All the Trends You Need To Know About RN...

IN THIS EMAIL:

👀 A ROUND-UP OF TRENDS I’M SEEING: These are only the best ones that I truly think you need to be paying attention to as a biz owner, FYI. I’m also including loads of ideas for you on how to use these trends.
🌈 OTHER THINGS I’VE BEEN LOVING: A rando, chaotic collection of recommendations I have for you based on all the things that are taking up real estate in my brain.

**I know I talk about “saving” these emails a lot, but dude: THIS ⬇️ is an email you’re gonna wanna save. Swearsies.

**Also: please don’t feel like you need to TRY every trend and idea I share here…that is most def not the vibe. Pay attention to things that really grab you or resonate with you and skip the rest.

TREND: J.CREW’S INFLUENCER PHOTOSHOOT…IN IRELAND
Instead of a standard “influencer trip” J.Crew got strategic AF

If you’ve ever spent time scrolling on social media, you’ve probably seen examples of Influencer trips [where brands pay influencers to go off to exotic locales, wine and dine them and gift them with lots of free products].

Yes, there’s always lots of posting and buzz for the brand while these luxurious free trips are happening, but also, if you’re not careful: shit can get real bad real fast [case in point: Tarte Cosmetics disastrous trip earlier this year].

But I crazy love the spin that J.Crew put on the standard issue, over-the-top influencer trip by inviting a smaller group of creators for the specific purpose of shooting a campaign for themselves at Ballymaloe Cookery School in Ireland.

Now, I have no clue what the payment terms looked like for these creators [i.e. did they just get the trip? Or did they get the trip AND get paid?], but I kinda don’t care. Cause I do know that that teaming up with the right influencer on the right campaign can potentially get you more eyeballs on your shit than a paid commercial on TV.

And I think this idea could have a lot of different use cases depending on what type of biz you have and what you’re looking to accomplish.

IDEAS FOR YOU:

➡️ Try this idea without the influencers: You def don’t need to go to Ireland to benefit from executing an idea like this. If you’re a photographer, an event planner, a branding expert who plans photoshoots a furniture or vintage rental company, a florist, etc…it might be worth it to invest in a photoshoot/event like this so that you have the images to use to market yourself. You don’t even need influencers to do this: get friends and family to volunteer to be in the photos OR just take turns amongst the group and star in the photos yourselves [sidenote: modeling is not as easy as it seems…so just make sure you’re working with ppl who get it and a skilled photographer]. The best part is: with these types of collabs, you all can split the costs.

➡️ Try this idea WITH the influencers: If you own a product based biz, perhaps you could do a one time, over-the-top event in order to recreate this J-Crew idea…BUT not have to fly everyone to some far off locale.

➡️ Spin this idea into something else: The next time we go back to LA I came up with a variation of this idea for Greg and I try with our home there that we Airbnb [HERE is the listing in case you need a place to stay in LA]. My thought is I can block off our calendar for a day or two and offer our space to LA influencers who might want to come over to: shoot content, record podcasts or even just get some work done. I’ll open up the cal so people can block off an hour or two, and I’ll then have a bunch of diff possibilities for content I could repost or use on our Instagram account for the Airbnb. Will I get good content from EVERY person? Maybe not…but I’ll probably still get a lot. And for the rest: it’s major good

➡️ Cool trips = cool photoshoots: Even if you’re JUST taking a cool trip sometime in the next 6 months with friends or family, don’t miss an opportunity to get fab brand photos for yourself while you’re in a sexy new city. Trust me on this: the new locales, diff architecture, etc is almost always worth taking advantage of. Do searches on TikTok and Instagram to find a fab local photographer you dig [or look on Airbnb experiences].

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

➡️ My step-by-step gameplan for planning a next level, not at all basic Brand Photoshoot [including links to Pinterest boards, prop ideas and more].

➡️ HERE is a cool Notion template I found for tracking Influencers your co or brand might work with [this would also work if there are just certain creators you want to track for research purposes].

➡️ HERE is where you can find my [verrrry reasonably priced] photographer in Paris who did my photoshoot in March [see some images HERE]. If you have a trip to Paris coming up, I can highly recommend her [and don’t forget to tell Quin I sent you].

➡️ Peerspace is a killer resource for events and photoshoots. It’s like Airbnb but for event spaces, studios etc. And they have options in most cities.

TREND: SUPER LOW FI RESOURCES OR FREEBIES
Yes, I love to create sexy digital “magazines” [like this one I created for the [One] Membership], but honestly the trend I keep seeing is that people are loving shit that’s super low fi too.

This summer I came across THIS article in Town & Country Mag that deeply fascinated me: The Snob’s Guide to Travel Google Docs.

It was all about how the “hottest ticket in town” for bougie travelers like me is to be granted access to a ridiculously chic and well connected tastemaker’s personal google maps or google docs.

“With one act of generosity, I was suddenly inside a whisper network that made Tripadvisor look basic and my own itineraries seem like amateur hour. Its members are not exclusively famous or wealthy; they’re a roving aristocracy of travel foragers…”

I meannnnn…aren’t you as desperate to get this google⬆️ map to Milan as I am??

Fast forward to this holiday season, and I’m KNEE DEEP in a series of dope ass gift guides on pretty much every platform [for the record: I’m full on Amazon obsessed AND kinda just shopping obsessed in general, so gift guides are my Roman Empire].

As I’m carefully mapping out a bunch of shit I wanna buy for myself [yeah: all the “gifts” are for me 😝], I connected the dots on this trend of people sharing simple, easy to read [and save!] google spreadsheets for gift guides too.

Elizabeth Holmes, whose super popular Substack newsletter So Many Thoughts has amassed her a gigantic community, created THIS google doc where she’s generously allowing small business owners to fill in info about gifts they have for sale [so that others in her community have an opportunity to support them]. And she created her own gift guide reccos google doc HERE.

And then I remembered the viral Google doc from former beauty editor Rio Viera-Newton on all of her skin care favorites that I used to be obsessed with [and was responsible for her getting a book deal AND a whole new career].

I think google docs, google maps and other lofi options like them can actually feel like a more intimate, exclusive connection between you and your community members…like the sort of thing you would only share with a friend.

And the use cases for these are kind of endless…

IDEAS FOR YOU:

➡️ Google maps of your fave cities: Honestly, I’d probably have to think harder about who this wouldn’t work for rather than who it would. You can easily connect the google maps to what you do in your biz [i.e. my fave Vintage stores in Paris for a vintage reseller or My fave spots in NYC to help you feel like a CEO Millionaire for a money mindset coach].

Or you can do a series of maps for your fave cities to simply share if it’s a connection point for you and your audience [i.e. you’re a digital nomad or you live abroad like I do—who wants my google map for Mexico City? LOL].

Wedding photographers can curate these [secret kickass spots in x town for all your wedding guests]; Real estate agents can curate these [and send them to all of their potential or existing clients; Product based businesses can do different cities and get recommendations from their customers [i.e. if you sell personalized coffee cups, choose different cities and get reccos for the best coffee shops to work from]. The possibilities are kind of endless.

➡️ I’ve used google doc at various points in my biz with great success. HERE is my badass tracker, for example, which is a template of a doc I use to keep track of all the cool shit I’ve done in my life [seriously, you need your own. Anytime I’m having a shitty day, I open mine up to make myself feel better. I’ve shared it in a variety of ways: in a digital course, as a freebie when I speak in Masterminds or at other speaking events, and as a giveaway when I’m interviewed on Podcasts.

➡️ Other lowfi spins on this idea: I worked with my 1:1 client Kiki Athanas [who I think is a killer “category of one” example in the verrrry crowded health and intuitive eating space] recently to come up with a DEAD EASY lead magnet that is legit killing it and getting people to sign up to her email list in droves: it’s basically a Spotify playlist of podcast episodes she’s curated around all of the most buzzy health topics right now. For her audience [Wealthy millennials who are trying to lose their last 10 pounds or get back on track] this lowfi freebie is like catnip. And it took her about 15 mins to put together [and best of all, she can keep updating it as trends shift. She also has a bunch of her own podcast episodes on there mixed in]. This is not a google doc, obvs, but it’s another great example of a low fi, extremely low lift option that you could legit put together TODAY if you wanted to.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

➡️ My Spotify Playlist I curate with all of my latest podcast interviews [if you do lots of interviews too, you must create one of these immediately. It’s a killer thing to put on your website, share regularly with your community or even send along with Podcast pitches [so other hosts can get an idea of what an amazing guest you would be]. I cannot tell you how often I share this link. I need to do a social media post on how to create one of these too [NOTE TO SELF 🤣].

➡️ For now, HERE is info on how to create Spotify playlists of podcasts. Honestly, using Spotify playlists as a marketing tool in your biz could be a whole separate email, cause I think that’s a hella cool trend too.

➡️ Info on exactly how to share google docs as templates [this is a specific process that requires more than simply clicking the “share” button].

TREND: THE RETURN OF ZINES & MAGAZINES
People are loving tangible, “real life” experiences and it seems like the Magazine is coming back in a big way.

I got tagged in THIS TikTok video [sidenote: I fucking LOVE when ppl do that for me] from The Stanza that was all about this return to print Zines and Magazines.

And they referenced the fact that Karlie Kloss [who is always on top of every damn trend] recently purchased i-D magazine, which I found friggin fascinating.

If you’ve been in my world for awhile, you’ve probably noticed that I use magazines almost exclusively for our marketing. True, mine are digital [I make them all in Canva] but this has become a major “brand trigger” for me and my biz.

And the background is: I’ve been a magazine fiend pretty much my whole life. I had stacks and stacks of them in every space I lived in and showed off my “collections” with pride. And since writing has always been a big piece of my life, I always dreamed of being a magazine writer when I was growing up [which I eventually became for a brief time!].

My fave magazine by far…and the one that I truly think helped me come into my own as a budding “category of one” teenager was Sassy magazine.

Anyway, this is why I’ve had so much fun incorporating magazines into my biz and making it such a big piece of our brand.

I even had a freebie for awhile that was a gorgeously designed offer magazine template I shared for free when we launched the Icon Agency [I’m obvs putting this in our [One] Library for all the new members].

But I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of the tangible and how I could bring this idea of mine into the world in a physical form.

One of my “crazy” projects I have on my 2024 bingo card is a business coffee table book.

But also the thought of doing a real world print magazine feels ridiculously fun to me.

And I think that this trend could manifest itself in about 1,001 different ways for all sorts of different businesses, creators and ventures.

I’m guessing we’re going to see a lot more examples of this in the next year, and I’m here for every second of it.

**Note: even though the physical magazine piece of this is the trend I’m calling out, I do still think digital magazines are something to play and experiment with.

IDEAS FOR YOU:

➡️ Use a physical or digital magazine as a collaboration project: How cool would it be to use a magazine project as a collab opportunity with other people in your industry? For the launch of our CEO Millionaire You course I could potentially do a printed mag where I ask other coaches or biz owners to chime in on stories where they felt most like the CEO Millionaire versions of themselves. Or a bunch of copywriters could get together, each include a fave swipe file or template in a dope magazine and then sell and market it together.

➡️ Instead of a digital course, create a physical or digital magazine. I always love to lean into the idea of “pattern interruptions” in my biz and marketing, and holy shit, a physical magazine would be such a cool pattern interruption in the digital course space. And I know, I know…”digital” course literally means online, but we’re talking PATTERN INTERRUPTIONS, yo.

➡️ Copy me and use magazines for your offers or services: This has truly been one of the best and most impactful decisions we’ve made in our business thus far. Magazines are a killer pattern interruption when everyone else is doing sales pages. Also, it allows you a lot more space and creative leeway when you’re sharing details about your offers. It somehow feels way less sales-y than a typical sales page [even though I would argue selling is probs more front and center in them] and it also allows you to create an impactful initial touchpoint with potential customers. i.e. I’ve had dozens of clients tell me that they immediately felt like: “if this much time, effort and intention goes into a simple info doc, I know the experience of working with Erica is going to be super dope.”

And, uhm: they’re right.🤣

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

➡️ HERE’S our [One] Membership magazine. It’s 18 pages and full of specific info about what you get in the membership, what our monthly themes are and even includes our January schedule. Because the Canva “view only” link stays the same, I’m able to update the doc on a daily basis if I want [which I’ve been doing with our Founder spots as they get grabbed in real time].

➡️ I came across THIS fab Canva magazine template on Creative Market if you want to get going on your own mag pronto.

➡️ Magazines Return to Print

➡️ I’ve used Blurb in the past [never for magazine printing], but they offer quite a few physical magazine print options.

A RANDO CHAOTIC ROUND-UP OF EVERYTHING I’M LOVING
Obvs this shit is in noooo order.🤣

➡️ @jessundecided: I legit want every single piece of clothing this creator shares. She’s chic AF but in a totally accessible way. And she’s not 19 years old. [Another insanely fashionable, stylish creator I love: @roz_creativestylist ]

➡️ I wanna copy this In/Out post ⬆️ HERE immediately. And I can see this working for almost anyone in any biz. What a fun, killer, impactful way to see you flex your chops as an authority, leader and trend setter in your industry. Also, take note: you could do a serious version of this OR a funny ass one. Get creative.

➡️ A Nearly Normal Family on Netflix: Go watch this friggin show RN. It’s dark AF and in Swedish [I watched it with the dubbed English]. It was so haunting, and well written and beautifully acted…I finished it days ago and I’m still thinking about it. [Trigger warning for sexual assault though].

Some other shows I’m watching and loving: The Buccaneers on Apple TV [unsupervised rich teenagers AND historical fiction…yes pls]; Golden Bachelor is worth a watch if you missed it; And a few fave Hallmark Movies of this season so far: Never Been Chris’d, A Merry Scottish Christmas [with a fab Party of Five reunion] and My Norwegian Holiday.

➡️ I’m obsessed with Palm Heights in Grand Cayman after reading about this hotel absolutely e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. Maybe we have our first [One] Membership meetup there? 😎

➡️ THIS 3-part podcast series on Kylie Jenner, the Kardashians and her fake billionaire status had me in a chokehold. I also really enjoyed THIS 7-part podcast series: The Wedding Scammer.

➡️ THIS Flamingo Estate [one of my fave brands of all time—their candles are heaven] Celebrity Honey is genius biz innovation 101.

➡️ Pinterest Predicts Trends of 2024. I’m totes into the eclectic Grandpa and Jazz predictions.

➡️ How I sold 10,000 books without a publisher

➡️ Oatley [the plant based milk co] has built a social strategy specifically around commenting…so friggin genius!

JOIN THE [ONE] MEMBERSHIP AS A FOUNDER

Our brand new membership [One], for entrepreneurs obsessed with the idea of getting their “category of one” status, officially kicks off in January, 2024. However, for Founders who sign up in December, they get a 30 min 1:1 coaching session with me [that normally go for $1000] for the price of one month of the membership [which is currently priced at $197].

They also get: Founder’s office hours, access to my two most recent masterclass, an opportunity to join our “Founder’s Council” that will shape the future of [One] and probably lots of other good shit that we haven’t even thought of yet.

HERE’S SOME MORE DOPE [ONE] STUFF YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT:

➡️ A killer community: And in case you’re thinking FB group…don’t. We’re going to bring you and all of your amazing “category of one” fellow entrepreneurs together to learn from, get inspired by and support in Skool.

➡️ A curated monthly inspo and trend “stack”: I’m going to curate for you all of the monthly trends, updates, genius branding and marketing moves, creators to watch, podcasts to listen to and more. Basically everything I think is important for you to know about as an innovation obsessed entrepreneur.

➡️ Private Instagram account Thanks to the recent updates Instagram has made, I’m going to be ditching everyone currently on my Close Friends List and replacing them with YOU and other [One] members. This means we’re going to have a private space for me to share stories, Reels and even posts where we can all interact.

➡️ Monthly Content Club Instead of a monthly book club, we’ll have a [totally optional] monthly content club. Sure, sometimes we will read books, but sometimes we will listen to a series of podcast episodes, or read a series of essays around our monthly theme and then discuss them all together on a zoom to share takeaways and lessons.

Trust me: this ain’t yo momma’s typical membership.

So, if this feels like this could be a fit for you…

HERE ARE YOUR NEXT STEPS:

➡️ Click on over HERE to our [One] Application. At the top of the page you will see a link to our 18 page [One] magazine that includes lots more scoop, our first 6 months of themes as well as January’s schedule.

➡️ Then you can APPLY and become a Founding Member of [One]! You’re under no obligation to join just by applying, but that is the first step in the process.

We’re kicking off our first event on December 19th, and as per uzsh, I’m saving your ass a seat there.

**If you have any questions about [One] just hit reply and ask away!

p.s. If you missed my How to Become A Category of One in 2024 Masterclass and you wanna watch the replay, you can do that HERE [password= ONE]