“You cannot do kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The First Sip
There are approximately 2,750 students enrolled in the Sanger Independent School District in Sanger, Texas.
Of those students, 43% are economically disadvantaged, while 3.6% are considered homeless.
And with today’s circumstances making things even more difficult on families of the district, staff members at Linda Tutt High School got together and launched their very own grocery store.
If you browse the shelves of the store, you’ll find all of the basic necessities, including toilet paper, meat, milk, and eggs. (As well as comfort foods like mac ‘n cheese and cookies!)
But this isn’t just any grocery store…
Students pay for their purchases by earning “points” from good grades, hard work, and acts of kindness.
Nobody who walks into the store – which has been made possible via a partnership with local charities – pays a dime.
The store is run completely by students, who are responsible for managing inventory, stocking shelves, and helping other students find what they need.
Here’s what student Preston Westbrook, one of the store’s managers, had to say about it:
“I’m here to make sure students get what they need. The store helped bring families’ spirits up during the pandemic, especially for people who lost family members. The students who come in are just so happy, they always have a smile on their face.”
The mission behind the school-run grocery store is two-fold.
First and foremost, they provide food for families in need.
But secondly, it teaches students the importance of going above and beyond – in the classroom and in life.
“We are a small school district but we always try to teach our kids the importance of giving back to the community,” principal Anthony Love says.
What an amazing value set to instill in kids from a young age!
1 Caffeinated Neurohack
If you’re anything like me, you spend dozens of hours per week sitting at your desk in your office.
While you might think you’re being ultra-productive, the fact that you’re sitting in the same place – hour after hour – is actually not very efficient from a mental perspective.
If I had to guess, you feel a twinge of restlessness from time to time. And you aren’t alone!
A recent study shows that 53% of workers regularly suffer from “cabin fever-like” feelings about their office environment.
And if you want to enhance productivity, stoke the flames of imagination, and reignite creativity inside of your brain, you need to switch things up.
More specifically, you need a periodic change of venue.
According to Kimberly Elsbach, a professor studying workplace psychology, “Staying inside, in the same location, is really detrimental to creative thinking. It’s also detrimental to doing that rumination that’s needed for ideas to percolate and gestate and allow a person to arrive at an ‘aha’ moment.”
Getting outside – or even switching rooms – can have a profoundly positive effect on a neurological level.
Doing so ignites the hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that’s involved in memory formation and spatial navigation, as well as the striatum, which is responsible for helping you evaluate your environment and process rewards.
When you switch up your work environment, activity levels in both of these areas increase AND synchronize. The result is something you can feel almost immediately.
So while I know it’s more difficult to change up your work environment given today’s circumstances, there are still plenty of options.
Whether it’s switching rooms in your house, working out of your car, or walking around your neighborhood while on a phone call, there are plenty of ways to stimulate your brain and make the most out of the time you have.
Marketing Psychology Quick Hit
Did you know that somewhere between 80% to 90% of people will read a “P.S.” if it’s included at the end of an email?
Outside of the subject line and first sentence, that makes it one of the most engaged-with elements of the entire message.
Why do postscripts work so well?
For one, they offer a visual advantage. All of the text within the body of an email sort of blends together, but the P.S. benefits from visual separation that compels the reader’s eyes to look.
Secondly, the postscript is deemed as contextually important. “Why else would he take the time to include a P.S.?” the recipient thinks.
My question to you is this: How often do you use P.S. in your marketing emails?
Don’t be embarrassed if your answer is “never.”
I see very few marketers – particularly in our space – leveraging this strategy. And that means there’s an opportunity for you to jump in and elevate your game.
There are at least five different ways you can use a P.S. in an email:
- To remind the reader of something important
- To present a specific CTA
- To establish a sense of urgency
- To provide additional/bonus information
- To share something unrelated, but important (like a testimonial or social proof).
Give it a try this week and see what you think.
Skeptical it will work? Run an A/B test where you test the difference between two emails: One with the P.S. and the other without.
And if you do run one of these tests, I’d love to hear about your results.
(Hint: I think you’ll get much better engagement with the postscript included.)
Do This First Thing Monday AM
At Advisorst, it’s our aim to provide you with simple frameworks and digital marketing resources you can use to 2X your business and add more value to your clients.
And while we teach a variety of concepts, the idea of having a strong digital presence is something we believe is foundational.
The problem is that so many advisors lack the sort of social media presence they need to be relevant in today’s marketplace.
And when I talk with advisors and ask them why they don’t do more with social media, it always comes back to time.
I hear some variation of:
I just don’t have the time to write content, post, engage with followers, etc…
And I get it!
But having a presence on social media doesn’t have to eat away at your day.
To prove this, I want you to try something tomorrow morning.
As soon as you plop down in your chair and scoot up to your desk, I want you to pull up a Google Doc or spreadsheet and write five quick posts for the social media platform of your choice.
(I think LinkedIn is where you’ll get the most bang for your buck, but it could be Facebook, Twitter, or some other platform where you have your most engaged audience.)
These posts don’t have to be long or magical. Just put some thoughts down, add a little value, and show your human side.
Then schedule one post to publish automatically each day this week using a tool like Buffer.
Bam! You’ve just written and published a week’s worth of social media content in less than an hour.
Remember…progress not perfection!
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Enjoy your Sunday,
Jeremiah
P.S. We just finalized the date for our upcoming Virtual FA Summit, which will take place on Wednesday, February 10, 2021. More details to come, but I wanted to put it on your radar. (Last year we had over 6,400 advisors show up!) Get your early bird spot here for extra bonuses just for our subscribers.
