Hey there,

I have a few updates for you this week and I'm particularly excited about the "created" section.

1. On my mind: Recession & Hiring

We’ve heard the R-word for weeks, maybe months now. News headlines have hinted at a recession and the destruction that would ensue. After reading “Trust Me I’m Lying” years ago, I’ve taken online news with a grain of salt. They’re incentivized to fear-monger because that’s what gets clicks and what gets clicked drives advertising revenue.

However, listening to the All In podcast, watching layoffs happen, and soaring inflation rates (though not as bad as other countries) it’s clear the market is cooling down and we should expect something like a recession to happen. I’m not one to ever say I’m 100% certain about something happening, but I believe the paranoid survive and it doesn't hurt to prepare for the worst case scenario.

It will be my first recession as a working professional and a business owner so I'm hoping to learn from those who’ve seen this play out before.

As a person, I’m concerned about the coming economic challenges and people who have lost and will lose their jobs. I won’t go into the details of all the things that have a high probability of happening (I'm not a macroeconomist) but we're entering some really difficult times.

As a business owner, I remind myself that businesses like Airbnb, Microsoft, Netflix and Disney were founded during recessions and I’m focused on three things:

1. Make sure the business doesn’t run out of money (aka rule #1 of business ownership).
2. Take care of the team. Communicate with them and let them know they don't need to worry about their job security, but we all have a role to play in getting through this tough economic period.
3. Recruit some talent. Know anyone who’d be a good fit for these roles?

If you’re hiring, now’s a great time to pick up talented folks. Some might be at their current company and feeling uneasy or have low confidence in their leadership team. They might be rethinking where they want to work.

Those who have been laid off are looking for work. It’s an employers market now. Reminder that getting laid off is not a reflection of a person’s work ethic, intelligence, or talent.

At the end of the day, the way to get through a recession is to be smart with your money, work smarter, and/or work harder.

Feel free to respond to this email to connect if:

• You’re a fellow business owner and want to chat with another person going through the journey alongside you.
• You’re looking for resources for personal finances. I love geeking out about this stuff.
• You’re looking for a new job. It doesn’t matter if you’re employed or not, I’d like to help.

2. Business update

We had a summer slowdown with people traveling which, as a new full-time business owner, spooked me a little bit. But we’re seeing more sales pipeline come through with some logos I’d be really excited to work with.

We just published a new case study with GatherContent. I’m really proud of the team for generating such strong results for our client. We're working on another one to be published next month!

As mentioned earlier, we’re hiring. We’re looking for an SEO Content Strategist to help us scale up our client-facing team. This person would get to work with multiple B2B software companies working directly with VPs and directors of marketing. They’ll grow and learn faster than they would working at a larger company.

Got a request: Who's a marketing leader (CMOs, VPs, directors) at a B2B software company that you want to learn from? We're hosting an even in October and would love to get nominations of people to teach a workshop.

3. Created

Things I’ve produced:

🎙 Podcast: interview with Michele Don Durbin, SVP of Marketing at Evernote, who shares how Evernote adapted and relaunched to stay relevant.

⚙️ Article: I published a piece about working on the business versus in the business. This applies, even if you're not a business owner. The main idea is how do you find ways to work smarter, not harder. I share how I did that.

📺 Office Hours: We know about capturing existing demand (SEO, content marketing, paid marketing, etc). Now Rand Fishkin from Sparktoro will teach how he and his team create demand. Join us next week for Office Hours.

🐦 Automations: I posted a tweet about an automation flow I created and it got some good reactions. Is this something you’d like to hear more about? (I write about it a bit in the blog post above)

4. Consumed

Things I’m enjoying:

📚 Reading: I’m finishing up the Three Body Problem trilogy with Death’s End by Cixin Liu. I’m also working through Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits, learning about small business finance and accounting.

🎧 Listening: Muni Long’s new EP, Public Displays of Affection Too, is 🔥🔥🔥

👀 Watching: Maybe it’s due to the challenges of Roe v Wade in the US right now, but we started watching The Handmaid’s Tale and it’s way too creepy.

Cheers,
David

P.S. Check out my reading list or blog to see what I'm up to and connect with me on Twitter.

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