What the most sampled drumbeat in music can teach us about self-promotion. This week: a template to help you ask for the opportunities you want and remix that ask in different places.
Last weekend I unlocked the Holy Grail. For the first time since my daughter was born 3.5 years ago, I was child-free for 18 hours.
Resisting the urge to strip off more wallpaper in my living room or deep clean the house, I sat on a sun lounger in my garden. It was 24 degrees. I grabbed a glass of prosecco, made myself a little grazing plate and did my best to actually relax.
Proof of the lesser spotted Lucy Werner relaxing
I popped on my Discover Weekly on Spotify which threw up some randomness including Dario G's Sunchyme, which led me down a nuerospicy rabbit hole scroll on sampling.
Quick pop quiz: What does N.W.A's "Straight Outta Compton", Prodigy "Firestarter" and Oasis "D’You Know What I Mean?" all have in common?
No cheating…
Answer: They all sample the same drum beat. The Amen break is recognised as the most sampled drum break of all time.
It’s a roughly six-second drum solo played by Gregory Coleman on The Winstons’ 1969 track Amen, Brother. It has since been sampled in thousands of tracks.
Guinness World Records recognises the track as the most sampled, specifically because of that solo
Same, same but different
What struck me the most was how many of those songs I recognized and had never identified as sharing the same element within it.
They spanned completely different genres and tempos. It blew my mind a little how different they all were but with this same thing.
It got me thinking about how as self-employed folks we often take advice from people who tell us we need to do it in this one way.
What we have in common
We have the same issue. We need to sell more of our thing.
How that presents in the world could be growing our audience, tweaking our sales page, working on our promotion.
If we listened to Alex Hormozi we might be told we need to sell high ticket, Gary Vee is going to tell us to make content, side hustler influencers are going to show us all the ways we can make passive income through a Canva PDF template or affiliates.
Take what is useful and leave the rest
I'm guilty as anyone in getting distracted from my own growth (of turning this paid newsletter membership into 1,000 paid readers with dreams of it becoming even bigger).
I have received unsolicited business coach advice left, right and centre. I don't charge enough. I need a higher tier. I should add a community element.
What I need to come back to is the life I want to lead and are the people telling me what to do walking a path similar to mine.
I’ve got three children aged nine and under, a cofounder of my kids who travels a lot for work, and Wednesdays reserved for the children. I need room for appointments, sick days, learning French and walking the dog.
The business needs to work around that life.
The advice I find myself repeating the most
Wherever you are on your business journey, you need to sell.
I do have one piece of hype advice that I think we all under utilize.
And that is, we don't ask for help enough. And I don't mean in a 'please share the thing' I'm selling way.
I mean in hyping ourselves.
How many of us wait until we are at the 11th hour of launch to ask to be interviewed in other people's podcasts, newsletters, press opportunities.
An easier way is to consistently build your hype by being front of mind. Growing your audience in a sustainable way.
Make the most of the time you do have for promotion that moves the dial.
Whilst I love getting press, it's a longer game and doesn't always translate to audience growth and sales (although of course, there are exceptions to the rule and sometimes it can).
The small business community is awesome. We want to champion each other but we often don't always know how to help.
Case in point, a reader invited me onto a podcast this week and was surprised I said yes, when actually I've been so overwhelmed by my to do list of late I've not been pitching.
It made me realize I need to ask more for what I need.
How can you Amen Break your ask?
Our six second drum beat is 'I would like to* speak on more podcasts / guest write for more newsletters / teach in other people communities / secure more public speaking / have my book featured in more book clubs '
Step one: *pick your one thing in the first instance.
Don't try and publicly ask multiple things as it gets confusing for the reader.
Step two: choose where to share your ask this week
Keep the core ask the same, but remix it for each place: a LinkedIn post, Instagram Stories, your newsletter or your email signature.
Step three: draft your ask.
Here's my my drumbeat for you to remix:
Coming up for paid readers:
The pitch I used to land four podcast interviews this week
A blank template to remix for your own pitch
Eight Hype opportunities, including a TEDx speaker call and one that landed me $200
