Welcome to 2022.

How has it been treating you so far? Have you been building momentum? Have you taken your first L of the year yet? Have you taken any massive W's?

Because it's been full steam ahead here in Furlough.

In the "new year - new me" fashion, we're going to be making some HUGE changes around here.

Over the next few weeks, we'll be rolling out some new features to make your experience here at Furlough even better.

Is there anything you would like to see specifically?

Let us know!

We're always open to suggestions...

In this week's issue: 

• Exactly What You Should Build Out In 2022 For A Great Year
• Taking Your Startup Beyond Its Infancy
• Why Radical Transparency Will Set Your Business Apart
• We're Looking For Suggestions From You...
• What Is Web 3 And Why Should You Care?
• Last Week's Best Bits

💎 Join Furlough on Discord 💎

Exactly What You Should Build Out In 2022 For A Great Year

Do you know what’s going to propel your marketing career forward in 2022?

It’s systems.

Systems are defined processes which streamline workflow and take away doubt.

They can be broken down into the following:

Key activities that drive your business:

1. Create a list of deliverables you offer
2. Break down each deliverable into a list of tasks
3. Assign an amount of time estimated (or measured) for each task
4. Create a checklist which outlines the entire process from start to finish.

Internal operations:

Create a list of key initiatives that will drive your business forward.

It's a good idea to break these down into your larger 1 - 5 year goals. You can then reverse engineer these into smaller deliverables which will build up to those goals. 

Client facing operations:

There are several customer-facing macro stages in the process that fit together as a system. Each stage may involve several activities, recurring campaigns, and support technologies.

Develop processes which address each part of the client journey:

1. Outreach
2. Onboarding
3. Reporting
4. Building & retaining client relationship

Once you've build these out, review and tweak them overtime to get the best results. 

If building processes are a goal of yours, share it in our goals channel.
 

Taking Your Startup Beyond Its Infancy

If you haven't caught on yet, we absolutely love startups of all shapes and sizes.  And this last week we stumbled onto a completely hidden gem.

SlayerAI is an advanced AI copywriting tool that predicts the overall engagement of your headlines.

This is a potential game changer for all types of industries.

But what do they really do?

Imagine a timeline where an AI was able to tell you how effective your copy was before sending it. Because that's what SlayerAI can do.

But in classic Furlough fashion, we uncovered some of their deepest challenges after analyzing their strengths and weaknesses.

From a business standpoint:
 

• Their product is a *potential* winner
• But they're current website doesn't communicate the value behind their product
• And their current pricing structure doesn't reflect the value they provide

From a marketing standpoint:
 

• They need to improve their messaging and hone in on their target audience
• Improve their current customer acquisition strategy to onboard more users
• Develop their primary customer personas

There were a few more things to note, but SlayerAI is still in it's infancy (1 month since launch).

It's an exciting and scary step for most startups because you're still learning about the capabilities of your product.

But this is why growth through collaboration can be such a powerful tool.
 

In This weeks Startup Booster Session, we're going to be diving into Denck Innovations (an innovative bathroom solution for all).

Join the #Furlounge this Tuesday @2pm for some high-level marketing insights!

If you're a brand looking to get your startup boosted, then send a message to one of the community managers in the Furlough discord to join the waitlist (Spots are LIMITED).

Why Radical Transparency Will Set Your Business Apart

First, let's get to some of last week's awesome announcements:

1. Furlough is now an official partner of the r/entrepreneur subreddit!

We're giving a huge shoutout and thank you to our sales extraordinaire, Gensen for facilitating this partnership. 

With approx. 1.1M subscribers, we're excited to welcome each and every one of their members into Furlough. 

2. New Collab Rooms!

You guys have been taking full advantage of the collab rooms. We're opening up more so you can participate in even more collaboration with members! 

Now onto some key mastermind highlights:

Radical transparency: In other words, sharing what's really going on. Radical transparency is a cocktail of honesty and openness. It’s telling your employees the good news and the bad news. It’s not trying to hide anything. It’s refraining from putting a political spin on company news. It’s trusting your employees to handle information. It’s telling it how it is.

That requires courage, good communication skills, and a willingness to then engage in the conversations, discussions and debates that will inevitably result.

Why do it? Because it builds trust, loyalty, engagement and a wider cultural thread of open and honest communication that runs through the whole business - thinking, decision-making and action.

Automating customer service: We all know that 20% of your customers give you 80% of your problems. An issue many businesses face is scaling whilst providing adequate support. This is where automation comes in. 

Let's explore some options...

1. Live Chat: Ideal for monitoring conversations, this yields a high engagement rate from the customer side. 

2. Chat Bots: Perfect for handling enquiries outside hours as a supporting role to live chat. We recommend ManyChat. 

3. Knowledge Base: For customers who are self starters. Check out Klaviyo's Academy for inspiration. 

4. CRM Software: Great for analysing calls, emails and meetings to improve customer service. Take a look at Hubspot if you're interested in exploring this avenue. 

We're Looking For Suggestions From You...

As much as we help other brands, during this week's brand audit session we took the time to help ourselves.

If you haven't already, take the time out of your week to really set yourself up for success in 2022.

You'll thank us later!

Furloughs Goals for 2022:

1. Grow the community
2. Improve the current flow for startups joining the community
3. Improve the current flow for brands joining the community

One of the things we've also been nailing down is our brand personas.

Something that we've noticed after identifying them is the importance of mapping out your customer journeys.

If you have multiple personas (like us), each journey looks different.

Each customer has different wants, needs and desires.

The way they interact with your brand is dependent on how you support them.

We've really been diving deep into how we can make Furlough the best possible community out there, and these new features are going to bring us to a whole new level.

So if you're excited, or if you've got some suggestions feel free to let us know!

This week's Brand Audit Session, we're going to be joined by a special guest.
Join the #Furlounge this Thursday @2pm for some high-level marketing insights!

If you're a brand looking to get your 2022 action plan, then send a message to one of the community managers in the Furlough discord to join the waitlist (Spots are LIMITED).

What Is Web 3 And Why Should You Care?

Are you overwhelmed by the huge learning curve of web 3? Well you're in the right place. In last week's Feature Friday, we got the lowdown from Furlough's very own founder, Joe Casanova. 

So what exactly Is Web 3?

Web 3 is going to facilitate a huge transfer of assets. 

Digital assets to be precise. 

In Web 2 your assets were owned by platforms such as Facebook and Instagram (big tech) , however soon they won't have same the monopoly they once did. 

Basically there will be a new era of the world wide web that incorporates decentralisation through the blockchain. 

What's the difference between an NFT and a token. 

Simply put, 
NFT = Digital Asset
Token = Currency

Why will NFTs be such a major part of business going forward?

You might be thinking they are only appealing on the basis that they are considered art. However there are many other ways businesses can utilise them, such as:

• Crowdsourcing and fundraising
• Rewarding early supporters
• Granting access to exclusive experiences e.g. lifetime access
• Pre Selling tickets to events
• Providing gaming perks such as loot boxes

This brings us onto the elusive DAO...

Find out all you need to know about DAOs and take a look into how Furlough is going to create their own DAO for the community by clicking here.

Meme wars: If You Laugh You Lose  

Get ready to experience this weeks best bits from our community:

CONTENT-MARKETING: The Ultimate List of 320 Powerful Words to Use in Your Headlines
EMAIL-MARKETING: 50+ Email Marketing Statistics You Should Know in 2022
SEO: A Curated List of Best Marketing and SEO Tools

Have a great week and we hope to see you in our connect and collab session at 10AM EST!