He told me to kill my darlings. Here's my answer.

This newsletter has one subscriber.

At least, when I started writing this post.

And I said so on LinkedIn this morning, and not long after, the one and only subscriber to that point left a comment under the post: "Know when to kill your darlings Raoul!"

Fair.

You've had five issues since July, and you're the only one who got them.

So this one is partly my answer to you.

The post came out of a count I'd been avoiding. As I sat down this week and wrote out where my work actually comes from.

The writing first. About an hour and a half a week goes into posts on LinkedIn, plus this newsletter every two or three weeks.

Clients that came from any of it: zero.

Then the rest. Every client I have came from a conversation with someone I already knew. The typical "referrals".

I have one of those roughly every other day, an hour on a call or over coffee.

Somewhere in that hour, someone mentions the thing that's been stuck for months. A few weeks later we're working on it.

So if I'm honest about the darlings, the writing is the obvious one to kill.

But sorry not sorry, I'm keeping it anyway. Haha.

Stopping would mean the only people who ever hear from me are the ones I already have coffee with, and that list doesn't grow by itself.

What changes is the question I ask of every post and every issue: did it start a conversation?

Until this morning the answer was no.

Your comment is the first one. So thank you, even if it was an argument for stopping.

The newsletter also needs readers before it can do anything.

I'm going to ask the people I talk to whether they want it.

It's an odd thing to ask at the end of a good conversation, and I'll probably feel a bit silly doing it.

One subscriber is sillier.

Most founders I talk to have the same split and have never counted it.

The hours and the budget go to marketing, while the clients come in through a referral, a former colleague, or the owner picking up the phone.

When that's the case, give the conversations the same attention you give the marketing.

Who you talk to, how often, and what happens after. Counting it takes ten minutes.

Write down your last ten clients, and next to each one, how they first heard of you.

Then look at where your hours went last month.

Where did your last ten clients actually come from?

You can answer by hitting reply. With one reader, I promise I'll read it.

Raoul

PS. as you can tell from the header image, while screenshotting my newsletter count I found out today another subscriber took the leap. Celebration time!