How to make yourself "oversubscribed"

"You're just lucky"

I mean, if you call...

...lucky.

then yeah, I guess I am lucky.

Copywriting tip:

If you can describe people's problems better than they can, they'll subconsciously believe that you have the solution.

The pain is the pitch.

Love = what you're willing to sacrifice for it.

You can tell how much you love something by how much you're willing to give up to keep it.

Investor Adam Shuaib on a common pattern between genius’:

“People assume the daily schedule of geniuses involves crazy all-nighters and manic bursts of intensity. We found the complete opposite - they repeat the same dull/boring routine every day for 20yrs; same desk at the same hour, the same meals, same walks, same bedtime.

We assume an interesting life produces interesting work, but mostly it's the opposite: interesting work is subsidised by a boring life.

Every choice you no longer have to make is attention left over for bigger problems; ie great minds save this originality for work rather than spend it on their lives. The question to ask is not whether your life is exciting, but instead what your boredom is buying you.”

had a catchup call with someone I hadn't talked to in 3 years.

they said, "your energy feels different."

"wdym," I said.

"idk, last time we talked you felt very distressed. you feel more confident and high energy now."

no lesson here. just cool to see how much can change in a few years. keep going ✊

If I’m being honest, I suck at most things.

I can't dance, I can't swing a golf club very well, and I can't even rent a car yet.

But the one skill I'm confident I'm one of the best in the world at is… social media copywriting.

Copywriting has helped me get everything I want out of life.

And I fundamentally believe it's one of the most important skills you can have, because it lets you make yourself “Oversubscribed”.

In this essay, I want to explain why making yourself oversubscribed is important (and, more importantly, how to do it)...

I've had a few friends get laid off recently, and even though they wanted to start their own business, they eventually had to go find another job.

Why is that? They're technically brilliant and skilled at their craft, but they never got great at communicating their value. They didn't know how to hunt or attract new opportunities, so they were forced to get a job where other people brought those opportunities for them.

If you want to be anti-fragile, if you don't want to be reliant on a single employer or a single source of income, you have to learn how to make yourself “Oversubscribed”.

So how do you do it?

Fundamentally, there are two types of demand:

Current demand: the number of people who want what you offer right now.

Future demand: the number of people who might want it somewhere down the road.

For example: if I asked you, "What's the likelihood you buy a new iPhone in the next two weeks?" your answer is probably pretty low. But if I asked, "What's the likelihood you buy a new iPhone in the next ten years?" your answer is probably pretty high.

Apple’s marketing team isn't trying to get you to buy today. Their goal is to build affinity, so that when you finally enter the buying window, their phone is the first you think of.

Another example: When I was in 6th grade, we went through a sex-ed class, and afterwards the teachers handed out free Old Spice sample deodorant. I thought it was so weird because I didn't need deodorant as a 6th grader (I still don’t, #asian). But what I realized is they were marketing to us 10-15 years from now, so when we did think we needed deodorant, we thought of Old Spice first.

Smart.

For someone to want to work with you, they have to trust you first. What is trust?

Trust is belief with evidence. Belief without evidence is called faith.

So how do you create that evidence? You create value in your social media content.

If you post something useful and someone tries it and it works, now they have proof that listening to you pays off. The next time you say something, they're far more likely to act on it because they've already seen that it worked once.

This is why Martha Stewart became one of the most influential women on the planet.

On her shows, she'd give women step-by-step directions (recipes) for how to bake something delicious. And when women followed her directions, they got a result: compliments from their neighbors, spouses, and families. They tied that good feeling back to Martha.

Content allows you to create trust before you sell anything. As the saying goes, "the best time to dig a well is long before you’re thirsty."

At this point you might be thinking, "Okay Jay, you've convinced me. I want to make myself oversubscribed. But where do I even start?"

3 steps:

1. Define your goal.

Let's say you're a former recruiter, and now you're building your own recruiting agency. Your goal is to sign clients. Once we know that, we can reverse-engineer everything else.

2. Find your content pillars.

Ask yourself: what does a potential client need to see from you to want to work with you? Answer that, and you've got what to post about.

3. Fish where the fish are.

Where are your ideal clients hanging out? If you’re a recruiter, your clients are probably hanging out on LinkedIn. So that's where you should show up.

Once you're there, you want to show 3 things:

1. Authority.

Show people you know what you're talking about.

There are 3 kinds of proof you can use:

2. Reach.

Get in front of the people who could hire you. This one is heavily platform- and algorithm-dependent, so I won't hand you specific tactics, because they change too fast.

But a few macro-questions to ask yourself:

If there's a viral article going around about how brutal the job market is, or how companies are laying people off, that's your moment to jump in and share your take.

3. Resonance.

Let people see your life.

I know, I know… everyone says, “Just share your personality and you'll stand out."

But it's true, because people work with people they know, like, and trust.

When someone can see the human side of you:

...they start to remember you. Now you're a person to them, not an avatar behind a screen.

When people hop on sales calls with me, they often ask about things that I've shared in my content:

The entire sales process is smoother because they already feel like they know me.

There's a lot more I could go into on each of these, but fundamentally, this one skill is the reason I'm anti-fragile. With this skill set, I know I'll never have to make under $200k/year again.

A few years ago, this wasn’t possible. Before the internet and social media, if you wanted to create demand, you had to buy ads or spend years trying to get traditional press. Now anyone with a laptop and an internet connection can build an audience and create their own demand.

It's why marketing and social media has become one of the hottest skills in the world. It started as a weird niche little internet hobby, and now it's one of the fastest-growing industries on the planet, because people finally realized how much power there is in creating demand. And it's only getting more valuable.

When AI can build anything, being able to create demand matters more than ever.

If you want to make yourself “oversubscribed”, specifically with LinkedIn content, I’m putting together a 30-day writing academy with my friend Kevin Shim.

For 30 days, we walk you through our writing system and write 30 posts right alongside you. By the end, you'll have:

The first cohort starts September 1.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can sign up for the waiting list here.

Until next week,

Author of You Can Just Do Things & Work With The Best

Ps. Keep going

Pps. My first YouTube video crossed 10,000+ views (!!)

Ppps. Guys…. WE DID IT 🥳🥳

Thank you so much to everyone who chose to pre-order books.

Every book that you don’t personally want gets donated to students.

LFGGG

You can pre-order my new book (and get juicy bonuses) here.

Stanley is an AI agent that runs in the background finding ways to increase my engagement. For example:

It’s pretty freakin’ cool. All of this runs in the background, and if I need to change anything - I simply text it through iMessage. It’s like having a personal social media intern working for you 24/7.

Anyway. I liked it so much I became an advisor to the company. You can use my link and try it for free here.

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