9 years ago, I was one of the early freelance members of a local company called Growth Tribe and did a talk on their behalf about Sales Hacks. (Seriously, watch the presentation here!) Twotone was a mere 5 months old & it was a pretty wild time getting my company rolling! I'm very grateful to have been a part of Growth Tribe back then and have followed them ever since.
Well, recently, David Arnoux took the helm as CEO and shared a mega post of wisdom about growth, marketing & business . Not only did it inspire this week's title but I also opted to pick my favorite quips for this week's intro:
🌧️ "It's a gloomy period; you're not alone, sales cycles 2x longer, deals 2x smaller"
🌱 "Over-nurture existing customers. Easier to make business and impact from existing clients than perpetually chasing Net New
🆕 Net New? Cherish every lead, email, MQL. They're people with true pains and JTBD, not just numbers. Remind yourself this
📈 Got problems? Sales solves (almost) everything
💰 Paid channels = exploding costs (even with real-time bidding)
🤳 Is organic reach dead-ish on all social media platforms?
💻 SEO never dies (even though we announce it’s death every 6 months)
📧 Email marketing never dies (Lindy Effect)
🙇🏻 Stop changing strat/tactics every 6 months coz it’s not paying off yet. You’re not giving them enough time to perform
📝 Consistently create content that’s authentic & not too polished (real). this drastically counter the GenAI content wave. Go punk or go home
🤝 In-person channels making a huge comeback, massive appetite
💬 Channels I’m excited about (communities, substacks, founder-led content, livestreams for b2c, physical events, offline marketing)
🗓️ Long-termism wins
👩🏻💻 Deep work = a competitive advantage
🧠 Basic human psychology still and always applies. We are driven by fear + hope + comfort
🏪 Convenience decides almost everything your clients/prospects do- People’s attention spans are not dying (long form content never did so good), you’re just bad at captivating it
📊 The pareto principle (80/20 power law) is a fractal law = also a 64/4 rule: 4% gets you 64% of results and so forth. Find that 4%
🧮 Most founders, marketers, product owners (bit less) and commercial people are still not financially literate enough beyond CAC and CLTV (margins, ebitda, contributions to overhead, capex, etc etc)
🤖 GenAI is not just hype, you just don't get it
💡 The higher you go the less you know. Can't run a business if you don’t spend time in the trenches/details and even more time talking to customers (weekly)
❤️🔥 What a time to be alive
Whew! And that's an excerpt! I hope you found that as thought-provoking as me!
with appreciation,
Jon
Upcoming Events
Save the Date! Twotone Turns 10 | Nov. 29!
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August
- 🇳🇱 24 Raam at Off The Map
- 🇳🇱 24 Venlo Vice City BMX Comp
- 🇫🇷 24-31 Further
- 🇳🇱 31 Best of Marnix BMX Comp
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September
- 🇨🇿 5-8 Bohemian Border Bash Camp
- 🇳🇱 8 Women's 100 at WS6
- 🇳🇱 15 Velocio Ride Series Amsterdam
- 🇪🇸 20-22 Sea Otter Girona
- 🇳🇱 27 Dox Under The Tracks
Bikes
Rigs of the 2024 Silk Road Mountain Race
Jenny Tough reflects on her SRMR '21 Win
Jenny Tough
Apparently the Silk Road nostalgia didn't just hit me! Jenny's newsletter is always worth a read and this one is no different!
From €75 per month to a top salary: women's cycling is moving forward
Rutger Overstegen
"Thanks to increasing popularity and growing media attention, the women's peloton is making headway in the sports world. The riders had to come from far." Lots to be stoked about regarding this year's Tour de Femmes!
Ideas
Hopefulness Is the Warrior Emotion
Maybe the most inspiring link included in here in a while. I, for one, needed this reminder!
Drew McManus
Your day (week? month? year?) will impove if you take a moment to watch or read the letter.
"Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like, Valerio, such as reading to your little boy, or showing him a thing you love, or singing him a song, or putting on his shoes, keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time, we come to find that it is so." – Nick Cave
Nº86 Negronis with Nord With Nicky Reardon
I've been impressed with James & his company Fohr since fohrever and this interview caught my eye especially because of the quote below. Nicky's "You before I” idea is key!
“You don’t build community unless you can appeal to somebody who doesn’t know who you are yet” – Nicky Reardon on Negroni's with Nord
Wired's article about how wireless shifting can be hacked.
Its a paywall so here's the subreddit chatter & Cycling Weekly article with the scoop.
Friends
Answering the call! Steven Barrow, Creative Director at Studio INFMS!
Off The Map Bike Shop & RAAMWERK Team Up for a Maastricht Social Ride
I saw the heads up about this event on 24 August with our friend Cyril's new shop Off The Map in RAAMWERK's newsletter. There is another one pending at Repack in Utrecht on Sept 18th too.
Cicli Bonanno Futomaki Disc – Bold Will Hold
spencer harding
My friend Alex at Hunt Wheels wrote about his Bonanno Futomaki on the Radavist. Learn more about Nico Bonanno's approach to the new Futomaki Disc ICR on his website.
Radness
8000WATT x BERGAMONT
Hell yeah! #carryshitolympics meets Immer Großes Blatt! "Julien Ted Riganti is a designer, content creator, cyclist, and the face behind 8000watt. He has designed this special edition E-Cargoville LJ in the typical 8000watt colors: neon yellow and black. The design was realized by Studio Coat in Berlin. The result is a very personal transport solution for Julien in the streets of Berlin and an e-cargo bike that really stands out." More info: https://www.bergamont.com/e-cargovill... Design: https://www.8000watt.com/ Paint job: https://studio-coat.de/
Thank you very much for reading!
