The numbers surprised me. The lesson didn’t.
Before summer started, I decided to run a small experiment: could I raise my visibility without pulling focus from the clients I already serve?
My current clients need my attention undivided, not split across chasing new leads. But going quiet for months at a time is bad for business too. I wanted to hold the middle: visible enough to keep new work coming in, without shortchanging the people already on my roster.
Instead of narrowing my focus to a few segmented audiences, I reengaged my entire email list. The plan was simple. One email a week, between Memorial Day and Labor Day. I missed a couple of weeks, but I came close.
Every email followed the same standard. Brief, focused on one idea, and built around something worth your time. Nothing padded out to fill space, and no ask of any kind, not even a line encouraging you to visit my website. I wanted to hand over something useful every time, not angle for anything in return. The goal was trust: that when you saw my name in your inbox, you’d know opening it was worth the three minutes it would take to read it.
I chose this over showing up more on social media, which is also something I preach. You cannot be everywhere and do all of it well. Pick the one or two places you can show up with real skill, and let the rest go.
The results caught me off guard, which is a little embarrassing given how often I tell other people to expect exactly this.
My audience has grown, and so has my business. These emails did not just get read. They got forwarded, well beyond my own list, to people who had never signed up for anything from me. Past clients have reengaged, and new leads have come in nearly every week, most of which have turned into actual work. Some people cannot even point to exactly how they found me. Only that I was on their radar, and something I wrote stayed with them.
I am keeping the series going. I have a template now, a running list of topics, and each email takes me 20 to 30 minutes to write. Beyond the business results, I feel more connected to this community than I have in some time.
This exercise restored a creativity in my own work I did not realize I had lost. It pushed me to stay connected more broadly instead of retreating into safer channels. And it proved something I already knew: communication that is relational, value-driven, and human—that actively avoids an ask—can feel like it works against your goals, as though it is too slow or too soft to grow anything. It is not. It is the only approach that builds an audience and keeps it engaged over time.
Go disrupt something,
Christen
