And I am now job hunting..., working a full time job, helping my family as often as often as I can while investing/building a business. I have been in the allys and backroads for the majority of this 10 year journey of what I want to do in business. In the last 3-4 I have honed in on a niche - the 'local niche'. I know some say to niche down, but I am unable to do so. So, If I go local I know I need to be lateral. My chief aim is helping businesses crank out more cash, more free time, and less stress through email reactivation and automation. ‐-----‐‐-----‐‐-----‐‐-----‐‐-----‐‐-----‐‐-----‐‐----- For those that do not know... I have grown a local restaurant community to over 4.5k, a Facebook page to 3.7k and an email list to almost 2k. But now... I am currently starting from ground zero because my family is currently looking to move to North Eastern Tennesseee while also caring for a little one, job hunting, working, and business building. ‐‐-----‐‐-----‐‐-----‐‐-----‐‐-----‐‐-----‐‐-----‐‐----- I am passionate about helping the local community and so I have decided to put together a local marketplace for the community impacted by hurricane Helene in North Eastern Tennesssee. Each vendor will be able to sell 10 types of products without additional transaction fees and if they want to sell more items.. there will be a small monthly fee to help cover the cost of maintenance, upkeep, and site costs. This website will also serve as a central hub and story to help me build a story while serving a community impacted by hurricane Helene. It will be another organic way to represent what I am doing to build a list, engage, and earn a full time income. My outreach machine is a combination of cold emailing and organic through this website. I also have the ability to run an ad that I can crank out about $.40 per subscriber in the local area.

As many of you know I am a Substack writer. I really enjoy it. However, My The Executive Edge Newsletter is not for everyone. Seeing I love talking and writing about Leadership and strategy I opened a new newsletter that is more for non-Federal vendor companies. I would invite you to read the newsletter and if you like it and want to read more then subscribe. This is a free publication. There are two newsletter published at this point. Please don't feel pressured to read it or subscribe. Only if you want some of the best Leadership and strategy content that I can provide you. THis is not Johnny come lately as I kicked him out of the club. This is more than academic though I am a recovering professor, this is applied and what really works for today. Here is the link to the latest edition. Link: https://bit.ly/47Z5GSp. Good reading my friends.

Hey fellow APES... I landed a sweet client with a high/priority project. While it's good news for me :), the bad news is that it's going to impact my presence in APES for a little while. Unfortunately, i'm going to postpone this week's strategy all and Q&A. Thank you for your understanding. Steve

When you create barriers like sign up forms on websites you are increasing your chances of not getting someone to join you in your funnel. Things like get my FREE PDF on how to tackle xyz vs be part of the community are 2 different things. Whether you are a coach, a consultant, a media person, a market-teer, a wizard, a warlock, or an ape. We all need to find a need and fullfill it. Creating meaningful conversations with the people that need your service is a win-win. Another mentor and many others have said it before - The fasest path to cash is having more conversations. The model of creating and building a community is a bunch of mini conversations that may lead to your inbox. What we call inbound marketing. It is a different medium. Attracting the right people and delivering value is the most important thing. More business conversations comes later. Also, how many touchpoints does a SKool group + an email list bring?

You do not even know what you will miss if you are not there. 💥💢