The TRY HARDER Newsletter by Jerred Moon: Edition 008

Hey Risers,

Welcome to EDITION 008 of the TRY HARDER Newsletter.

Today: crafting better headlines, a fun warm-up I steal from a Sting song, and a lesson from Van Gogh.

Save it for later. Read it now. But don’t ignore this one!!
And if you like it, share it with a friend 🙏🏻.

Enjoy!

In this Edition:

Building the Business

Crafting Better Headlines

Building the Human

Roxanne’s Warmup

Try Harder

Going Beyond Van Gogh’s Ear

Building the Business:

Crafting Better Headlines 📝

Headlines are EVERYTHING in the digital aspects of your business, your blog, your emails, your ads, your social posts. If the headline doesn’t land, nothing under it matters.

Back in the day, I could spend a lot of time writing and researching an article I was going to post on my blog. Then, when I would finish, I was so tired of the project that the headline got 30 seconds of thought. Bad move.

Think about it this way: a Michelin-starred chef cooked your steak and potatoes. You wouldn’t slap it on a paper plate and hand it through the drive-thru window. The headline is the plating.

However, I think people get bombarded with content, so we have learned to decipher what we deem worth our attention in under a second. That is EXACTLY what a headline does. It triggers the “is this worth my time?” filter.

I will not break each part down with a lengthy explanation. Instead, I’ll give you a framework you can use today.

The Headline Framework

Pick an angle for the same product or service. Different angles speak to different people.

Here are example angles for selling apples 🍎:

Health: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away, here’s the science.”
Money: “Why a bag of apples is cheaper (and better) than a bottle of vitamins.”
Time: “The 30-second snack that beats every pre-packaged option.”
Status: “What top-performing CEOs eat between meetings.”
Curiosity: “The fruit that doctors quietly tell their own kids to eat.”

Do you see how I am selling the same thing, an apple, but the angle changes everything?

If I pitch a millionaire on eating an apple with how much money it will save them, they may not care. But if I pitch them on saving time, I may have a winner.

Takeaway:

Write 5 headlines for every piece of content.
Pick the angle that matches the audience.
Stop spending 99% of your time on the body and 1% on the headline.

Building the Human:

Roxanne’s Warmup 🎶

I picked this up in a certification years ago, and I still use it occasionally when I train groups of people today. It makes the warm-up fun and really gets the blood pumping!

Here’s how it works. Pull up the song Roxanne by The Police.

Then do jumping jacks until they say Roxanne.
Every time Roxanne is said, you have to do a burpee.
You can mix up jumping jacks with high knees, running in place, or butt kicks.
But EVERY TIME Roxanne is said, you HAVE to do a burpee.

Spoiler: “Roxanne” is said A LOT in that song. You’ll get a full warm-up and a small panic attack in one shot. Try it.

Try Harder:

Going Beyond Van Gogh’s Ear 🎨

You know Van Gogh. Yes, the guy who painted vibrant landscapes and chopped off his own ear.

Before that? He was failing as a salesman, failing as a preacher, and failing as basically anything else he tried.

Then he picked up painting, relatively late in life.

Despite selling only a handful of paintings in his lifetime and constantly battling severe mental health issues, Vincent kept grinding. Over a decade, he produced about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings. Most of these came in the last two years of his life. Talk about a productivity spike!

Tired? Discouraged? Feeling a bit misunderstood? Van Gogh could have thrown in the towel many times. He didn’t.

He painted like a man possessed, driven by a need to express and create, regardless of whether anyone was buying.

Pick up your metaphorical brush and paint your way through whatever mess you’re in.

Because if a struggling, earless painter can leave a mark on the world that we still talk about 130+ years later, you can probably get through this week.

Try harder,