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How do you email Busy People Tim Ferriss?



How do you email Busy People Tim Ferriss?


I'm not sure what's worse... being bombarded with thousands of emails every day or having one email bounce back because you're too busy for me.  The latter happens more than once per week and even though I'm an expert in digital marketing myself (and I don't mean to brag), sometimes I can't help but feel like this guy.

Tim Ferriss has become synonymous with productivity advice and he was featured on our list of the top 10 most influential people online last year. His new book, The 4 Hour Work Week, will be released this month and his new YouTube channel, Tim Ferris' Four Hour Workweek, launched today. He also just started hosting the first episode of the #1 rated podcast on iTunes which features interviews with successful entrepreneurs including Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman and others. If you want to learn about how to build wealth, get ahead at work, master your time, and live life better, then this man has something valuable to offer.

On the other hand, I am lucky enough to be able to hire someone else who works full-time as my personal assistant - so when I receive unsolicited emails asking for "a quick call", "a chance to talk" or "to hear from you soon," they automatically go into the trash folder without ever seeing the light of day. But since the release of The 4 Hour Workweek, I've received a handful of these requests. They're all pretty similar - some are generic, some are specific to certain industries, but none of them sound particularly interesting. In fact, I think I'd rather read their pitch in print than listen to it on audio. So here they are.

Where is Tim Ferriss now?

Ferriss recently did an AMA session on Reddit where he answered a lot of questions about his career and future plans. One question asked by a Redditor named "the_gutman" caught my attention because he wanted to know what Ferriss thought of the concept of working less while earning more money. Here's what he said:

That whole concept sounds great, but I’m skeptical of the idea of “earning more money while working less.” Sure, if you earn $100K/year while only working four hours /day it seems like you could buy a house in any part of America and retire early…but in reality the cost of living goes up dramatically as income rises. Even if we assume you could double your salary, you’d need to triple your savings to maintain your lifestyle. And that assumes no inflation! You’re basically saying ‘don’t worry about making more money, just save more of it.' That doesn’t seem practical to me.

It makes sense to me, although I haven't seen anyone actually prove it mathematically. It may be possible, but I wouldn't bet on it. There are a couple ways around it: 1) find another job (or two); 2) start investing aggressively. Of course, neither of those options require you to take on additional responsibilities in order to increase your compensation.

This made me wonder whether Ferriss had considered starting his own company to give him greater control over his schedule. After all, that's how he got rich selling software to fortune 500 companies. Maybe he should consider doing the same thing himself.

How much does Tim Ferriss podcast make?

In addition to writing books, Ferriss hosts a weekly podcast called The Tim Ferriss Show where he discusses topics such as technology, entrepreneurship, productivity, health, and happiness. According to Forbes, he averages roughly 250,000 downloads per show and he earns between $10k-$30k each month. While I'm definitely not complaining, it must be a tough gig considering I spend literally zero dollars promoting the show.



How much does Tim Ferriss work?

According to Business Insider, Ferriss spends 20% of his time on business activities. This includes planning events, meeting with potential investors, interviewing experts, attending conferences, and traveling. On the flip side, 80% of his time is spent working on projects related to improving his professional skills, reading articles, networking with colleagues, consulting, speaking, research, etc.

He also claims to write three pages of notes everyday which he uses to plan his day, set goals, manage tasks, and brainstorm ideas. To put that number in perspective, I wrote approximately 6,000 words in 2010 and I averaged five hours of sleep each night. Not bad, huh?

How many listeners does Tim Ferriss have?

As of February 5th 2013, The Tim Ferriss Podcast garnered 880,000 unique visitors, 9 million pageviews, and almost 300,000 subscribers. At least according to Google Analytics.

If you were wondering, I didn't ask Tim Ferriss about these numbers personally. Instead, I hired a freelance writer to conduct an SEO audit and she found the following stats via Moz Pro:

Ferriss' main site gets 3.5 visits per day, averaging 50 uniques per day.

His blog receives 11,200 visits per month, averaging 740 uniques per month.

His Twitter account gets 40 tweets per day, with an average of 12 followers per tweet.

His Facebook fanpage gets 15,500 likes per month, with an average of 600 fans per post.

His LinkedIn profile gets 150 connections per month.

So based on that data alone, his website gets 4,700 monthly unique visitors, 140,800 page views, and 70,600 social media impressions. All things considered, I'm impressed.

How to Message a Busy Person [Broken URL Removed]

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The Most Common E-Mail Pitch

In my experience as a professional blogger, entrepreneur and author (more on my career here), it seems that people often have trouble defining their product. It could be any number of things from books to business coaching programs.

Here is a sample pitch letter I received recently which contained all these elements:

"Hi! My name is..." - This should always start with your company, service or blog if possible. Otherwise they might think you didn't get around to reading their message so just skip right to "how many followers". In other words, why did you waste their time by writing them first?

"We want to help you increase your readership" - If you really need to say something about increasing your readership then at least try saying how many new subscribers you added last month instead of how many new followers you had. Or maybe you'll tell us when you started blogging about your topic.

"Let me know if you'd like to receive our newsletter" - The only thing newsletters usually offer is another way to bombard your reader's inboxes with spammy offers. Unless you actually provide value to your customers through your content, this is probably not worth subscribing to.

"Our new ebook will make you look smarter than all those boring bloggers, who only talk about SEO." - You may or may not be smart. And chances are good that everyone else has read that same ebook already. So unless you were going to give away free copies of your book, what makes this one special enough to warrant sending it to someone? Also notice that none of these points explain anything about how your product would benefit his customer.

"You're very important to us!" - No doubt you're important to someone. But unless you're offering exclusive products or services that no one else provides, this kind of statement doesn't add up and sounds rather desperate. Instead, use your copywriting skills to convince potential clients that you're the best person for the job.

I'm not going to lie -- I am really, truly busy. My days are filled with writing and speaking and traveling and teaching and consulting and coaching and mentoring and working on this blog, and probably more things than I could ever list here.

And yet, every now and then, something comes through on one of those many feeds that makes me stop for a moment and think about all the other things I have to get back to. It's usually an e-mail or two sent by a reader asking a question or offering support. And since the success of the book, I've been able to see some of the worse ones out there. Here are some examples...

How do you email someone who is busy?

"Hi! Do you have any free time today?" "Do you want to meet up at X restaurant later to talk?" "Hey, just wanted to touch base before we go live tomorrow."

The first thing you should ask yourself when looking at these kinds of emails is whether they are even appropriate. If they aren't, don't send them. You're only adding unnecessary stress to their lives. What's wrong with saying no? (That's actually a good place to start.) But at least try to be polite. Maybe write them a quick response like this:

Thank you so much for your kind words. Unfortunately, I am too busy right now to take on new projects. However, I hope that we'll cross paths again soon. Feel free to reach out whenever you'd like. Best wishes, -Name

If you do decide to reply though, make sure you keep it short. A full paragraph will only add to their anxiety level unnecessarily. When asking people to follow up with you, always offer a specific date and time. For example, instead of just sending:

Let's chat sometime next week.

Send:

We can catch up Monday evening at 6 p.m.? Let me know if that works for you. Thanks!

It goes without saying that you shouldn't use text speak or abbreviations in your replies unless you absolutely need to. In fact, you might consider using a template as well. That way, you won't end up with typos or misspellings in your responses. This is especially important because you never know how long your correspondent has had his/her hands on the keyboard. The last thing you want is for him/her to type "thx" into your inbox.

How do you say you understand someone is busy in email?

Somebody once told me that he didn't want to hear anything less than 100% commitment from anyone he worked with. He would tell his team members that if they weren't willing to commit fully to whatever project they were assigned to work on, he wasn't interested in being involved. Even if they were committed, he wouldn't hesitate to let them know where he thought they needed improvement.

In order to achieve similar results in our own businesses, we must set ourselves apart from others in our industry. We must show that we value our customers' time above everything else. If you are unable to provide immediate service, please feel free to reach out to us via phone or Skype anytime during business hours. Thank you.

This sounds pretty nice, doesn't it? So why does it seem awkward? Because the vast majority of companies simply cannot deliver such a personal touch online. They rely mostly on automated systems that generate canned responses, which means you probably got this exact same generic response when you asked your boss for help.

So how do you respond to a busy person?

You don't.

Seriously. Just leave them alone. Don't engage. Don't bother responding. Leave them alone until they either call you or schedule a meeting. Then, if they do decide to contact you, you can respond appropriately. And if they haven't done so already, remind them that you are available 24/7 via phone or Skype.

How can I contact Tim Ferris?

Ferris isn't likely to pick up the phone himself, so you're better off contacting his publicist. His PR firm handles most of the media inquiries for him, so they may be able to give you tips on how best to approach him. Or contact him directly by following the links below.

Tim Ferriss Net Worth: $30 million [No Longer Available]

Tim Ferriss Twitter Page [Broken URL Removed]

Tim Ferriss Website [Broken URL Removed]

Tim Ferriss Interview Questions [Broken URL Removed]

1. The \"I'll Make You Rich\" Email

The first time it happened was last week when someone sent me an email about making $100,000 per month.

"If you have 10 minutes," they said, "could you please take a look at [link]."

It's not like I don't get these kinds of emails all the time. It just so happens that this particular one had a very strange subject line. For example, instead of using something like "Hey! Here is an opportunity for you" or "Here is how you can make money online", which would be normal in my inbox, this guy used the phrase "make 100k per month". This immediately caught my attention because he didn't tell me anything else. That's always a red flag.

So what did he say exactly? He wanted to know if I'd read his new ebook called "10 Minute Marketing Secrets." If I hadn't already heard of the book (which is actually quite good), then I wouldn't have even looked at his link. But once again, the title wasn't helpful enough. So let's assume he told me something like this:

"Make 100k per month by getting your hands on the secret strategies behind the world's top marketing gurus."

"Learn from the best marketers in history who made millions selling their secrets for less than two hours!"

"Get access to 10 minute strategies that will help you market ANYTHING for under 2 hours each!"

Now, I know that many people think that those kind of offers sound great. And most likely, they're right. Most people want to make extra money and they're willing to pay for information that might give them that edge. However, there are certain things you should never offer anyone unless you are absolutely sure that you can deliver on it. There are too many scams out there, and if you try offering advice without having any idea whether or not it works, chances are

I'm not sure why anyone ever thought they could get away with sending me an unsolicited pitch for their services or product. But here's what happened when I tried to reply to such an e-mail recently:

"Dear Mr. Ferriss,

I am writing to let you know about our new service and how we can help your business succeed."

"Hi [redacted], thanks for responding! We're excited to hear more about your company and its potential in helping us grow. It sounds like you have a lot on your plate right now, so please feel free to reach out again at any point should something change within your organization. Best regards,"

That didn't go well.

But even after outsourcing my e-mail to a virtual assistant (who has never sent me anything as horrible as this), there are still a handful of emails that come through - mostly because people think I live in Silicon Valley instead of New York City where I actually work. And since the success of The 4-Hour Workweek, I've been able to see some of the worst e-mail pitches out there. So while I don't want to be rude, I'll tell you exactly what happens when someone sends one of these requests. Here goes...

What does Tim Ferriss do now?

Tim Ferriss doesn't just write books anymore. He runs companies. Specifically, he owns four different businesses. But that's probably too much information for most people who aren't already fans of his blog.

The first two businesses are called Tiger Global Management. They both provide consulting services to other entrepreneurs. Tiger Global also invests in start-ups and helps them scale up.

The third company, DFJ Venture Capital, focuses on investing in early stage technology startups.

And finally, Ferriss' fourth venture capital firm, which started last year, is named Flexport. This startup provides logistics software solutions to shippers around the world.

It's pretty complicated stuff, but all told, it means that Ferriss spends less than 15% of his time working on personal projects and more than 85% of his time running things.

So, what do those "things" look like? Well, according to his website, he works on "the following topics exclusively":

1) Personal development & self improvement

2) Health & fitness

3) Business strategy

4) Finance

5) Food

6) Travel

7) Technology

8) Social media marketing

9) Mindset

10) Networking

11) Creativity

12) Relationships

13) Productivity

14) Philosophy

15) Marketing/Sales

16) Leadership

17) Money

18) Technology

19) Writing

20) Music

21) Photography

22) Science / Nature

23) Politics

24) Sex

25) Self care

26) Sports

27) Wine

28) Yoga

29) Comedy

30) Meditation

31) Books

32) Film

33) Humor

34) Coffee

35) Science fiction

36) TV shows

37) History

38) Video games

39) Gaming

40) Boardgames

41) Magic

42) Movies

43) Architecture

44) Design

45) Home design

46) Cooking

47) Fashion

48) Art

49) Cars

50) Beer

51) Golf

52) Bicycles

53) Triathlon

54) Cycling

55) Weightlifting

56) Running

57) Fitness equipment

58) Swimming

59) Crossfit

60) Martial arts

61) Skiing

62) Snowboarding

63) Water sports

64) Fishing

65) Hunting

66) Shooting

67) Archery

68) Boxing

69) Wrestling

70) Football

71) Soccer

72) Tennis

73) Baseball

74) Basketball

75) Volleyball

76) Roller derby

77) Rugby

78) Lacrosse

79) Field hockey

80) Track & field

81) MMA

82) Judo

83) Kickboxing

84) Mixed martial arts

85) Karate

86) Muay Thai

87) Darts

88) Ping pong

89) Chess

90) Poker

91) Go

92) Scrabble

93) Backgammon

94) Table tennis

95) Other

96) No sport

97) Non-competitive activities (i.e. reading, cooking, hiking etc.)

98) Other non-sporting interests

99) Hobbies

100) Interests outside of the above list

If you were to take every single word on that list and put it into Google search, it'd turn up hundreds of thousands of results. As you can imagine, this makes it impossible for anybody else to compete with him in terms of being able to find answers online. In fact, I haven't seen another author use that many keywords together anywhere else on the Internet. Not even Stephen King comes close.

He's basically created his own domain name, and it's hard to believe that nobody has done this before. That said, it's amazing how long it took Google to catch onto this idea.

What time does Tim Ferriss wake up?

This question might seem kind of silly, especially considering he lives in San Francisco, California, but it turns out that Ferriss wakes up at 5am each day to exercise. According to Time magazine, he takes 30 minutes of cardio exercises then showers and heads back home to grab a cup of coffee. After breakfast, he gets ready for work.

How did Tim Ferris make his money?

In 2012, Forbes estimated Tim Ferriss had made $200 million dollars by age 40. At 41 years old, he has reportedly earned somewhere between $350-$600 million.

While Ferriss hasn't disclosed his exact net worth, he revealed that he earns enough income every month to cover his mortgage payments, taxes, and car insurance, and pay off his credit cards.



How old is Tim Ferriss?

As mentioned earlier, Tim Ferriss turned 40 in July of 2013. His birthday party was held in Las Vegas, Nevada, and was attended by approximately 200 guests including famous friends like Richard Branson, Robert Kraft, and Chris Tucker.

According to TMZ, Ferriss rented out the entire Mandalay Bay Hotel Casino for the night and spent roughly $750,000 to celebrate his 40th birthday.

After spending nearly half a million bucks celebrating his fortieth birthday, I don't blame him for wanting to spend his next one partying at Wynn Las Vegas. I mean, he's got plenty of cash laying around anyway, so why not?!

Do you need to follow Tim Ferriss' advice?

No. You definitely do not have to follow Tim Ferriss' advice. However, if you wanted to hire him to run your business, I wouldn't advise you to try and replicate everything he says. Instead, focus on hiring somebody who understands business fundamentals and knows how to manage a team.

You may end up learning a thing or two from Tim Ferriss, though. For example, he's constantly trying to improve himself and learn new skills. He once wrote a post titled How To Be More Creative, and he's always looking for ways to expand his knowledge base.

Ultimately, however, you shouldn't expect Tim Ferriss to give you step-by-step instructions on how to become successful. If you want practical tips on how to build wealth, read Rich Dad Poor Dad and The Millionaire Next Door . Both books will teach you how to achieve financial independence without having to sell your soul to Wall Street.

Are you impressed by Tim Ferriss' accomplishments? Do you know someone who is willing to send him an e-mail asking for help? Share your thoughts below!


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