Hey folks!

Happy Friday! How's your bracket looking? Claude filled out mine and it's still kinda meh. A couple things on my mind...

1. Referrals 101: We're trying to generate more referrals for one of my CMO clients right now, so I have been revisiting the fundamentals of referrals. I think I read this in something from John Herman at some point, but here is the list of steps (in order):

• Track Referrals: If you don't know how many referrals or who's referring, you can't know if you're improving. Start there with weekly tracking.
• Close The Loop: For every referral you get currently - even if it's just 1 or 2 - thank them immediately, and update them at major milestones, 90% of people don't do this.
• Make It Easier: Remove friction from your current referrers as much as possible.
• Deepen Relationships: Stay top of mind with all your referrers, but go deep with the most important and touch base regularly.
• Get More Referrers: *only* once you've done the previous 4, then go get more. Otherwise you're just filling a leaky bucket.

2. Espresso Machine: Chandler and I upgraded our espresso setup last week, and I wanted to find a machine that is durable and high quality, but paying for laziness (auto everything) and not nerd level. After a lot of chats with Claude, I landed on the Gaggia. What sold me was a) it is Italian-made and b) they say you buy this machine once and literally don't need one for 20+ years. So far so good.

3. The Best Book On Amazon (No Bias): If you haven't seen already - my 14yo son Everett just released his first book this week! He spent all of last summer/fall - literally hundreds of hours on a digital typewriter - and then he on his own got it published on Amazon! I'm super proud. If you're a fantasy fan or just want to support a kid's creative energy - check it out here! Also - I can't believe he published his book before I published mine. Dang. Kids these days.

That's it for this week!

Best,

Blake