy to notice. So what we were talking about earlier, just too damn busy, yeah.
Darren Lee:And one day this patient comes in and he's screwed right like um, walking in, like like this, he's about 35, sits down, the whole side of his mouth is rotting, and I was like you know, taking his medical history, and I was like, oh, what's happened? And he was like, oh, I had this super rare neurological disorder. And I was like, oh, my man, me too, me too. And then he told me the name and it was the exact same diagnosis. And they never found it. And so I was looking in the mirror at what could have been. And he said to me like the seven words stick with me all the time. He's like you don't know how lucky you have it. Like my life is over, constant pain, can't move, my arm completely screwed. And that was when he left. I was like I think he's right, like I don't know how lucky you've got it, like you've got to quit your job. And that was kind of what set me down that trajectory of like I didn't know what I wanted to do, but let's do something.
Darren Lee:And then when you found the writing, the really cool bit is like when I started writing, it sucked right, like it just no one was reading. And like I was taking inspiration from James Clear. He was like two, three years, it'd be cool. Man, just keep writing, keep writing, not realizing that online a lot of the advice is outdated. I'm building a blog when you should have been on social media, all this sort of stuff. 13 months in, no one is reading. My mom bless her, she's still going In my drafts.
Darren Lee:I had the story about my neck and I'd actually cried when I'd written it. Um, I've never thought about it before. I was always. You asked me 10 years ago I'd be like I had a neck thing. It's cool, don't worry about it. Um, which shows the stoic man right. And anyway, um, brent saw it.
Darren Lee:You have to post this, and so when I did that was the first time I went viral and I quit my job two weeks later, and so actually, the next thing has been the best thing that's ever happened to me because, like it set me on this trajectory, like I get to spend all day writing and get to travel the world and I think, as a result, a lot of the stuff I write about ends up being about life because, um, I don't know, I just think it's super important that people realize that, like you are going to die at one point and it could happen a lot sooner than you think, and it's kind of a heavy thing and like people get scared to hear that. But like definitely anything that's certain right, and like if you, if you're not thinking about it, you're always going to be scared, and if you're always scared, you're not going to do what you want well, if you think about it right, most people don't have that wake-up call until they're like mid-30s or 40s, because probably their parents have died.
Kiernan Drew:Does that make sense? And then that's like the realization that, oh fuck, things may not go the way that I want it to go, but again it's a blessing, in disguise, what you went through, right, that experience, and that's that's the reason, that's why I want to go deeper on it, because that's the reason why you prioritize freedom yeah right, and it's the way you put constraints on the business, because you've seen what it's like to be one inch away from it for sure, and even the fact that they spotted on a second time over.
Kiernan Drew:They may have missed it, and this happens a lot, right, all the time all the time.
Darren Lee:All the time, dude, I was a dentist. The amount of stuff you'd miss because you're too busy, like, thank god someone was looking like a little bit higher up because I wouldn't be sitting here yeah, 100.
Kiernan Drew:So knowing that, like knowing where, where that is, how have you, how do you build your business? So, because, like you're famous for your launches, you're famous for your products, how do you build that? How have you built that ecosystem? On the back end of your writing, because there's constraints everywhere. Yeah right, but you've had amazing results and you've had your six-figure launches and you've got up to like your 750k, 800k or even closer to like a million a year. Now, um, how, how have you built that ecosystem effectively?
Darren Lee:I've tried to optimize for a few things. One is long-term reputation over short-term revenue. Always tried to have that in the back of my mind. I think a lot of people get stuck in the money now trap, so you're selling so much of your time that you're not actually building long-term leverage, and so I try to at least spend the first four to six hours of my day building stuff for the long-term your products, your courses, your books, stuff that your audience, for example, because that way you're always kind of pushing for the exponential result, not the linear. So that's been great, optimizing on the product side, trying to serve at scale, and then the other side is ironically so. You're so obsessed with leverage are you doing the biggest thing? But the other side of it is doing the things that don't scale.
Darren Lee:So, for example, one thing because I was optimising for product, I was like you don't have that much contact with your customers and that's you know it's hard to build a relationship, and so what I ended up doing was, uh, sending thank you videos to every single customer. I think I filmed like 2 500. Yeah, saying the same thing every time, but the name is different. Okay, yeah, but like little things like this, you know, like, um, I really wanted to build a connection with my audience, and so, um and I think that's even more important now, by the way, people are starting to realize that but these little touches like still replying to every email now, still replying to every DM, and then so you have this kind of barbell thing where it's like you're very, very personal with people in your content and if people want to talk to you, cool, but the products that you're building are accessible to everyone, or to the widest range of people, and I think that combo, uh, has just worked out really well.
Kiernan Drew:Yeah for sure, and I think the big difference there is, uh, is you were doing personalization before. That was the edge, right, and a lot of companies now will need to over index on that. Yeah, because you're not just able to kind of sell from like a distance. So what, what is it? You're bringing them true, right, because if you're 2500 people coming through your program and they're all getting thank, thank you videos from you, they're in a pretty good position, right?
Darren Lee:yeah, yeah, what do you mean?
Kiernan Drew:so, in terms of like, uh, what was the program you're bringing them true like, how do you, how did you pull them from like your actual program from twitter into your programs so that you can give them personalized messages for everything?
Darren Lee:yeah, uh, so I am. All my business is run through email. I mean, that's the bit that a lot of people screw up. Um, thank god that I made that bet early. Uh, so many creators think social media is the point right, but it's the start, it's not the end goal, it's the oh, it's the rented traffic, rented traffic man, yeah, yeah, I mean like.
Darren Lee:So, for example, I ended up, uh, getting to almost a quarter million followers on x and then, boom, over three months I watched my traffic go down by like 95 percent. It's just how it goes, you know, and I'm very grateful it happened, because it made me realize that you had to diversify, uh. So what we do is we have well, what's the issue there?
Kiernan Drew:because I've I've heard this numerous times from different people as well.
Darren Lee:Yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, elon took over, that was kind of when stuff started changing. Algorithm changes uh, favors a lot of political content, favors a lot of video, and I was like, oh, I don't really want to do video that much, so I didn't. And uh, you can feel this pressure to either go polarizing in a way you don't want to be polarizing or, uh, like I have a couple friends and now I'm writing this like super generic personal development crap. Yeah, uh, and it doesn't build your business like you're so blinded by the likes.
Kiernan Drew:I've seen a lot of writers do like guys that are big on LinkedIn but doing that cookie cutter shit on Twitter just because they've lost their reach. So let's go deeper on the Twitter side of it, because that's where you built your business. But do you think it's kind of bullshit now X? Do you think it's kind of going off the edge? What's your thought?
Darren Lee:I think X is the coolest place in the world to write. It's like a live auction place of ideas, right, and online. It's who can compress their ideas best wins. I think X is that right. I mean, the downside is, yes, it's not like a great place compared to, say, linkedin, but I think having X is like a place to just bounce your thoughts out and just see what people are liking, because it's the only platform where I could send 15 tweets in a day and people not be annoyed and I can see four things did well, great.
Darren Lee:Now let's turn all that into long form content and then so the next week we start to expand on these concepts. So that's how I've always used X. It's kind of like the top of funnel but top of thinking stuff where it's just soundboarding. So I think from there it's great. I think that the smartest people are all still there. The networking on X is the best. I mean I just I try it on LinkedIn and I'm like it sucks. I mean I've got I actually do now. I mean we've got about 30,000 followers on LinkedIn and I've been on the timeline for like three minutes. I was like this sucks. So, yeah, it's not for me. So the networking compression of ideas is great. It's just a shame about the algorithm, but it's not in your control, man.
Kiernan Drew:But it's a sign, right, it's a sign. You need to de-platform users. You cannot be reliant on that Same even for YouTube, right, on that same even for like youtube, right is this if your audience adjusts, or you adjust more, so you adjust, right, you like, you evolve, the audience that you built may not be the audience that it's going to adjust with you. Yeah, right, and I've. We have a lot of clients, even myself, you know, as I've gone into my fifth year of content, or nearly sixth year. Um, as my interest change or my content gets more sophisticated, my audience may not as well like the same level of sophistication. Yeah, it's tough, you know.
Darren Lee:Yeah, it is tough, but you've got to evolve, right, yeah, exactly yeah, and I think it's so sad when people get stuck in a rut of just saying the same thing and doing the same thing. It's cool to lose your audience if you're going in a different direction. Thing when I. It's cool to lose your audience if you're going in a different direction.
Darren Lee:Um, I used to be really scared to write about the deeper stuff, like that was oh, you know, you're meant to just write about your writing tips and talk about how to build an audience and all of that. And um, actually, when again, following the fear man, like it takes you somewhere, cool, uh, but the best place for it is email, like at least for a writer, because you don't have an algorithm telling you what to do. And so, for example, it's like if writing is a one-on-one conversation with thousands of people, I'm not going to sit in front of you and go hey, bro, let me tell you my 10 business building tips. Like it would just be a weird thing, right, like, straight away, like man, let me tell you a story about this thing that happened.
Darren Lee:You get to do that all the time in email, and so I just find that really special because you have creative freedom. Uh, the creative freedom lets you go and follow your curiosity, which means that you end up, yes, like sometimes you might not be saying the same thing as everyone else, but to one person, like that's really special. And I think if you can create one fan with your writing, like the internet becomes like a magnet, right, like it's just a search function, it's just a matter of time. If you keep writing about the stuff you enjoy, you know you don't really need that many followers. If you can get like, if you can get a hundred fans compared to like 10,000 followers, like I would definitely choose the fans.
Kiernan Drew:Yeah, and it is like a thousand people or a hundred people, right, and the way that the products can be positioned, the way that the offers are positioned, you can just you can make all the money that you want or optimize for what you want with a smaller audience. So if your reach has been restricted, how are you still building your list, like how? And also what would you advise other people? Right, because if would you advise other people right Because if Would you say that opportunity is gone on X.
Darren Lee:I don't think I would say gone, it's not as good, it's not as good, which is why I was just saying there about optimizing for fans over followers. I think it's how it should be, how it's always been. Actually so, in terms of how I'm building my list extremely slowly and actually I think over the past six months, the list is getting smaller because I'm emailing more. Before I was too scared to email more because I was like, oh, my list has to grow because it's all about size. But it's not how big your audience is, it's how much they trust you. And so once I realized that, I was like, oh shit, man, I I'm gonna be emailing three times a week at least. Uh, I'm gonna be building more offers because I was too scared to sell to my audience. But the more results you get, your audience like what are we here for? What are we here for? You know like, yeah, for fame. Or you're here to like get people what they want.
Kiernan Drew:so I heard hermos up with this before, which was like, um, hermosi was on, uh, ice coffee, ice ice coffee hour and you're asking about, um, you know the negative connotations with school and all these platforms and it's like, look, if you're not sharing your best ideas, uh, people are gonna be pissed off with you. So if you're not writing your best ideas and sharing them and saying like, oh dude, like that should be a product, some people should buy it, those people will be pissed off with you. Equally, the people who don't buy your stuff or will never buy your stuff will be pissed off with you because, equally, the people who don't buy your stuff or who will never buy your stuff will be pissed off with you because you have an offer. Well, you may as well be pissing off the people that are going to pay you and then don't piss them off anymore so they can buy the thing. Right, because people are going to be as part of being dividing and conquering your audience. People are going to be pissed off in general, themselves. No, they're too worried about themselves. Yeah, right, so it's like we do need to put that in front of people.
Kiernan Drew:I think I want to get your thoughts on this. I think that is the problem with the creator. The creator is fearful of creating offers and running offers, um, and my opinion is probably because they probably can't deliver. You know, they're so focused on the marketing they're great marketers but not great operators or builders so they over emphasize creating and, as a result, that's when there's kind of disgruntlement and so on, so forth. So a lot of people that come to us like they were traditional creators, um, and then we have to teach them to become a business owner. It's. There's a bit of a link there, right, yeah, but I like how you've adjusted though you've like you've. You've made the observation that, yeah, you can serve at scale, but in the right way yeah, and also, um, you say about the creators just creating.
Darren Lee:You know like it's so easy to try. Take something from like a 90 to a 91, because that's the thing you're good at, but actually it's the reason people pay attention is the business that you're building, and so you have to learn that skill, and what I realized was that the better I got at helping people that wanted to do the sort of thing that I teach, better the content got yes, because you have actual real life examples.
Kiernan Drew:Yeah, that's why I was like attracted to your content, because you've done these big launches and you've found a blue ocean and a red ocean right, and the way that you do it is based and I've seen your writing on this, which is you just did it, you know.
Darren Lee:Like you just did it.
Kiernan Drew:And, yes, you've thought about and reflected on it, but for the most part you just kind of did it. And then you're like, yeah, cadence and frequency and the length of the message, yeah, all that shit matters, but you only can see what matters when you do it. We chatted before we recorded, saying that when I release podcasts, people will comment saying they're too serious. People will comment saying they're too relaxed. But it's about what's working and also what uh allows people to come in, listen to this 90 minute conversation and say, fuck like I learned a shit ton from this. This has been great and work well. You know commitment from the audience. So let's go deeper on um, on your offers. So let's have a look at the launch, if you don't mind. How did you, how did you build that out and how have you consistently been able to nail that? Like I spoke to lara quite recently and a few people like tom, who smash launches, they have different strategies and I'm happy to share some of those as well. I can go back and forth on that.
Darren Lee:Yeah, I mean launching damn man. Like my first launch was my first digital product and it made about $5,000. Best feeling in the world, right? Because it was my first internet money, like I remember I saw that Crack yeah, dude man. Like I saw that gumroad email, I was running up and down my flat like fucking get in my son.
Darren Lee:Like I remember it was raining outside. I went out like in the sun, like I'm sorry, just in my t-shirt, like, just grinning like a madman. Um, and then, like I mean, I was in 2022 and so a year later, and then I just started learning marketing from that right. Like I was like, oh, you're going to get better at this. I had a lot of like mediocre launches, just like trying to sell stuff, basically. And then a year later, I built my next product, which was called high impact writing, and I remember saying, okay, audience is 10 times the size of the last one. Maybe we'll get 10 times the result. So, you know, 30 to 50k, that would be fantastic.
Darren Lee:And uh, I remember sending the email again and like I tried to set the rule of like don't look at your emails when you launch. And I was like me, my girlfriend, we're gonna go for a drink and stuff. I was like we'll watch the money come in and all that I'm staring at this thing. Oh shit, what have I done? Know what it's buying? Uh, you know, like we've got like two, three buys in like two, three hours and I was like, okay, great, like it's still going to be cool, but like you're expecting a bit more um. By the end of four days it made 140 000 and um, this is where I started to, you know, piece in retrospect what we were doing and building a system for it, and so you want to launch something.
Darren Lee:Uh, the key to a launch is tension. So I like to think of it like like a nightclub producer, right, like they don't just say, hey, this thing is open, come, no one will be there. They talk about it for ages. So you know, right now I have like three wait lists. I'm in my email. I've been just building for the book for a product I've got coming out in a month. I have my birthday launches and most people that have ever bought something from me about a month ago I started talking about it four or five months before don't even know the product name. You know, like I actually sometimes I just say I'm going to make this product and if no one's really interested and not clicking it, I'm like, oh cool just forget about it.
Kiernan Drew:Delete it off your Instagram. Bad idea. It's like an old ex.
Darren Lee:Just delete it, it didn't matter so you're building tension right just by talking. You're not, you're just sharing how it's going right. And when they click that link to say I'm kind of interested, they get a questionnaire. And then I'm like why are you interested in this thing? What are you struggling with? What do you want? So we then start reading that and being like great, well, now we know what to build because you haven't built it. And so you're finding out the problems that people have and you start to dial in your message based on like, who's there? So, like you get to tell stories about the fears, the doubts, frustrations, what they're struggling with, so that by the time you launch I mean, my rule is that if anyone is surprised by the fact you're releasing something, you screwed up your marketing.
Darren Lee:You know, like 95 of the work happens before. Because you can only I mean, a launch should be no longer than five days. Unless it's high ticket, you might you might stretch it out a bit. It's all like game day, right, I agree, yeah. And so you build the wait list as much as possible, we build the hype as much as possible, and then on those five days you're just sending out emails, you're posting content. Like it becomes simple maths number of impressions driven to a sales page. We're going to get a certain amount of conversions. One conversions um. One thing that we did that I didn't think people did very well before was that when you bought um, obviously I'm sending these thank you videos as well, so people would want to support the launch but I always had in the first email and I was like, hey, would you mind, uh, sharing the fact that you bought my product because I can't market anymore like I don't want to post about this all day, and if you provide a reason why when you make a request, they like it.
Kiernan Drew:So I would make a little joke.
Darren Lee:I'd be like I just cannot talk about this product anymore, but I love it. So this flywheel, this social proof flywheel, people are like, hey, I just bought this product from Kieran. People get more interested and so that's why every launch that we've then ran I mean we've had five, six-figure launches. Now it's always been like that, where more and more hype gets built throughout and then you have to give people a reason to buy them. So I had a friend launching recently and she was like oh, it's not going that well. And I was like cool, so why do I? Why should I buy it now and not next week? No reason. So there you go.
Darren Lee:People are lazy. Like you need to give incentives to buy. So urgency and some scarcity. So I always do webinars. So I don't like to discount, because you know how does it look on your brand if you're like, hey, you know everything's always discounted. So I'm always like, look, if you buy it now, I've got these live trainings, you've got extra community, we're going to give, give, give and that all disappears. And so like I feel like, um, that's kind of rewarding your fans who wanted to buy it anyway. Um, and that's been the process, man, yeah, it's been the process and like we test little things, but the main part is that you're giving away as much as you can.
Kiernan Drew:Uh, you're building a reputation, you're building tension, and then you have those five days and then you over deliver looking at your launch, looking at Lara's and looking at Tom's Tom Nosk, the biggest thing that pops up to me is the work that's done before the launch. So you said there are the months of on the wait list, or just like the five years you have to put in your content, like that's actually what gets you to game day. Yeah Right, it's not just oh, there's some hack or fucking trick or whatnot in those three to five days. That actually isn't it. You're probably just doing the same thing as everyone else is doing in that period of time Running the webinars, having an offer, giving people effectively a bonus and then maybe ramping up the emails. When I was chatting to Tom, he was saying he was kind of getting. He said the amount of success he would get would be dependent on the amount of emails he would send in that period of time and he was writing around three to five emails a day for 15 days. But it's just an interesting observation how like it's like a Hormozy calls it a whisper and shout effect. You're whispering it for so many weeks and months and the last three days then you're shouting for the launch period versus people joining whenever.
Kiernan Drew:Let me give an example we have open coaching. So we don't do launches, but we have like an open coaching process. People can join whenever. But then we have to, as you said, you have to use the laws of the game to be able to get people to jump right. There's pros and cons to everything. There's pros to a launch, because you can do six figures in a week, but the con is after the weeks afterwards you're obviously not going to be selling because it might be closed doors or whatnot. So my question is like how do you, um, how can you put so much emphasis on the launch versus like an open coaching model?
Darren Lee:yeah, sure, um, but actually my mind's a bit different. Uh, in that, uh, I, so I always follow the same process when we do it's open, close, refine, relaunch, and so the first launch is the open, close, right, and you can get it now, and then you can't get it again. And the reason I'm doing that is because I want at least three months really working with customers, going for their questions. But it never sat right with me where I was always like, if you're really optimizing to help your audience, how does it help them that you're like taking something away that they want to buy? Good point, and so my stuff is always available too.
Darren Lee:But you can still run launches if it's available, because I'm like, hey, look, you can buy it now if you want. Every couple months, every three months or so, there's going to be extra bonuses for you, and so you, I think you got kind of a nice blend for that. So, um, I think you can optimize for a bit of both. Actually, uh, I think it's nice to have, particularly for your coaching. You know like, um, having it open all the time, but it still needs to have like this exclusive feel to it, right, like it's not like everyone come in.
Kiernan Drew:Well, it's also like this is where you got to think really deeply as to what is your supply? Yeah, right, because I think for us we're trying to optimize for around 30 new people a month, okay, and anything above 30 is like more than like six or seven a week, which is like heavy on the customer success, and this is a high ticket now, right, so that's like kind of like your break point versus hiring more people coming in. So there is a constraint, yeah, uh, even though it is done with you. So you have to like think about that as a result, and then we can use the laws of the game, which is, uh, as you said, like the additional bonuses. We might use one-to-ones, uh, or we might run a re-offer. So what a re-offer would be in that instance is, like the program, six months, but if you join in like this like 10-day window, you'll get a seventh month and maybe like a one-to-one access, right. So I think there's just different ways. We can kind of slice and dice it.
Darren Lee:Does that make sense? I need a notepad?
Kiernan Drew:Yeah, because I think it would be because basically a big kind of switch for us was I met Dickie. Dickie has been a really good friend of mine and just like a big influence, and he was doing open coaching. We were doing cohorts and we're doing the cohorts. It was very easy, right, it's very logistical. And I remember him saying to me he was like daniel fazio said to him the company with that can manage the most organizational complexity will win in a seamless way. And they had cracked this model down. So what we had done and mirrored it from, uh dickie was, yeah, there's onboarding once a week. Uh, either group onboarding or one-to-one, depending on how much you're signing up. They do group onboarding, like one every monday. It's like all right, bros, we're going right, here's the overview, so that allows people to join, they join and then they join the cadence from there. So there's no like specific, like launch, um, but there might be like re-offers.
Kiernan Drew:So I try to use the calendar to my advantage. So I remember, I always remember this story. It was Black Friday coming up and everyone has so much like negative connotations around Black Friday and I used to say to the guys in our program being like forget that it's Black Friday, just think about it as anything start a summer for a fitness offer, after summer for fitness offer after like fat from the summer. Um. Start of the year, valentine's day. Just use the calendar, because the calendar, the calendar, was designed by whoever designed the calendar and we can insert things as a result. So we've just been doing that. They're like micro launches between them. Yeah, and I'll do. I will literally look at the calendar. I'm like it's january 5th, okay, there's a january offer, and then we run offers within there too. It's just creativity it's creativity man.
Darren Lee:And also, um, if you're, if you've got a personal brand, uh, it's a great way to encourage connection too. So, um, for my launches, for example, I have on my my phone tells me when this stuff is coming up. But the day I quit dentistry, the day I saw my last patient, like uh, the day I went viral with my next story is the second of september. Like, all of this stuff is there. Like you can always, like I said, you need a reason why, when you launch, you know, like, if you just say, hey, there, here's this thing that I have, and it's because I want you to buy it, it will never work as well as like hey, like my my birthday launch, I turned 33, so we did so. Young, dude, you look younger than me. Dude, if I was still a dentist, I would have great hair and shit by now.
Darren Lee:So we did 33 tips for $33 on my 33rd birthday and that's the big idea, that's the creative copywriting right, and it ended up with like 600 customers.
Kiernan Drew:And then they start the journey with you into your ecosystem and everything.
Kiernan Drew:It's beautiful, yeah yeah, have you ever heard the concept of highlighting an offer? So you promote one offer or you're pushing one offer which highlights the other offers, okay. Okay, this is really interesting. So, let's say you're pushing your new cohort or whatever, and there's a loan strategy and so on, and then you're selling by chat.
Kiernan Drew:If you don't want to take calls or whatever that may be, give an interaction, and someone is like karen, this is great, but you know what, I don't want to be in a group or I don't want to go through six weeks of a cohort. Then that highlights a different offer, like maybe your mentorship, and you actually are able to actually sell more into the other offers. So a big thing that happens with us is we have an agency in education. Get on a call and it's great, we're going to help you with YouTube and a podcast and we're happy with the offer and so on, and someone's like Jesus Christ, I don't want to do that. It's like, well, we can do it for you yeah, I'll do it for you like, yeah, it's more expensive, yeah, so what, I don't care?
Kiernan Drew:and then they become like a client for a different offer. So I think that's that thing to work in this moment of time yeah it starts the journey with the customer and I was like okay, you're best suited here.
Kiernan Drew:You're best suited here. Which is literally consult of selling like I've spoken to about 15 people this week on the air to consult of selling which is you have different offers and you're giving only one offer to someone that you believe is the best fit for them, not the one that's best for you. Right, that's it for them.
Darren Lee:It's interesting man like I, um, I'm a pretty new entrepreneur, so, uh, you're still learning. And one thing that I've just found amazing is that, like so, for example, I, I, I told you I'm really into data that much, and about six months ago I was like, let's start looking at you know, we've done five years of business here. Let's start seeing what's there. And I realized that, um, my, the people that pay me the most was like three years ago when I was doing High Ticket and I've just been selling courses, right, and so like, the actual LTV was so low comparatively. And then I was like, oh, you are completely underserving the people that want to work with you most. And so I started to realize, kind of similar to what you said.
Darren Lee:I launched my first group coaching cohort in like two years, in January. Guy joined immediately text me after, being like I need to get out of this, I need to work with you one on one. And he was like I want more of your time, I don't want to be talking to a group of people. And so now we're working for a year for like 4x the price.
Kiernan Drew:I have some crazy things you can do there from an Ascension perspective, like I'm. So our model is called the ecosystem for this exact reason, which is we have a bunch of different offers that range depending where they are, and then people can move between them up and down. This is interesting. They don't just move up, they move up and down and then people find their position and it's like a call, like a credit system which joins for, like, someone comes to our mastermind we run three masterminds a year. It's like 3k. If they want to join one of our high ticket programs, we credit that off the other. So it's basically like no one has has any buyer's remorse. So that's why someone joins our program. We're like, oh fuck, dude, I don't want that. It's like, okay, we can credit either 100% or maybe like 50% or whatnot percent, um, and it just creates this. It creates this like ecosystem.
Kiernan Drew:That's almost like when you come in and work with apple, when you buy an iphone. It's generally how people get started. But then they'll downgrade and buy airpods and then they want to be, they want to create youtube videos, so they'll create an ipad and then I get a mac and then I get. They're like dogs something too right. They're gonna dogs an air tag and I I think through that lens. Yeah, and I think it's the way your products are designed too. Um, but I guess, try to like rootlessly think about it with everything that I do yeah because then it's the best way to serve someone.
Kiernan Drew:And there's actually, you know, jordan platten. Jordan's based in norwich, good guy for you to connect to what he has an agency for many years and he's an education business. We chatted last week and he's been in the game for 10 years. We chatted last week about what like ltv looks like for people and most people never ever get ltv or never ever understand it, because they're so used to selling like a shit program to someone who obviously churns, doesn't complete it and leaves. And he was saying to me like what we have is extremely rare that people buy a mastermind, come and join a program, buy another mastermind, you know, because they're actually getting results and experience experience is important, man, I was going to say, like you're, I remember listening to this sort of stuff at the start when I was wow, that sounds so amazing.
Darren Lee:But I think what people forget is that the reputation is what is driving the whole thing. Like for you, for example, you've got brilliant reputation. Of course people want to buy more and more stuff and you're getting people results and so I think a lot of people they're in a hurry to build out the full ecosystem, but actually I mean the clients I'm working with at the moment. I'm like one thing well, yes, you know this one thing and everything else will come up with it, like a rising tide brings up all, all shit. 100%. My main mistake or at least when I always think what we could do better, is like just stop spreading so thin, you know, like you find the thing that lights you up, you build that really well and then, like I said, it's so much easier to then build the ecosystem around it, right?
Kiernan Drew:Well, again, right, it took me four years to build agency. Right, it was four years, yeah, and that's four years of like literally creating five to ten thumbnails a day, pro a day, and it's like pumping content, pumping content and even to this day, before we met up, I was literally reviewing my own thumbnails. Change this, change that, because I think, like you have to be I heard one of my mentors says before is like you, you have to be. I heard one of my mentors say this before you really need to be all in with it in terms of this is you.
Kiernan Drew:You love writing so much that you'll read, bro, you look at. I know that from just our conversation. I know that you look at the bus, you look at the ad on the bus. You think about the copy on that on the ad. You know that's a beautiful part of it. I'll look at a thumbnail and be like that shit. For that reason, I change it in this way and it's because we enjoy it. You know, and again, I'm design orientated because I'm dyslexic, so I look at design and I really think about colours are good. It gets my opinion this way.
Darren Lee:You know people hate hustle, but like I think online it's obsession that wins. It's obsession, yeah, like people are like, oh, what's the secret to building like a powerful personal brand? It's like you have to find the thing that lights you up, because you can't compete with people having fun A hundred percent. Like the writing thing for me is just you live and breathe it Like it's not even a question. It's like how are you working so hard? And it's not a question of working hard. It's like I have to do this. It's like this is my thing, that I get to like deliver to the world, and so I think that people, um, I think a you need to say yes a lot more at the start to find the thing, but then you also need the discipline to then start saying no, uh, to get really good at that thing.
Kiernan Drew:Um, I wrote about this in my community the other day. I had a message from someone and, um, I can be like not brutal, but just like I tried to not like beat her in the bush. So someone's like, oh, dude, like you're in london, like let's meet up, and I just responded saying I'm working, yeah. And then he responded going, got it, you don't do coffee dates, yeah. And then one of my friends when I was younger was like oh, I'm getting married next year, can you come?
Kiernan Drew:and I was like, unfortunately, I'm working yeah so I can't fly back from fucking bali to be in ireland and, uh, I think people respect that right and it's just, it's clear, it's concise and I think and I was saying to my community, being like saying no gives you the ability to scale or to make more money or what is it you want to do. But there has to be that component of like you know what you need to do, bro. You need to write that, you need to write those tweets. You probably need to fix one, two, one or two things to do with the next launch, kind of know how to write the copy already and you just need to do it. Yeah, you know it's a lot of, it's a lot of time.
Kiernan Drew:You said this with dentistry, right, when you're doing industry, you were listening to the podcast and I was laughing because I think it's a lot of people that live in like london. Right, they're listening to podcasts, they're running around, they're thinking about it. They're not doing it for sure man, yeah, it's action it's like it's action that brings it.
Darren Lee:But yeah, I don't know um, you only really appreciate it in retrospect. Yeah, uh, like again, like I always, I'm always on there and what we've done is luck.
Kiernan Drew:But if you actually looked at the hours that you'd put in, um, there is the work ethic behind it, right, like, uh, yeah, you've got to put in the reps, it's not luck, like none of it's luck, and I don't mean that in like an arrogant way, it's like it's just not, because I think, like the level of sophistication that you have what you're writing and like the psychology of maybe your copy in your landing page, for you it comes quite intuitive, uh. But you look at it, yeah, it's obvious. We write the headline like this. That headline headline didn't 20 minutes, man, you know the famous story of the guy with the X. No, no, oh, you'll love this.
Kiernan Drew:So there's a. This is like a fable, but it's basically shows the value of expert opinion. So there's a story of a factory in the 90s and in the 90s, a lot of inefficiencies. There's smoke going out the back, there's oil leaks and everything. And they're bringing this consultant and they can't solve the issue. And he's walking around the factory floor and they're like I think it's that thermostat, I think it's that. And he's like no, no, no. He's looking around and he sees this massive, huge like machine and he goes up and he puts an x on one of the side and he said replace that and he will remove all of your issues. And then the guy said okay, I'll at least send you my invoice and then clear that, and so on.
Kiernan Drew:The next morning the manager of the plant opens up, goes into his office and he sees an invoice for $50,000. And he rings him and he said what the fuck? You just put an X there. How is it $50,000? And he said the X costs $1. Knowing where to put it costs $49,999. And that's a big thing which is for you.
Kiernan Drew:You've just done the reps and you've learned where to put the right positioning. That luck so happens to fall.
Darren Lee:Yeah, I think everyone needs that specific knowledge. So I've been five years building online. Now, or at least in a month, it'll be five years since I started my first blog post, and it's really, really interesting watching every brand that's still going which is, by the way, five percent everyone else is quit, so podcasters yeah, everyone else is great, and I love that because I'm always like great, you're not competing with everyone, you're competing with the survivors.
Darren Lee:so my rule if you're trying something new is always expect results in two years, not two months, and that's always kept me going Like I was starting YouTube and I'm like two years, not two months. Or I'm writing my first book. I'm like two years, not two months.
Kiernan Drew:So I've been putting out one podcast a year. I've one podcast a week for five years. Fantastic, and I've never is there every single week it comes out. Sometimes we do two weeks and whenever I speak to someone they're like well, chris williamson does three a week and this person has three a week and all the guys I did two to three times a week majority of them are gone right, and they're just gone, and it's so funny because I've been able to manage a business travel everything in one episode a week done yeah few in the bank.
Kiernan Drew:Perfectly fine, I know I need to be somewhere to record at some point. And yeah, it's chill, you know. And then it's part of more of the infinite game, because not every I remember hearing, you know, joe delaney, og, fitness and fitness dudes. I'll never forget this. I had a podcast with joe and he was like everyone is so obsessed with improvement and like bigger and better, so every video, every post, every tweet getting more likes as a sign of progression.
Kiernan Drew:But if you look at YouTube Home or your YouTube analytics, there is a ranking of your videos and it's from one to 10. And there has to be a 10. Like technically, there has to be a 10. So for there to be a one when you release a video, that new video, one of them has to be a 10 out of 10. So not every video can be one out of one, one out of one. It's literally like mathematics, yeah, but we're still optimizing for that. So he said fuck that, I'm not following that approach at all. I'm creating stuff that I want to create that will eventually be a two out of ten and one out of ten, but by the end of it, I'll still be able to keep creating content that I want to create.
Darren Lee:Yeah, and one rule when I started writing because no one was reading was well, I had three rules. I was like did I get better at my craft? Did I share an idea to help someone win? Did I learn something new? And I always still come back to that now where it's like you are just putting in those reps.
Darren Lee:People really underestimate consistent effort over time. And so you're saying about maybe doing two free videos a week. Um, urgency. I've found to be one of the biggest double-edged swords for entrepreneurship. Right like, everyone loves speed, but it's only sexy if you're going in the right direction. And so when you're in a rush, you know like so many people just end up quitting. And so I just think that I I'm usually a rusher, right like uh, even then I almost moved my launch back two weeks because I was like I reckon we could do this and I was about to text all my friends being like cancel meetings, cancel all my calls, I'm gonna go hit this launch. I'm like dude, stop rushing man. Like it's cool, what's the hurry? Like we're here to play for decades.
Kiernan Drew:So such a good point. I want to before we wrap up. I want to ask you about the sales process, because you're not selling like a $99 e-book, right? You're selling some high ticket stuff. How do you manage your sales without taking calls?
Darren Lee:It just seems to be happening, man, yeah, yeah. So I sell through email. My courses are about $500. My high ticket has been between $3,000 and $12,000. And I send out story-based emails and I ask people if they're interested to let me know and we start a conversation. Um, and then I have a sales page. Yeah, yeah, but I'll be honest with the sales page stuff. Like you said that, like my sales pages are good, like it feels like black magic to me, like I find it very hard to do that stuff, but I find that every time writing sales pages, you know, like actual sales copy, would you?
Kiernan Drew:move to a Google doc. Yeah, yeah, I can help you with that.
Darren Lee:Yeah, yeah.
Kiernan Drew:Like in like five minutes.
Darren Lee:Yeah.
Kiernan Drew:Because, like, that's the whole point is, if you're not going to go down the call route, you need to go down the, the it's called, what's the word? There's a word for it, but basically it just needs to be like it's like an invite yeah, so it's google, doc or notion, whatever you prefer, and then it has to be people are in or out, so by the time they get it, they're in or out. Sure, yeah, you know, and it's just super fast to adjust and super, super simple, you know to be fair, my high ticket is google docs.
Darren Lee:Sick, yeah, it's google docs. I mean, that's the easier one, because those people want to work with you A hundred percent, and that was actually why I screwed up with my birthday launch. I spent so long writing this sales page and then I it's all design and everything you know.
Kiernan Drew:So much complexity.
Darren Lee:Yeah, well, the whole. Like the best thing you've ever written. Delete all of it. It was like your offer is so good that like you've gone down the indirect sales approach and like, uh, it was actually like 33 for 33 man, like it's all you needed to say, like people would have bought it. You don't need to go on for so much. So I love copyright. Man, like I'm a very avid student, like I, I respect people that can actually write copy, not for their business. Like I feel like my brand carries a lot of it.
Kiernan Drew:Um, it's an incredible skill interesting man, because the whole logic with google doc is that, um, it should be shorter, like the shorter you can you can be the better.
Kiernan Drew:Yeah clarity is king right yeah, so like if it can be one page, it should literally be one page, you know so I think it's funny because I had a friend who is going to be a client and he wanted to come to mastermind and then I was like bro, I think you're a better fit for like this program. And he looked at it the offer doc and he's like, uh, yeah, whatever. And then I was like, well, okay, well, maybe this one, just because he was kind of half in between, and then he just responded going I think I need this because I need to use a google doc so he was like I think I just need to learn from you how to do it.
Kiernan Drew:Yeah, and I was like yeah, man, I was like this is so much easier for you because it's just on a fucking piece of paper and he's like yeah man, yeah, it obviously works.
Kiernan Drew:You know, it's just such a clear clarity because of the problem. On the problem, like there's a lot of so okay, okay, do you think I said that? So there's like the call funnel of all bros and then there's a style of chat bros and it's like which one works. They both work, but they have different tendencies and behaviors. 100% they're different like mannerisms. So if you're on a call, to get to the call is a much different behavior. But if you're in a message, you shouldn't be treating the messages like the calls. So, on the messages, it's very like yes, no, we're starting next week. In or out, no, cool, all right, no, worries, no, and like no, like um, hard feelings, whereas if you're on a call, we're starting next week.
Kiernan Drew:Oh, I didn't think about it. What do you think about? You go through objection handling. You can go through a different process, but you can't be like objection. Well, like not, that you can't, you can do whatever you want, but the logic is that you can't be doing sales call tendencies in chat, because on chat it's volume.
Kiernan Drew:Uh, we have a very big client, um getting 5 000 inbound requests a month and he didn't want to do calls. All right, fine, but now the sales teams that we have for him, just like a one or two setters. The goal is to do 100 offers a day, to give 100, so literally to give people the offer, doc, at least 100 of them a day, because he couldn't get through the volume that was coming in. So it's like, if you don't filter it, filtration system, and you can do that with like, yes, no. Logic which is like uh, are you in or do you want to hear more? Yes, no, uh, happy to send you more details? Yes, no, sorry, good fit. Yes, no, and it's all right, cool, we'll come back and drop your message in 30 days, whatever, here's a free resource, um, but I think the issue is when people muddy it yeah, sure, yeah, stuck, you know?
Darren Lee:yeah, I mean, I've always just been in um the case of like just chatting to people like a normal person yeah yeah, like I.
Darren Lee:I get such an ick when I go on a sales call with these because if you know sales right like when someone is doing it to me, I'm like my god, this is repulsive. Yeah, uh. So I've always just treated that, my audience, like that, as I want to do it, you want to not, which I guess what you're saying, right like I'm always just like cool man whenever you want it yeah, it's with or without your energy.
Kiernan Drew:Yeah, you're good. Yeah, regardless, yeah yeah, for sure.
Darren Lee:I think that you were saying earlier about creators being scared to launch offers like you have to put in. It's like maximum effort in the output, but minimal fucks for the outcome yes, I always remind myself. I'm always like, do you buy this or not? I'm having a great time, yeah, and I think that actually shows oh, I took the words out of my mouth.
Kiernan Drew:They absolutely see that. Yeah, you know, they absolutely see that, especially even with ascensions or when people finish programs, it's like, hey, what we do is it's very, very nice. It's like finish program, you can stay on a subscription Cool, you can ascend and be credited, or you can leave and we'll still stay friends, and it's just, you get a pick chill, totally up to you, and I think that creates much more of a better ecosystem, a better reputation. But I think there is a point here that we are still leading. You kind of have to lead the conversation a small bit, right. It's kind of like if your girlfriend asks you where you want to go for dinner, if you're like here's every restaurant in Leeds or here's three that I think you'll enjoy and I would preference this one.
Darren Lee:You know, and I would preference this one. Yeah, you know again writing like most popular underneath.
Kiernan Drew:You know that story. You ever heard a story about most popular written? No, no, go on, oh, you'll love this. So basically it was in. Is it China or Hong Kong? I think it was in China. All the restaurants they all sell. Every street generally has one theme of food, right, so one could be like a certain type of noodle. Next street could be like a certain type of noodle, next street could be another type of noodle, and they're obviously the exact same and they're all running razor thin margins. Yeah, sure one. This is literally how this happened. How it started was one restaurant literally wrote most popular under a menu option and then everyone just started buying that thing and then that business just started booming on that street. Yeah, yeah, and they just picked one. Yeah, shiny thing, make it red. It's crazy man.
Kiernan Drew:But most popular on that.
Darren Lee:Yeah, we had it in our sales pages where, like, I'd always give two options and then if you put the box of a brighter color, it's like you're going to go that way.
Kiernan Drew:So same with our Google Docs dude, the, and it's like. Well, actually for the mastermind it was like non-activities activities. The one with activities was a font 14, the other one was font 11. It's just bigger, yeah and that was it.
Darren Lee:It's an interesting tool, though, isn't it?
Kiernan Drew:like you, people say that persuasion is like a dirty word, but actually, if you really care about getting people results, you need to learn this stuff, it's only if you don't understand them and if you're using it in a manipulative way, right, yeah, if you understand persuasion, to use it in a manipulative way, then yes, of course it's wrong, yeah, um. But if you're doing it in the right way to, again, it's consultative selling, right? This is not the best product for you, and I've actually. You know you do this both ways. You recommend the lower product to someone, but you also recommend a better product for someone. I'll give an example.
Kiernan Drew:I have a client. He's a photographer as a passion, but he's also a pilot. And this guy this guy flies planes. Bro, how much time does he have? A fuck, all right. And he was like I'm going to join like this program. And I was like, bro, full transparency, you won't be able to join the calls, you won't have time to do trainings and even if you send us over requests, it's probably not going to be in a way that we're going to get things done. I was like this is actually a better option for you. You'll have one-to-one access with us, we can help you and we can place a few employees in your team if you need to. And he's a guy, perfect, and he was still a beginner and he's like this is way better for me and it was just better fit for that person. That's the whole goal of understanding people's actual problems. Yep, which is nice, man. Any final points before we wrap up um on on the sales process, like what you've seen to be working really well for you.
Darren Lee:Um, I think I prefer being zoomed out of it, man. I think it's about the long game.
Kiernan Drew:Yeah.
Darren Lee:I think that if you want to be very good at sales, consistently give yeah you know, like, um, you hit the nail on the head earlier.
Darren Lee:It's like all these six-figure launches and consistent revenue. It's like how much effort are you putting into your brand? You know, like, how much are you giving to your audience and showing that you care? And you know how seriously you're taking this stuff because, um, revenue is just a byproduct of reputation and I think that if you're genuinely out there having fun, you're committed to your craft, um, you're serving your audience like you don't need to worry so much about the sales process.
Kiernan Drew:You know, like, obviously, learn the tactics, but the overarching strategy is like do good work and keep going yeah, if you look at Hormozy when he launched his most recent book, like he'd spent years and years building that goodwill, that they broke the world record for the amount of people on a fucking webinar and I always point people towards Hormozy like love or hate him.
Darren Lee:I love him.
Kiernan Drew:I love him, bro. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. For sure, he's a huge influence on everyone, and why?
Darren Lee:Because he's given so much, like me and my best friend. We talk about hormones so much and it's weird. He's like a spirit guide for us and I'm like, look, this works. And there's a lot of people who say that free value doesn't work. And I'm like free value doesn't work if it's shit. If you think in short term, you do it for a month, of course it's not going to work, and if you don't have a way, someone can pay you at the end. But if you if it's that whole giveaway all information and then sell the implementation, of course it works, you know. So, like I always say, homozy is a fantastic example of just like give, give, give, give, give. You made that ask and then that's what I'm planning on doing anyway for the rest of my life so and think about the results that he has.
Kiernan Drew:Man like what is like 250 million a year so far in a private equity firm, so that result does come as idiosyncrasies different ways that you can actually pull benefits from it benefits.
Darren Lee:You didn't realize it, yeah big thank you, brother.
Kiernan Drew:You're a legend man.