The Commission Code for Success

Email: Your Most Valuable Marketing Asset

• The Commission Code For Success from Sims Training and Consulting, LLC • Season 1 • Episode 12

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Your email list might be the most undervalued asset in your marketing toolkit. While social platforms can remove your account without warning or explanation, your email list remains firmly in your control. This powerful insight kicks off our fascinating conversation with John Clements, owner of Cedar Press Proofreading and host of Content Creators Unite podcast.

John brings a unique perspective to content creation, shaped partly by his master's degree in biblical studies. This background taught him the power of clear communication and persuasive writing - skills he now applies to helping businesses create content that genuinely serves readers rather than manipulating them. His approach centers on a simple but profound principle: content that benefits your reader ultimately benefits your business.

We explore the persistent myth that "email newsletters are dead," with John sharing compelling evidence to the contrary. His own newsletters achieve open rates between 8-50%, and he highlights LinkedIn's newsletter feature as particularly effective since the platform automatically invites your connections to subscribe. This creates multiple touchpoints with your audience through a professional channel you might already be using.

The conversation turns practical as John shares immediately actionable writing tips anyone can implement. Breaking up text into shorter paragraphs dramatically improves readability in business communications. Taking time to check spelling and grammar demonstrates care for your audience. And in an era where AI-generated content floods the internet, John explains why authenticity matters: "If I perceive you didn't care enough about your content to write or edit it well, why should I be bothered to reading it?"

Perhaps most refreshing is John's perspective on accessibility. Using simpler language isn't "talking down" to your audience - it's respecting their time and attention. As he aptly puts it, "No one's sitting down in front of the fireplace in their jammies to read your blog post." The best business content delivers value quickly and clearly rather than showcasing vocabulary.

Visit morrisims.com to learn more about growing your business while creating more time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. What marketing assets are you building that truly belong to you?

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Speaker 1:

Your email list is pretty much the only asset you own marketing asset you own that you actually have control over, because Facebook could deactivate your account tomorrow for absolutely no reason. Youtube could do the same thing. Linkedin could kick you off for absolutely no reason.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Commission Code Podcast. We're here to help you overcome the challenges that most of us face in our business. From time to time, you know things like feeling like you're on a plateau and you just can't seem to grow your business. Or maybe feeling overwhelmed, just trying to make ends meet and yet it seems like you're always working. Or maybe you've done quite well for a while, but now nothing seems to be working anymore. Well, we want to help you solve those problems and many more. Our objective is to provide you with practical solutions so you can grow your business and have more time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Speaker 2:

My name is Morris Sims and I'm going to be your host for this show. I've spent years okay, decades really in the corporate world teaching business owners how to increase their revenue and use professional sales processes and run their business more effectively and efficiently. I started my own consulting and training business about seven years ago, I guess, and I'm helping my clients do just exactly that Get more revenue, increase their revenue and have more time to enjoy the fruits of their labor. But I got to tell you I'm having more fun than ever helping people build successful businesses. I'm having more fun than ever, helping people build successful businesses. So, with all that said, let's get on with today's episode of the Commission Code for your Success.

Speaker 2:

John Clements is our guest today on the Commission Code for your Success podcast and we're really excited about having John with us here. John is the owner and operator of Cedar Press Proofreading and, rather than me mess up his background and his bio, I'm going to let John tell us a little bit about himself. John, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here. Tell us a little bit about what you do and how you help your clients.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, thanks for having me on. I'm excited to talk with you today. I do a lot of things. They all center on content creation. So every business needs to market, every business needs to get the word out about who they are and what they do and what services they offer.

Speaker 1:

So my roles include editing and writing. So I help my clients with that. So if they need, for example, like I was working this morning on a newsletter ad I have one client who goes out and gets sponsors and they say, oh okay, we want to feature this product. And they give them notes or sometimes a script, and it's usually not very good. So I have to come in and, you know, make it sound like the owner of the company, make it sound conversational, but still also try to, you know, make it sound like the owner of the company, make it sound conversational, but still also try to, you know, promote the product that's for sale. So that's one example of just one of the many things that I do.

Speaker 1:

I also help companies just with basic editing. I also help them with writing blog posts or newsletters. I've even ghostwritten a book here this year. So anything that has to do with writing, that's my editing and writing hat, and then I also have a podcast. So the podcast I have is called Content Creators Unite. That's where I try to grab people from, you know, my space or similar spaces and get them to come in and share their secrets with my audience. Because, again, I feel like this is a win-win kind of thing. I get to learn, you know, my audience gets to learn, my guests gets free advertising and we hopefully put more, better content out in the world. So that's really the umbrella of what I do Written content, editing, writing, podcasting. It's all under the guise of creating content and helping businesses and entrepreneurs market themselves better.

Speaker 2:

Excellent, excellent. That sounds pretty straightforward. Tell us, johnny, is there some little known fact about you that you could share with us? Kind of give us an insight into who you are and how you got into this maybe or something.

Speaker 1:

Well there's, so I've got a lot of interesting facts about this is like picking one is the hardest. I think the one I'll go with, um, since we briefly talked about it before we hit record is I actually have a master's degree in biblical studies. So I did go to seminary. Um, I went to the protestant kind. So I'm actually married, it's I'm not like a catholic priest or anything but uh. So, yeah, I, I studied uh Bible. I can, you know, translate Greek and Hebrew. I know how to you know, create and deliver a sermon. I know about church polity, all that kind of stuff. Never used it vocationally, but I've, of course, you know, been active in my church for the better part of my adult life. Yeah, so that's one thing that a lot of people don't know is my educational background.

Speaker 2:

Oh wow, that's impressive. I would think that with that kind of study, that you've read a lot and consequently you know how to write a lot.

Speaker 1:

I do. I have read a lot and I've written a lot, because you have to write lots of papers to get a master's degree and, yeah, I do think that that helps me, especially like I was just thinking about this the fact that I know how to prepare and deliver a sermon. That's honestly. Often you're trying to influence people or you're trying to help people come to a certain point of view and like now that I write advertisements for a client, that totally comes in handy, or even a blog post trying to get and keep people's attention. Like that's all you know. Those are all transferable skills from being a public speaker and you know giving sermons and speeches.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the other benefit I can see to your background, john, is your mindset today about your clientele in the business that you do. When you're writing something, you're writing it for the betterment of the client, but also for the reader as well, right, I mean, is that your focus?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, ultimately, anything that is written needs to be for the benefit of the reader. Otherwise, like, what's the point to be for the benefit of the reader? Otherwise, like, what's the point? So if we benefit the reader, then you are benefiting the client as well, because they're now doing the thing the client wants them to do. Yeah, but I am pretty passionate about quality content, like. I'll give you an example. I can't remember the stat, but some absurd percentage of the internet is now AI generated.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it's just.

Speaker 1:

That just hurts my heart, you know, because most people don't know how to use AI to write or create good content. They just tell it, hey, give me a 500 word blog post on cats and then, whatever it spits out, they just okay, good, it's on my website now and that doesn't help anyone. It turns me off personally and it just, you know, doesn't help anyone do anything. It just it just fills a server somewhere and that's not. That's not what the that's not the world that I want to live in. So, yeah, any way, any way that I can come alongside of a client and help them create quality content that that answers a question, that solves a need, that entertains whatever it might be Like. It may sound silly, but I feel like I've done some good in the world when I do that.

Speaker 2:

No, I think you have. I think that's exactly kind of where I was going, because there are so many people that are out there that write stuff and I think probably our AI stuff might fall in the heading of this as well but they write stuff and they write it with the mindset of I want to get somebody else to do something that they may not want to do. In other words, I want to manipulate people, and I don't. I don't see that, nor do I hear that in what you do or in your voice, and that makes me happy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I'm not real into manipulation. Um, now, you know, guiding, influencing, sure, um arguing in the in the traditional sense, like oh yeah, absolutely. But I'm, yeah, you know, just want to like. I'm not into just trying to like brute force my way into into someone's mind I?

Speaker 2:

I, years ago, wrote a book on influence and persuasion, and that's kind of the way I defined it is you're trying to help people, you have influence with people. You don't have influence on people, you have influence with them. You're trying to help them get what they want, and that, to me, is a noble thing to do versus well, let me see what I can do to push or pull people into doing something that maybe or maybe not be really good for them. So, anyway, I think that's pretty cool. John, where do you start with somebody? If I were to come to you and say, gee, john, I'm trying to run this business and I want to get more people to engage with me in the process of possibly buying my product or my service, where do you start with somebody like that? That's not. Don't have a real system in place today.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I suppose it depends on a number of factors, but so, like for your, for this example, let's just say this person they want to get their product or service in front of more people, and it doesn't have to be that it could be some other reason why they're wanting to create content. I would say you need to think about where do your potential customers live and what are they already reading or viewing, because if you are trying to, uh, market a product that maybe younger people would gravitate toward and you want to write, you know, a linkedin newsletter, not a lot of young people are probably on linkedin, but they might be over on tiktok, so maybe it would be better if you looked into tiktok videos or something of that nature. So number one is where you're do I have to dance, dance?

Speaker 2:

Do I have to dance if I go on TikTok you?

Speaker 1:

personally, morris, absolutely. Oh geez Me. I'm actually the world's worst dancer, so that would be bad if I did it.

Speaker 2:

But I'm right there with you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so yeah, knowing what you're trying to achieve is the first goal. And then knowing who are the people you want to influence and where do they live and what do they already consume, that would be the second goal. And then let's say, you answer those two questions and go okay, well, I know, for my niche, for my customers, you know, maybe an email newsletter is the way to go and I'm like, okay, well, we can help you write that. Or maybe it's well, I want to do a series of blog posts because I want to be able to pull social media posts from that content, or I want to be able to push people to a YouTube video. You know, whatever the case might be, it's really just thinking through all those questions and saying, ok, what's the right delivery mechanism for what you're trying to do and who you're trying to reach? And then let's, once you answer that question, then we can say, ok, now, now we can help.

Speaker 2:

John, just something struck me. You mentioned newsletters. I've read a couple of things and again, you can't believe everything you read online nowadays, that's for sure. But I've read a couple of things where folks are saying, gee, newsletters are dead. Nobody reads newsletters anymore because they see them and they just immediately click past them or delete them and move on. What's your feeling on that? What's your thinking?

Speaker 1:

I don't think newsletters are dead. I have several. I have an email newsletter that I use and I get pretty good response rates. I mean, sometimes they're as low as 8% or 9% open rates, but sometimes they're as high as 50% or higher, so that kind of depends on the subject, but they do still get read and they do still get click-throughs. So, no, they're not dead.

Speaker 1:

Linkedin is another good newsletter opportunity, because if you do a newsletter on LinkedIn, first of all, only like 3% of people even publish regularly on LinkedIn, so fewer of those write newsletters. So you've automatically got a bit of a leg up. And then with LinkedIn, especially if you create a newsletter, anyone who connects with you gets automatically invited to subscribe to your newsletter. And when you post a new edition of your newsletter, everyone who is subscribed to it gets an email notification. They get a note in LinkedIn as well, so you're going to get a better response with that also.

Speaker 1:

And then the final thing I'll say about newsletters is this is a key point is your email list is pretty much the only asset you own marketing asset you own that you actually have control over, because Facebook could deactivate your account tomorrow for absolutely no reason. Youtube could do the same thing. Linkedin could kick you off for absolutely no reason, and now all that foundation you built on someone else's property is now gone. But if you can develop an email list and newsletters are often part of that that you get to take with you wherever you go. So I don't like the idea of a of a closed mindset to think like, oh I, newsletters are dead. I feel like that's. I feel like someone's maybe pushing something or trying to get you to buy something. If they say that I'll be honest.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I would think so. That makes perfect sense. It really does. And I think you know I love the LinkedIn idea. That's one I had never thought of.

Speaker 2:

But if my audience is on LinkedIn ie I run a business-to-business kind of a thing and you know there might be some good there that would be a thing don't know that. That thing that's going to hit my feed that says hey, there's a newsletter. I, I don't see any of those because I'm not subscribed to any of them. So all of a sudden I see one of those. It's going to grab my interest much more than the 100 million posts of hey, look at sam, he's done so well, he's our top this, that or the other. And I had this meeting with these people and how great it was.

Speaker 2:

And you know the stuff on LinkedIn has just gotten to be kind of almost Facebook, facebook ish. So I'm, I'm, I don't know, I don't, I don't put a whole lot of interest in it, but yet it's still a great platform to touch people who are in business because we go there for for all sorts of other reasons, for networking and the like. So I'm going to get in there and I'm going to see some of this stuff and newsletters sound like it pops up pretty good, but what do you think about social posts on things like LinkedIn and and facebook and instagram and all the rest of that? What? What sort of uh I don't know tips or ideas do you have for folks that that want to do something on social?

Speaker 1:

or should we just ignore social altogether? No, no, no, I think they're so useful. I still post here. I think it's's interesting. You said that, uh, that you know your LinkedIn experience is not all that great anymore, because I feel the same way. Uh, in fact, I've been less active on LinkedIn lately because I've just kind of grown tired of of those kinds of posts.

Speaker 1:

There's there's the whoa look at me, look at how cool I am posts, yep. There's the um, the post about how you, you should be doing x, because if you're not doing x, you're a complete loser, and I hate those posts with a passion, yeah, um. And then all the posts about ai. Ai is wonderful, ai stinks. Here's how you tell something. Ai, you're not like, oh gosh, I'm just so over it, yeah. So what I would say, though, is here's, here's my, here's my point.

Speaker 1:

There's a, a guy that I interviewed on my podcast.

Speaker 1:

His name is john garing.

Speaker 1:

He's a voiceover artist and podcaster, and I seek out his posts because they provide value to me and because they're they're, uh, the tone is always one of positivity and a growth mindset, and it's like this, this shining beacon in a sea of mediocrity and complaining, and, you know, copycatism, and so, like, my point is like, if you can create those kind of posts and you're going to have people like me going oh my gosh, morris actually writes posts that, like, I enjoy reading and they're valuable and that I can learn from, I am definitely going to keep following this guy because you know this is this is just not happening anywhere else.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so yeah, if you can again go back to earlier conversation and focus on how am I helping my reader, how am I helping them learn something, get better at something, think about something in a new way, and how am I bringing hope and positivity and joy and encouragement to them. Social media posts you may not ever go viral because you know viral posts are usually none of those things, but you are going to reach people who need your help and you're going to grow a small and loyal audience and, honestly, small and loyal is way better than viral oh, yeah, it just is absolutely no doubt about that.

Speaker 2:

That's for sure. That for sure. I think that's a great point, because I'm forever telling my clients look, facebook and LinkedIn and all the rest of them. This is not just to be your electronic billboard. This is not where you go and place your latest ad. This is not where you go and say, hey look, if you do this by less than such a time, we're going to give you a 10% discount. All that kind of stuff. I don't know about you, but I just don't even stop and read it anymore. I don't even look at it. I don't care. You might have the I don't know. I just I hate it as an electronic billboard kind of an idea.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, even like, I think, my last newsletter that I sent on LinkedIn. It was an ad in nature. I was trying to get people to sign up. I'm actually creating a course about how to write a blog and how to get unstuck and conquer writer's block and how do you outline the thing. All these things, these things. But instead of just saying, hey, sign up to buy my course, thanks. You know. I said, well, let me actually lead with value, and I gave you know, four tips about how to write better or whatever it was. So, even if you don't click on the button and sign up to you know, be on the waiting list, it's fine, because you can still get value from that post. And I mean for me personally. I feel like if I read that post that someone else had written, I'd say, oh, okay, they're trying to sell me a thing, okay, cool, well, that's fine. But they also gave me something free before they even asked for whatever it was they were asking for.

Speaker 1:

Like all right, I can respect that you know Like I appreciate that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, I agree wholeheartedly. And let's not ever forget in my opinion, let's not ever forget that we're all in sales and it is a noble profession as well, because without somebody out there selling something, our economy goes to. You know, we're in a handbasket real fast. So sales is a good thing and no, I agree with you completely. Sales is a good thing and no, I agree with you completely. I think every I don't know four or five, six or eight times you post something. Having something on there to buy or to sell is not a bad thing at all. That's a good thing. But the majority of what I post needs to be a value add, and I love the idea of adding value and then saying, oh, by the way, if you'd like to learn more, click here. Adding value and then saying, oh, by the way, if you'd like to learn more, click here. That really, I mean. I'm sitting here thinking I'm going to use that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's just going to work. Yeah, I feel like it's a much better way. It's slower, it's probably slower growth, but you know, I want to be able to sleep at night, I want to feel good about myself and that's the way that I can do that.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. No doubt about it, john. Let's go back to that email idea that you mentioned earlier, because I agree with you my email list is the most important marketing asset. I have Lead magnets. That's another one that I've seen recently. Somebody was posting a bunch of stuff and said, oh, nobody clicks for lead magnets anymore. It's gone, it's a thing of the past. You got to come up with something else to build your email list. How do you recommend your clients go about building that email list, that really big, valuable thing in their business?

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, first of all, I'm not an email expert, but I did have one on my show, so that episode is forthcoming. So you can pop over there, content Creators Unite and be on the lookout for that episode in the future and you can learn from an expert instead of just me, about the leading with value. If I can give you something of value and if I can frame it in a way that makes it clear that this is going to solve one of your problems, then I think you're going to have people who are interested in that. And so call the lead mag, call it whatever you want, like, give value away, and people who need to have that particular problem solved, they're going to be interested in it.

Speaker 1:

Now, yes, it takes a little bit of finesse to write the marketing and sales copy to convince them, perhaps, of that value, but I would, you know, I Again, I just go back to any time I hear someone say X is dead. I just think to myself this is a marketer who's trying to sell me on some tool that they have or some process they have, and I'm just not sure that I agree with it yeah, no, I I'm with you on that one.

Speaker 2:

100, no doubt about it. I just know that I've got I think I've got like 600 people on my email list right now and I think that's going to start going down for a number of reasons. Anyway, I'm working to build mine and that's something I've really got to think about myself, because it is the most important marketing asset that we own today. And you can see it I don't know about you, I can see it from my own behavior. When I get something on email, I will, even though I've got a filter that takes stuff that I don't know or doesn't normally come into my world. It takes it and sticks it over in a corner and says you can look at that today before you go home, um, and you don't have to look at that right now in the middle of your day and interrupt you with all that you're doing.

Speaker 2:

And I love that it's called Sanebox S-A-N-E-B-O-X. I absolutely love it because at the end of the day I can look through 50 emails in golly two, three minutes and be done with it and trash them all or keep two or three of them to look at in more detail, and it saves me all kinds of time, yet still with email. I'm looking at every one of them and it just to me seems to be a wonderful place to go. That's for sure. John, in the last few minutes that we've got together here, do you have any do's and don'ts kind of stuff, anything practical things that our audience needs to be thinking about when they're writing?

Speaker 1:

yeah, you know I've got a couple that are really simple to implement and really helpful. Uh, so these are things you can do, like starting immediately and I'll go through in no particular order. Um, the the biggest one. Well, we've already talked about the biggest one, which is make sure that everything you write or produce or whatever is geared toward your reader or listener or watcher, to make sure you're addressing their needs. So that's obviously the biggest one. But let me just give you a real quick thing anyone can do, and that's breaking up your text. So I don't know what you're like, morris, but sometimes I get emails from people and it's a giant wall of text and my response every single time is well, I guess I'm never reading that email. I don't like. It's one thing to open up a novel and sit down and read like that's, that's one experience and that's you know, I enjoy that experience. But to open up my phone or my computer and get an email that's just 1000 words smushed together. I'm just not, that's just not for me.

Speaker 2:

I got to tell you though you and I both have a writer that we have a lot of faith in, who, in all the translations wound up without a lot of punctuation and with a lot of run-on sentences, and by George, when you're reading scripture in front of a group or in front of a congregation. You got to put your own punctuation in there, because St Paul didn't know how to do that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, he's like the master of run-on sentences and it's even worse than the Greek. In fact, english translations and I assume this is true for other languages they'll actually go in and break up his long sentences into shorter sentences for that reason. But if you look at the Greek, you're like this takes up the entire page, like what are you doing, paul?

Speaker 2:

Oh, I tell you what the Catholic Bible they didn't do, that. It's still these long, huge run-on sentences and I get the honor of lecturing fairly often and you look at that and you're preparing. You think, well, I need to put a comma here, there and stop that and start anew. It's just amazing. But yes, sir, I agree with you wholeheartedly. You see that, and on the outset, especially in business, it's like you really don't want to get anything really across to me, do you? Because this isn't going to work.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and honestly, like just every two or three sentences, just hit, just add in a paragraph break, like your high school english teacher is not going to come to your house, they're not going to scold you for not, you know, following the proper essay format. That's not what this is. You just, you can just do it and no one will say anything. It's amazing what you can do if you just do it. Yeah, so that's a great tip is just put, you know, just break up those long paragraphs into shorter paragraphs. Break up those long paragraphs into shorter paragraphs. Break up those long sentences into shorter sentences. It's not hard and you're going to help your reader out so much by doing that. And then I'll give maybe one more quick thing you can do, and this is again. It's going to sound silly, but it can make a big difference.

Speaker 1:

If you don't know how to spell a word, you can look it up in the dictionary. It's okay, I give you permission. I'm a professional editor. I look things up in the dictionary all the time because I don't know how to spell all the words. English is crazy, right, we have more guidelines than rules, right? And so, especially in business context, it's not like someone's not going to buy your product if you misspell a word. But they're going to notice. And if you have, you know, four or five words misspelled in your business email and maybe your grammar is a little bit off, it's just not going to land as well as it could land. And it's very easy to just take a few moments to read through what you're going to send or publish and just ask yourself questions like do I know how to spell all these words? Do I need to look any of them up? Is there some grammar mistake that I'm missing? What is grammarly telling me to do Right?

Speaker 1:

And it's not about perfection, it's just about taking that time to really look at what you're doing before you hit send or publish um so really even just those two things, and if you need help with that again, I'm an editor, that's that's my job I can help you with that and I will find all, almost all the mistakes 99 mistakes I'll find. Uh, but just doing those two things, I think you'll notice that your copy, your writing, will be better and your readers will appreciate you more.

Speaker 2:

It makes perfect sense, Sean, because whether or not we're supposed to, you see stuff like that that's not written well or that has a lot of misspellings in it, and you know the first one or two, you can kind of blow off and say, oh OK, you know, the guy did this rapidly and she didn't look at it over, and it's a common mistake. I do it too. I make mistakes. I'm nowhere near perfect, but when it's consistent throughout the document and you see all this and it keeps happening, I don't know about you, but I immediately judge that as a lack of caring and a lack of really being concerned about your output, and I'm not sure I want to do business with somebody like that. So I think it is very important to have that well done. So I'm with you there 100%.

Speaker 1:

And I think you really hit the nail on the head when you said it shows a lack of care. And this would apply to also if I, if I can tell, if I know you just asked ai to generate something because, again, if I can tell, or if I perceive that you didn't care enough about your own content to either edit it well or write it yourself, then why should I be bothered to read it?

Speaker 2:

There you go.

Speaker 1:

You know that's something to think about as you're trying to be. It's not about, you know, not being more efficient or whatever, or being more authentic or anything, but it's just about, like, do you project that sense of care? Do I sense that you actually care about what you're doing enough to so that I'll engage with you?

Speaker 2:

John. Last question that came crashing through my head here real quick, when you're composing things and writing stuff. I use Kajabi to do my email marketing and I love it because I can do all kinds of fun stuff with it. Is that a good idea, or is an email marketing, newsletter or email whatever you're sending out? Is it worthwhile to add the images and the pictures and the stuff in there to break things up, or is that just kind of a distraction that screws up everything?

Speaker 1:

Oh, what a great question For. So for a blog post Specifically, definitely add images, add videos, add whatever you can add. For an email. I, for my list, I generally don't add images because I'm a writer and an editor and people are ideally wanting to learn about writing and editing. So images don't always fit with that, so I usually don't put them in.

Speaker 1:

Also, it makes it longer. I don't want a long email, yeah, but breaking up the text is still super important. I absolutely keep my paragraphs and sentences super short. So, honestly, what I do with my emails a lot of the time is I'll take a blog post that I've written and I'll truncate it, I'll make it even shorter than it already is and, you know, maybe bulletize things or whatever, just to make it digestible, you know, in 60 seconds or a minute or two, because I feel like that's what people probably are doing, like that's what I do when I read my email. I want to be able to scan through it quickly, get the relevant information and go about my day. So I format my emails like that.

Speaker 2:

That makes sense to me. I had the pleasure of leading a group of training designers for quite a number of years in New York and I had this one guy who he loved to write and use, you know, $15 words and these sentences that looked, they were hard for me to read and I said, guys. To my whole team I said, look, we need to be writing on maybe a fifth to sixth grade level. Not that we're talking down to anybody, but rather, you know, you're not writing for PhD students here, You're writing for the general public, In our case, folks who are trying to learn how to sell and sell insurance and be leaders. You don't need to make it sound. You're not doing yourself any good to make it more complicated than it has to be, Would you agree?

Speaker 1:

I would 100% agree. That's something that I, you know, try to work on my own writing as well, so you know.

Speaker 1:

to go back to the beginning of the conversation, I have a master's degree in biblical studies, so I know lots of $10 words and I, you know, I read a lot, so I learn lots of big words, but I don't, I very rarely use them for that point Like this is not. You know, I'm not trying to show people how smart I am, because it doesn't matter. I'm trying to convey information in highly educated. I feel like if I can use smaller words and keep what I'm saying a little simpler, it's just doing them a favor because it's just easier. It's just easier to read and the things that we produce for business marketing. You know, no one's sitting down in front of the fireplace in their jammies to read your blog post. It's not happening.

Speaker 2:

It's not something with my cigar and my glass of wine.

Speaker 1:

No, I mean maybe someone, maybe someone does, but they need help, you know. So instead, just you know, just know that right, Just give them the information they need quickly and efficiently and do it well, and then they can decide to go from there. I think that's a much more, you know, honoring thing to do.

Speaker 2:

Makes perfect sense. John, thank you so much for being with us today on the Commission Code Podcast. It's been a great conversation. I really do appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

Hey, thank you so much, Morris. I have had a good time.

Speaker 2:

Well, that does it for this episode of the Commission Code Podcast. This is the place where we want to help you find the commission code to success in your business. Remember, go to morrissimscom for more information and in the meantime, hey, have a great week, get out there and meet somebody new, and we'll see you again next time right here on the Commission Code. Best wishes. I'm Morris Sims.