3 assets that build trust before you sell
Brand scaffolding, clear positioning, and newsletters that drive real leads
Most people think demand starts when you send cold emails or run ads. But the best-performing outreach happens when people have seen you before—when they already have some context, recognition, or trust built in.
This week, we’re looking at the assets that do that early work for you: brand, positioning, and the email you’re probably underutilizing.
Today’s agenda:
🔧 How brand makes everything else effortless
🧭 The positioning guide for non-marketers
📬 Turn your newsletter into a lead engine
💼 Briefly: Founder habits, brain-first design & email strategy flaws
⏱️ Up & coming: Why identity is your next growth lever
🧠 For easier lead gen, build brand first
Many startups push off brand until later: after the product’s built, after you’ve got some traction.
But here’s what I’ve seen over and over: brand makes demand gen easier.
If people recognize you before you reach out, your emails land better, your ads get clicked more, and your content builds trust faster. That’s brand doing work before your funnel even starts.
👇 In this clip from my conversation on the FiredUp! podcast, I explain how brand becomes the scaffolding for everything else: cold outreach, PPC, SEO, partnerships.
🎒 What you’ll walk away with (from the full FiredUp! episode):
Why showing up early and consistently earns trust before you ever make an ask
How “vibe coding” makes your company recognizable, even when everyone’s using the same AI stack
Why most cold outreach falls flat (and how to fix it with a parallel message approach on LinkedIn + email)
What to shift in your GTM strategy as buyers lean more on AI agents and less on websites
🧩 Hate marketing? Start with positioning
For technical founders, marketing can feel like it’s packed with too much jargon, vague advice, and not much that actually moves the needle.
I get it. But even the most impressive product won’t move if people don’t get it right away. That’s where positioning comes in.
Positioning makes your value obvious to the right people, in the right way, and at the right time.
📌 How to get there:
Map real pain: Define your buyer by what they’re trying to solve, not just their title or industry.
Pass the “non-technical spouse” test: Write a UVP that a non-technical person can understand in 10 seconds.
Find the gaps: Know exactly how you're different from competitors, and state it clearly.
Don’t focus on features: Show how your product changes how something gets done—and what outcome that creates.
One and done: Choose one distribution channel (email, landing page, etc.) and make your message work there first.
💡 If marketing isn’t your thing, that’s fine. But positioning? You can’t outsource that. You’ve got to own it—and I’ll show you how.
✉️ Turn your newsletter into a sales channel
A lot of B2B newsletters tend to read like internal updates, packed with product launches, new hires, or webinar invites. These are built for clicks, rather than pipelines.
Done right, a newsletter becomes a high-leverage sales asset that builds trust, starts conversations, and drives leads.
🛠️ If you’re struggling to build a letter that converts, here’s how to turn it around:
Teach something useful: Every send should help your reader solve a problem, shortcut a task, or make a smarter decision this week.
Don’t sell: Share how you think, not just what you sell. That’s how you stand out and stay top of mind.
Build a repeatable format: Make it skimmable, consistent, and easy to ship. Format beats inspiration.
Write like a human: Your “From” line should be a person, your tone should sound like a peer, and readers should be able to reply.
Don’t waste a warm list with a transactional send. Your newsletter can be one of your best-performing channels if you treat it like a sales asset rather than a press release.
Briefly
📈 A five-year study revealed 10 habits that consistently separate successful founders from those who stall. The biggest difference? Discipline. From waking early and single-tasking to seeking feedback and reading to learn, the best rely on routines over talent.
🧬 What do faces, urgency timers, and progress bars have in common? They all hack the brain’s reward system. Great marketing today aligns with how the brain already wants to act, rather than seeking to persuade.
🛠️ Mimicking someone else’s email success is like buying a hammer because your neighbor built a house. Tactics only work when they serve a strategy. Before you test a trend, ask: what are we actually solving for? Insight is portable—execution isn’t.
🧠 As AI-generated content floods the web, Reddit’s doubling down on human context as a search advantage. With 40% of posts showing purchase intent, this platform is turning into a commercial signal engine. Founders: ignore Reddit at your own risk.
Up & Coming
Customers don’t just buy what you do, they buy what it says about them.
Identity marketing taps into that self-perception. When your message reflects who they want to be, loyalty follows.
A new piece from Social Media Examiner explores how underdog brands are using this approach to build durable, identity-driven growth.