Fighting Brand Rot

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Hey honeys and hustlers,

August is Black Business Month, a month dedicated to celebrating the legacy and future of Black businesses. This month, I’ll be sharing a ton of tactical advice to help you grow your business. I noticed that I largely talk about the creative side of creative entrepreneurship, so I wanted to visit the other end of the spectrum. This year, we’ve seen that betting on Black means betting on brilliance. The Met Gala raised $31M, Sinners passed $200M at the global box office, and Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter Tour is predicted to earn $2.4B. I can’t promise you millions of dollars in growth as a result of reading this newsletter, but I can try my best to help you build a business you’re proud of that supports the life you want to live. Today’s article is about how to impress your #1 player, aka your clients and customers.

When every creator or business in your category is running the same playbook, consumers stop noticing. The tactics blur together. What once felt personalized now feels expected. And what’s expected rarely surprises, delights, or earns loyalty. The reality is that templates are useful until they become a crutch. I’ve never been shy to innovate with messaging or try new things, but what I’ve learned after almost 9 years in business is this simple, unsexy truth - the best business strategy is prioritizing human moments. Some things can be automated, but this can't. Automations in your business should exist to make space for better human experiences, not replace them.

Adding a 15-minute call to my newsletter welcome message was one of the best things I ever did. Attending podcasting and industry events was another. Talk to people about what you're doing and building. I used to be afraid of even posting a poll on my Instagram stories. Now, I post polls all the time, on any platform. Not everything needs to be a highly orchestrated retention strategy. Sometimes, you can just make a customer feel seen. No big-scale upsell approach, no complex customer journey mapping—just a human moment that makes people want to come back (and tell others about it).

Brand is not just what you say, it’s what you do. So if you’re looking for ways to add consistent, memorable moments to your creative or business workflow, try these tips:

• If you can't deliver on something at the moment, try overdelivering when the moment does come. No expensive CRM. No fancy retention software. No VIP status. Just make an effort to notice, remember, and make a moment out of your community or client’s pain point.

• Reply to customers like a human. No templated, AI-written nonsense. Just real, genuine replies written in your voice and personality.

• Surprise someone with an unexpected upgrade or freebie. It doesn’t have to be a full giveaway of your most expensive service or product—just something that feels like a thoughtful extra. It can be random, or it could be part of an onboarding/welcome email sequence.

• Remember details about your customers. Did someone have an issue last time? Acknowledge it. Does someone always ask about the same thing? Offer a small bonus or lower-tier product/service they’d enjoy and benefit from.

• Follow up like a friend, not a cold-email marketer. Instead of “I haven’t heard from you in a while” emails, try “Hey, I wanted to follow up on our last conversation and see if there were any questions I could answer for you?”

• Make a first purchase feel like an experience, not a transaction. The best brands make customers feel like insiders from day one. A small, personalized touch in first-order (i.e., a handwritten note, a bonus sample, an extended free trial) goes a long way.

• Fix the actual experience before throwing discounts at the problem. If customers aren’t coming or returning, it’s rarely because you didn’t offer enough discounts. Figure out why people aren’t buying or booking first.

Using technology (even boring tech like note-taking apps, databases, and spreadsheets) to track conversations and basic customer data will help you learn more about your customers. When I first started my business, I used a basic Google Sheets doc to track when people booked with me, how much I quoted them, how much they paid if they booked, and what service they requested. This helped me see my most popular service, the average cost per service, and my conversion rate (inquiries vs. bookings). I was able to quickly learn that I needed to find a way to book higher-paying gigs and convert more inquiries to bookings. I was at a whopping 25% conversion rate - not good friends. I tried a lot of things, but just because “best practices” work for others, doesn’t mean they’ll work for you. Your brand, your products and services, and, most importantly, your customers are unique. Treat them that way.

P.S. On Thursday, I’ll dive a little deeper into customer analytics and how you can leverage them to grow your business.