Growth Letter #24
3 WAYS THIS LETTER CAN INSPIRE & HELP YOU GROW.
A marketing campaign with a bold mission
Featured Female Founder: Melanie Perkins and how Canva was born out of frustration
Actionable growth tip: Mission is not fluff. One thing even better than writing a mission (template below)
Grab your cuppa coffee (or tea… or water. Whatever you fancy!)
This is a 5-minute read. Every word was written with care, by a human who's keen on helping you grow.
NOTE: After running several tests, it seems that Mondays are my best days to send emails - when I got the highest open rates (against all industry benchmarks!).
I also tested monthly, weekly, and bi-weekly.
And the latest is what works best for me right now.
So, I'm back to Mondays, every two weeks and staying there for the foreseeable future!
May was an eventful month.
I hosted workshops, masterclasses, strategy calls, and strategy presentations.
It was also the month I got to meet all my GYMers in person for a branding photoshoot, which was such a highlight in May 🥰.
Last weekend I took a break from everything and travelled to the south of Portugal to meet a friend and to take the kids to a waterpark.
It was an incredible fun day for kids and grownups!
Looking forward to June (I'll be going to France and Italy - yay)!
Oh and did you realize we're almost mid-year? What???? 🤯
1. A MARKETING CAMPAIGN WITH A BOLD MISSION
“I refuse to wait 169 years for financial gender equality.”
This was the name of the campaign by Female Invest.
I've been following these 3 ladies (co-founders Anna, Cammila, and Emma) for a while and I love what they have created.
A membership model that offers women in 125 counties all the tools, knowledge, and resources they need to become financially literate.
They took to London's streets with their campaign in May and put a massive hourglass in the street.
It was a bold way to show that progress in financial gender equality is still painfully slow!
In just one day they got over 1000 signatures in the hourglass.
This bold move gave them what they were after:
Press and build more awareness around this topic!
THE LESSON IN THIS STORY
Female Invest is very mission-driven, but we should all be in business with a mission to make other people's lives better or easier, so clearly define what yours is because:
It will make your business journey a fun ride
It will make others want to follow you (customers, team, partners)
Examples:
A photographer: I'm on a mission to make every woman feel powerful and gorgeous in front of a camera.
A language coach: I'm on a mission to make language learning feel like you're not learning.
ONCE YOU HAVE CLEARED YOUR MISSION, WHAT COULD BE YOUR BOLD MOVE TO RAISE AWARENESS?
Bold move for a photographer: Partner with a makeup artist to launch a campaign where they stop women in the street and show them how incredibly powerful and gorgeous they are.
Bold move for a language coach: Creating a baking class to teach English (oh wait, one of my GYMers and now coachee is actually doing this! Check it out HERE)
2. FEATURED FEMALE FOUNDER: MELANIE PERKINS VISION-DRIVEN BUSINESS
“This is completely ridiculous.”
Melanie said after spending an entire semester at the University of Western Australia learning Photoshop.
“Why does this have to be so hard and complicated?
Why isn't there anything out there that's online and collaborative?”
From her frustration, an idea was born: Fusion Books (not Canva - not yet!).
At just 19 years old, Melanie Perkins left university and focused on resolving this problem.
This was the “mountain top” she decided to climb.
Fusion Books was created to provide an online platform for creating and publishing yearbooks.
The software was free, and they (Melanie and her partner) then monetized with schools paying for the printed copies of the yearbook only.
None of them knew a thing about software development, but that didn't stop them. They raised funds and got help.
They had a mountain to climb after all.
In the first year, 16 schools signed up.
By the end of their third year, they had 100 schools signed up.
By the end of their first year, they were expanding to New Zealand and France.
But even with all this growth, Melanie wasn't happy.
Because of her “crazy, big dream”, her mountain top, her vision was to “integrate the entire design ecosystem into one easy-to-use website accessible to the entire world.”
And one day she was at the right place at the right time and met Bill Tai, a legendary venture capitalist from Silicon Valley.
This one connection changed the whole trajectory of her business.
He invited her to SF and she got the opportunity to pitch him the idea.
He eventually agreed to invest in her idea, but he told her she needed a strong tech team.
She then met Lars Rasmussen, the co-founder of Google Maps, who immediately understood the potential of Melanie's vision and eventually helped her build the tech team.
Melanie got her first round of investment in 2012.
$1.6 million from investors
$1.4 million from the Australian government as they saw the potential of Melanie's vision (and what this could mean for Australia's economy)
The rest is history.
Melanie Perkins and her boyfriend Cliff Obrecht in her mother's living room | Perth, Australia | 2010. Source: cnbc.com
Melanie is a visionary leader.
According to an article in Maven, “She's known for her ability to articulate a clear vision for the company and her ability to inspire and motivate employees to work towards achieving that vision.”
Did you know that Canva was founded by a woman?
And did you know that Melanie is amongst the ONLY 2% of female CEOs of venture-backed companies?
2 freaking percent!!!
(No wonder Female Invest is so fiercely committed to resolve THIS problem!)
THE GROWTH LESSON YOU CAN LEARN FROM MELANIE:
Be clear on your vision and don't lose sight of it (your mountain top)
Learn how to communicate your vision enthusiastically: partners and teams will follow!
Talk to others about it - you never know when you're going to meet the right person to guide you to that mountaintop
I'm starting this series hugely inspired by another founder, Alice.
She wrote this comment under one of my LinkedIn posts which I can't stop thinking about.
She's so right.
90% of non-fiction books I read give examples of males.
And males who are known for being terrible leaders who mistreat their employees.
Everyone keeps banging on about Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, and honestly - I'm so over it!
I want to see new stories.
Inspiring stories.
From other women.
And from good, kind leaders (male, female, non-binary, transexual, or from any minority).
Because representation MATTERS.
And because this is my whole mission - to show others what's possible.
3. MISSION IS NOT FLUFF. BUT HERE'S ONE THING EVEN BETTER THAN WRITING A MISSION (TEMPLATE BELOW)
Note how the 2 examples in this growth letter were mission and vision-driven?
So many founders disregard this as fluff.
Well, it's not.
Every time I ask founders what's your long-term vision or their why - 95% of the time I get an: “ermmmm”.
And these are the same founders who are frustrated because their business is not growing. Or feeling down because they lost their mojo.
Of course, your business is not growing.
Because you're not clear on where you're going!
Of course you lost your mojo.
You're lacking a mission that's bigger than making money or your ego.
So, here's an actionable growth tip for you: Instead of writing your mission, write a manifesto and put it on your website (and go back to it when you're feeling down).
And you can steal my template below:
I want to help __________ (share who you want to help and why).
I believe in ___________ (share why you want to do this better and why this is important to you).
I'm doing this because ___________ (and here's your opportunity to talk about your mission! Why are you doing what you're doing? And how can you inspire other to join?).
Was this helpful? Hit reply and let me know.
I love getting your answers.
💁♀️ WHEN YOU'RE READY, THIS IS HOW I CAN HELP
🤙 BOOK A STRATEGY CALL
Do you even need this? YES, but only if you:
Are you not happy with the way things are going in your business and/or career
You're confused about what the next step in your business should be
You're not sure where to go from where you are
You know you're not attracting the right customers (if people are bargaining your prices - that's a big red flag)
Your business is not growing
Was it a yes to any of this? Then I “prescribe” you a strategy call.
After the payment, I'll ask you to fill out out a short questionnaire to understand how I can support you.
We'll then hop on a 90-minutes Zoom call to create a strategy and plan together.
🏆 GROUP COACHING
If you want to learn more, you can check it HERE.
Who is it for?
Small business owners who already have a business and a good foundation in place, but are looking for marketing knowledge and accountability to keep making progress and improve their results.
The spots are limited.
💪 THE G.Y.M.
Join the next G.Y.M. cohort: September 16th to December 2nd.
This is a 12-week marketing program that will help you build a marketing strategy, plan, and build a sales funnel.
Who's it for?
Small business owners who are just getting started with online business! By small business owners, I mean:
YOU, if still working for an employer, but secretly want to quit and have your business
YOU, if you have started your business recently and are feeling completely lost and overwhelmed with marketing
YOU, if you have been freelancing or have an offline business but want to move away from a time-for-money business model and need a new strategy for this
GYMers get a ton of personalized feedback and support from me, so the spots are very limited.
The best way to secure yours is by jumping on the waitlist HERE.
GYM "Waitlisters" will get a special discount and bonus.
