Hi Reader!

A reader named Elizabeth hit reply a few weeks back and handed me the best marketing metaphor I've gotten all year. She wasn't trying to. She was describing her own problem.

"How to fit your marketing to your personality… like buying clothes: the outfit you think you want vs. the one that fits your body type. I might think I want 30-something buyers, but my gift is downsizers."

I've read that four times now.

Here's what a good stylist does. They don't ask what you want to look like. They look at the body in front of them and start to rule things out. Whole categories, gone, before anybody goes near a store.

The work is subtraction.

Now think about how you built your marketing.

You added Reels because someone at a conference said, Reels! You added a newsletter you've sent twice. You added a farm that you mail to only when you remember. Every time you felt behind, you put on another layer. Nobody has ever told you to take something off.

The stylist's move works because it starts from something true. Your body is a fact. You don't argue with it. You dress it.

Your version of that fact is who you're good with. Elizabeth already knows hers, which is the part I love. She said her gift is downsizers, and in the same breath said she thinks she wants 30-something buyers.

She's been shopping for somebody else's body. Most of us are.

The Fitting Room. Two lists, ten minutes.

First, pull your last ten closings. Circle the three you actually enjoyed. Not just the biggest checks. The ones that didn't drain you. Look at what those three share: life stage, price band, how they found you. Write it down in one line. That's your body type.

Second, list every marketing thing you've done in the last ninety days. Mark each one:

• Did it, and it felt like me
• Did it, and hated every minute
• Meant to, never did

That third group was never going to happen. It's the dress with the tags still on. Cut it.

Then take the second group and ask one question. Does this reach the three people I circled? If it doesn't, that goes too.

Delete two things. Actually delete them. Don't "pause" them.

Then don't replace them. That's the whole assignment. The temptation is to fill the space with a better channel, and the space is the point. What's left should be small enough that you are still doing it in March. And it should fit perfectly.

Elizabeth, this one's yours. Thank you for the metaphor.

Everyone else: hit reply and tell me what you're stuck on right now. That's how this issue happened. I read every single one.

Alice

The Heist · Marketing playbooks for real estate agents, stolen from every industry except this one.

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