Hey friends,
I'm writing this from a train.
Today I'm travelling to WMF in Bologna, a marketing and tech event founded by Cosmano Lombardo, who, funny enough, grew up 100 meters from my parents' home in Calabria.
Monasterace is a small village on the Ionian Sea, and Cosmano & I used to hang out a lot when we were kids.
Then we kinda lost connection, and he reached out to me - funny enough - because he saw me on LinkedIn to invite me for a speaking engagement at WMF 2026.
Before that, I stop by Bologna Social Hub to record a podcast episode with Andrea from Sales Buster.
I have been following Andrea for some time - he is a bright student who's in love with sales.
He is running a podcast production called Sales Busters - which gives insights about sales and how to improve your sales skills in Italy.
All of this with a packed calendar - last night I finished working late.
I will be working tomorrow and Sunday too. (writing this Friday, 26th June)
And someone could ask me, fairly: why bother?
Why are you spending money and travelling while so busy?
Because this is how it actually works.
Generating content, putting yourself out there, speaking to people, engaging and giving away your knowledge for free is the best thing I have ever done for my business.
Almost every good conversation I have starts with content.
A post someone read.
A newsletter that landed in their inbox.
A podcast they listened to on a walk.
People show up to my calls already warm.
They've read my stuff for weeks, sometimes months.
By the time we talk, they're not asking who I am. They're asking when we can start.
I have 56% win rate for this reason and only.
That doesn't happen by accident or because I'm lucky.
It happens because the talk, the daily LinkedIn grind, the 180+ newsletters sent, the networking chats I keep doing on Friday afternoon - it all compounds.
That's the part most people skip.
If you want to start a company, a consultancy, or whatever you wish to build, you need to build an audience at the same time.
You're going to be told to pick one.
That's a mistake. Both things go in parallel.
Build your product/service, and at the same time build the audience.
Serve them with great content, for free.
Give them fresh ideas, tell your story.
Tell them the mistakes you made so they can avoid them, and celebrate the successes, too.
They post for a bit. They write two or three things.
Nothing happens - no replies, no deals, a few likes if they're lucky.
So they stop.
And they tell themselves content doesn't work for them.
It works. They just gave up before it had a chance to.
Content is not a campaign you run once. It's a habit.
You don't get pipeline from one great post.
You get it from being the person who is always there, still teaching, when someone is finally ready to buy.
And here's the hard part. You can't see the building.
For a long time, it looks like nothing.
Then one day, someone messages you saying they've followed you for six months and they're ready to buy.
That message was being written the whole time.
You just couldn't see it.
You don't need to fly anywhere and build an audience everywhere - start small.
The train today after a crazy week. The 6-7 am window to start writing. Everyday. The newsletter sent on Saturday morning.
That's the actual work.
Not the post itself.
Not the viral selfie or the picture of your children.
Those are just one-offs.
Those are for wannabe's not for us.
The showing up, over and over, when it would be easier to skip a day.
That's the whole game.
That's us.
You keep showing up until showing up is just who you are.
Thanks for reading this far. See you all next week!
