The Brand ED Podcast

Is this thing on?

Hi, I'm Robby Fowler and
welcome to the 4 Wins Issue 263.

Every Friday I send 4
Wins in under 4 minutes.

That's gonna give you a tool to try
a real client question answered,

something to think on, and a personal
story that connects to your business.

You can subscribe for free if you
want the email version of that

at robbyfowler.substack.com, I'll
put that link in the show notes.

If you're new here, don't
worry, I'm new here.

This is the first ever issue
of the 4 Wins after 262 other

issues to go out on YouTube.

So my YouTube experience
is all of about 45 seconds.

So welcome to the Journey.

I hope you like this
version of the 4 Wins.

Let's start with something to try.

So you may have some fancy tech
that got way out in front of your

need for something very simple.

That's an annual calendar.

So maybe you got swept up in all the
promises and endless flexibility of

those digital calendars out there.

There's a million of them.

And then you find yourself way far away
from home and you long for the good

old days when you could plan your year.

You could write it out with your
own hands and you could take in the

full view of your physical calendar.

Those used to be a thing and
they used to be the only thing.

And if you miss those days,
you should check out NeatoCal.

It's the perfect destination
for the Prodigal Sunday.

Wink, get it among us to return home
to that physical annual calendar.

You'll be welcome to a homepage.

It's got a single page, annual
calendar that you can print, and the

good news is this is all for free.

You can customize it.

There's a few simple URL parameters, like
weak numbers or weekend highlight colors.

NeatoCal is a free script.

It's hosted on GitHub and that might
intimidate you, but before you panic.

Just keep watching and I'm gonna show
you a simple demo so you can do this.

Whether you're tech savvy, you've
ever heard of GitHub or not,

we'll get you your year calendar.

So let's check that out right now.

Okay.

So here's Nito calendar on GitHub.

What you can do is come right here
to where it says live demo, and I

will just open that in a new tab.

And so here is the basic annual calendar.

But what is cool is if we
scroll down on this with our

looking at this Read me file.

And here are all the parameters
you can change by just adding this

to the URL up here at the top.

So here's the blank, URL.

So just to show an example if we
want to change the year to 2030,

if we click this link, it'll open.

The calendar and show it's
the year 2030 right here.

If we were to change that to 20,
let's say 27, your return, bingo.

So that's how you swap out the year.

I'm gonna go back let's just look at
a couple of these other parameters or

essentially options that you can have.

You could change the
layout of the calendar.

Let's see here.

Default aligned weekdays.

Weekly grid.

So let's look at the weekly
grid and see what that does.

Okay, cool.

So it lays things out on Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, weekly grid.

All right.

That's pretty cool.

Some ones that I saw that would, I think
be most interesting are cell heights.

So this is how tall.

Each of the individual cells are,
so the days that you would write in.

So if you needed a little more
height to show you how this works.

Right now, the cell
height is set to 1.5em.

If you have no idea what that
means, it doesn't really matter.

Bigger numbers make the cell go up.

So let's change that from 1.5 to 2.

Hit enter and you can see, oh,
each individual cell got bigger.

Let's do one more and set to
three, which is gonna be quite big.

But that's an example of how you
can play with the parameters to wind

up with the calendar that you like.

Looking down through a few others,
like you can add the moon phase

to it if you're interested in
what's going on with the moon.

Let's see here.

Nope, that's the wrong one.

Moon phase.

Here we go.

Moon phase there.

It's okay.

So there's the phases of the moon.

If you wanna check that out right
now, the NASA is up there flying,

astronauts flying around the moon.

And then you can change, the fault
font family a few other parameters.

I would recommend you come in here,
find one that you like, or just go

to that live demo, right mouse, click
open that up in a new link tab, and

then print off your yearly calendar.

And finally you're back to the good old
days where you have a yearly calendar.

Again, it's free.

You don't even need to know how GitHub
works or the fact that it's a free script.

It's just a free calendar.

I find it's really hard to find
these, even on the calendar programs

built into your Mac or whatever.

It's just hard to get back to how
do I get back to just printing

an annual calendar like I used
to be able to get at the store.

Check out NeatoCal.

It's quite neato.

Let's move on to win number two,
something a client recently asked.

So we're in part 4 of a series
called Why Doing More Marketing Makes

Everything Worse and What to do instead.

If you want to check out the other three
parts in this series, before you jump in

again, you can just head to my substack.

That link is in the show notes.

So we're on part 4, and here's the
challenge that we're wrestling with.

My clients would often come to me and say,
look, I know I need to be posting more.

I need to be doing more marketing, but
honestly, I've just got nothing left.

It's the end of the day,
it's the end of the week.

They're busy doing their work,
and they're just like, I should

be doing more of my own marketing
and I just can't keep up with it.

I can't do enough.

And so this week we're gonna
take a look at being bewildered

by your own shortcomings.

So if you're like most or
should I say all of my clients?

Then there's this angst that's inside
of you, and it's the internal struggle

of your powerful expertise wrestling
with the weakness of your ability to

articulate that expertise convincingly.

So there's this internal battle,
like I'm really good at what I do.

But externally I have a hard time
articulating that out to the market.

And so I know this not just from
witnessing this inside my clients, but I

know this from running my own business,
basically from looking in the mirror.

So let me confess by way of illustration,
here are two literal quotes that I've

pulled from call transcripts that
are transcripts of me working with.

One of my clients, so these are clients
that are paying me for my expertise.

I am helping them build their
core marketing foundation.

And this is the foundation we
touched on in the last week's issue.

So again, go check that out.

So here is a direct quote
from one of those transcripts.

This is me talking to a client, quote.

I'm in another community where I
paid to get someone else's help on

the very thing that I do, because
I know I can't do this on my own.

I can do it for everybody else,
but when it comes to my own thing.

I need outside help.

I legitimately said that to one
of my clients who's paying me

to help him do that very thing.

Here's a second one quote.

So here's the honest truth client.

Where you guys struggle with communicating
your business is the very same thing

I struggle with in my own business.

I help people do this all day, every day.

And who's the one person I don't have
the same core message map for yet?

It's me.

Which is ridiculous.

It's ridiculous.

That is literally in the transcript.

So what happens when your expertise
soars, but your articulation of it sucks?

Not being able to pour your own
core message foundation, I find

it quickly turns into this.

You start thinking maybe I'm not qualified
to own the house then if I can't pour the

foundation, you start that self-doubt.

Maybe I'm not qualified to own the
house and to combat that self-doubt.

I see people typically go one of two ways.

One, you double down on your expertise
'cause that's what you're good at, and

then you just hope your ideal clients
magically stumble through the doors.

Or two, you double down on your marketing
activity, this flurry of activity.

So you hire more expensive contractors
with more impressive pedigrees, or

you jump on the latest marketing
trends only quickly to flame out

that last like a day or maybe a week.

And so if you relate to any of that,
just take a deep breath, relax.

'cause I've got good news.

The better you are at what you do,
the worse you are at DIYing, your

own foundation, that core message
foundation, that's what I have found.

Because you suffer from the inevitable
Knows-Nose problem is what I call it.

And that is, you know, too much.

About your area of expertise
and your nose is too close, like

you're too down there in the weeds.

You're just well beyond
your actual client.

So you need an objective outsider,
someone who's far closer to your actual

customer than you can ever be Again.

Like you can never go back to
not knowing what you already

know, and so that's why I built.

The LUCID strategic sprint that I do
with my clients the way that I did.

It's usually two half days.

I don't even do the classic VIP day
'cause I want enough space where we can

push hard for three or 4 hours, take
the rest of the day off, come back and

push hard for another three to 4 hours.

It's intensive, it gets outside eyes on
your foundation because the first thing

we do when I'm working with somebody is to
nail down that foundational core message.

And just this week I did that.

And revealed it to the client,
and I saw the fireworks go off

in another founder's heart.

Once we uncovered that kind
of core message foundation,

here's what that founder said,

quote, that is exactly what we've
been trying to say in bits and pieces.

It's been in my heart, but I could
never articulate it like you just.

Next time we'll take a look
at from feeling like a second

job to feeling like a faucet.

So tune in for part five of the series

Win Number three,
something to think about.

All it takes for me is about
one Mastermind hot seat to

bring me back to this truth.

Rules only get you so far,
and what you need is wisdom.

Now wisdom is the hard earned, I
think lost art of discerning between

good and bad and all of life's
complicated situations, which certainly

includes running your own business.

What to take or leave from any hot seat,
at least for me, often requires wisdom.

I get lots and lots of great
advice, but that requires wisdom

to sift through, not rules.

Win # 4, something personal.

No matter what the problem
was, you had 10 ideas.

Steve chimed in.

He added this.

Your superpower to me at least,
was how many ideas you had

for somebody who got stuck.

Now, that was Steve giving me
feedback on his experience of me

from a mastermind group that I ran.

Now, I want you to contrast
that with my experience of me.

Sound a little bit like Austin
Bowers on the positive side.

I love ideas.

I've always considered myself
creative, even if my canvas

these days is mostly ideas.

For this, I think my mom is to blame.

Growing up, she fiercely rewarded.

Creativity is how I would put it.

For example, rain was a gift.

It was an outdoor kitchen for pie making.

It was not mud to be avoided.

So ideas?

Yeah, I'm an idea factory
and so you're welcome Steve.

The problem with idea factories is that
they create pollution and the very, that

very pollution that an idea factory like
mine creates, it threatens everything

the factory comes into contact with
and eventually the factory itself.

Let me pause real quick because
I can hear my dad right now.

He's been at work all day.

He's been managing school budgets bus
routes angry school board members,

and he's lying on his side in front
of our old humongous console TV

and he's watching the evening news.

This was a really big deal before
the internet 'cause it's how you

connected with the outside world.

Bubba.

Bubba, can you just stop the noise?

Pollution, heat, smile.

It was a mixture of a joke with
three espresso shots of serious.

He wanted to hear about the
world beyond the own world.

He had been consumed in that day, and he
wanted to hear that on the news over me,

tinkering on the piano in the next room.

Now back to me being a
walking idea factory and the

pollution that comes with it.

I've recently started building a
COO style AI agent to curb the smog.

Somewhere swimming in my
solopreneur consulting sea of ideas.

I need the ability to come
up for air and to reorient.

And so that's just a poetic way of me
reframing like, Hey bro get me back up

to speed before my next client call.

Because of all these ideas, in other
words, I'm building an agent who actually

confronts my weaknesses, calls me out,
and helps me navigate the dense landscape

of ideas that are scattered across notes
and transcripts and even my own memory.

It's wild, meta to be doing that.

And who knows, maybe I'll add
the ability for it to snap too.

You know that snap, like your
third grade teacher could fire off.

And they could refocus an entire
classroom of just wandering herd of

pupils just with an instant snap.

Maybe I'll see if the AI
agent can do that for me.

It's your turn.

What's one thing in your work you
keep trying to hold onto in your

head, but you probably shouldn't.

Until next time, keep
building a life giving brand.

Thanks for joining me for the
first YouTube issue of the 4 Wins.

And if you're spending more time, by
the way, managing your own operations

than serving your clients, it's
likely a problem that you and I could.

Alleviate with some ai.

So if you're feeling pulled away from
your real capacity, then let's chat.

In one conversation, we could
identify your roadblocks and determine

whether the right AI setup could
make things run smoothly for you.

So just head to my website and
book a time to chat with me.

Until next time, go and
build a life-giving brand.