Furlough Weekly - Emerge 🔐

WHAT MARKETERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE EMERGING PRODUCER ECONOMY.

A producer economy refers to content creators creating their own media brands. Effectively transitioning away from mainstream social media channels for content creation. While it gives creators more control, it also means losing leverage on social media. What can marketers do?

Creator partnerships:

With the autonomy that comes with owning a media brand, influencers and content creators are looking for more sustainable relationships with brands. To drive the most impact, marketers must negotiate deals that create value for both parties. This opens up opportunities for marketers to build long-term relationships.

Authentic and value-driven content:

Content creators are often at the mercy of their social media platform's algorithm whereas individual creator brands have more autonomy regarding content creation. Content creators who are independent tend to produce content that is authentic, high-quality, and driven by value. It leads to increased audience loyalty and retention, which marketers can leverage to increase conversions.

Marketers as Content Creators:

Producer economies let marketers take ownership of content production. It gives them greater control over production quality and messaging. Marketers must now find a balance between creating content with a promotional message and doing so in a crude, unsophisticated manner that seems more authentic. This allows brands to experiment early on.

IN THIS WEEK'S EDITION:

• The formula for guaranteed success.
• Just keep going...
• Like speed dating, but better.
• The solution to getting more inbound sales.
• Round up.

THE FORMULA FOR GUARANTEED SUCCESS.

Did you catch the newest segment from last weeks Kick Off session?

Introducing: Mindset with Mason!

Hosted by our one and only TikTokpreneur, Mason Kuhr.

Check out his formula for guaranteed success:

1: DESIRE + CONSISTENCY + APPLIED FAITH + GROWTH MINDSET = GUARANTEED SUCCESS.

2: Have a reward for achieving that goal.

Why?

We are as a species run like a computer program: Without something to look forward to once you have achieved your goal, you may end up suffering from burnout.

P.S. Mason will be back with mindset gems today at the Kick Off at 2pm EST!

JUST KEEP GOING

This week in the Startup Booster session we met with Youssef from Ensabill.

After the revolution in Lebanon in 2019 came a recession. Banks stopped giving money to depositors with over 150 billion stuck in banks due to corruption and poverty is at an all time high. Youssef and his partner saw an opportunity to solve some real world problems in their home region of the Middle East.

The mission of Ensabill is ultimately to help one another through a smart financial assistant on their app. They aim to link all of your bank accounts into one place to provide smart reports on how to improve your financial lifestyle with machine learning methods. Ensabill is an all-in-one personal financial app that helps you set and achieve your financial goals.

We are really inspired by what Ensabill brought to the table and the goals they have to improve financial literacy through smart insights.

From a business perspective:

• Potential for 9 million users in UAE and Saudi Arabia, but they only have about 100 current users.
• There are already a handful of well funded competitors with more expected to enter the market.
• They’re seeking 200k VC investments but currently are a bootstrap operation.

From a marketing perspective:

• They don’t know where their users are coming from.
• The path to monetization remains unclear.
• A low number of users makes it difficult to get good data.

Many questions remain, and I think a lot of startups can relate to what Ensabill is going through right now. Where you don’t have enough users to get good data to bring to VCs. You don’t have enough money to attract users. And when you’re in the early stages of development, maybe you don’t have enough features to retain your current users, or make it attractive enough to move to the premium version and monetize.

You just have to keep going.

If you have 100 customers, reach out to them, see what they like about your app or product, what do they want to see? What do they need? If applicable, why are they leaving the app? In doing this you’ll gain a better understanding of the people you’re building for, what they want, what they need, and how to deliver on that. During this process you’ll also get valuable audience insights, maybe you find your current users are skewing older or younger than you thought, and you can adjust your position accordingly.

LIKE SPEED DATING, BUT BETTER.

Have you ever been to a Rapid Remote Networking Session?

It’s basically speed dating but for professionals!

Last week Furlough held its first, and it was a HUGE success!

We opened 10 rooms for professionals to hop around, introduce themselves, and let others know what they’re looking for.

This event was so much fun that we’re going to be running it every other week.

So if you missed it last week, make sure to check out the #announcements channel for the next one.

Are you ready to become the best version of yourself?

We’ll be going over your biggest roadblocks right now as a digital entrepreneur and connecting you with the resources to move forward!

Join us at this week's Mastermind Session on Wednesday @ 2 pm (Hosted by our founder, Joe Casanova).

THE SOLUTION TO GETTING MORE INBOUND SALES.

According to Hubspot, inbound sales creates 54% more leads than outbound sales.

The main difference between inbound and outbound sales is: a client comes to you through marketing with inbound sales, and you reach out to the client with outbound sales.

This week the Furlough family learned about community member Jon’s cybersecurity business and provided suggestions on how he can increase inbound sales.

Jon’s current business model:

• 70% of business comes from outbound cold calling and 30% comes from inbound leads through the Business Network International
• Jon uses google maps to get phone numbers and reaches out to offer services
• His current close rate is 1 client per 15 cold calls and 2-3 warm leads.
• As his business increases, Jon will not have time for outbound sales and will need to gain clients through inbound sales.

What was Furlough’s solution?

• Increase educational material through 1-2 educational blog posts a month and establish yourself as an authority.
• Utilize email automations such as offering a free pdf guide on “7 Ways to Secure Your Business” to prospective and current clients
• Create a series of welcome emails to convert prospective clients to customers.
• Offer free workshops to show you are knowledgeable and videotape the sessions to add more content marketing to the mix
• Create empathy and connection with clients by using your own personal story such as “I was hacked and this is why I am so passionate about cybersecurity and spreading awareness about the issue”.
• Increase partnership connections so referrals and word of mouth become a new source to gain new clients.

These simple solutions can increase inbound sales which allows you to spend more time attending to other areas of your business and fulfilling client needs.

ROUND UP

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

TOOLS Have you tried this?

QUESTIONS The easiest way to learn code.

CAREER What's the difference between a sponsor and a mentor?

CONTENT What content marketers really do on a day to day basis.