When we first started sending the Weekly Vibe in March 2020, I couldn’t imagine reaching #100. Writing blog articles and sending out a newsletter every single week for over a year and a half has been a great learning experience and very impactful for us as a team. It has been absolutely amazing to hear responses from readers and to see how the content we have put so much work into has been valuable.
So, for our 100th edition of the Weekly Vibe, we wanted to pull back the curtain and share the inside story of the Weekly Vibe. The Weekly Vibe was Joel’s vision. So, I (Skyler, First Direct’s writer, Hi!) wanted to hear from Joel himself, what was the motivation for starting the Weekly Vibe? What are some of his big takeaways from creating the Vibe? What better way to find out than with an interview!
An Interview with First Direct’s President, Joel Buhr
So, Joel, What motivated you to start the Weekly Vibe?
“The desire that I had when starting the Weekly Vibe was to provide our clients and businesses with information that would be helpful to growing their business. We wanted to provide information that would be pulling them forward, would be positive, and would be inspirational. The goal was to share something that could help businesses see how to connect the pieces because there’s a lot of misinformation out there. My desire is to basically break that down so that companies have something that they can actually put to work, put into action, and see results from!”
How do you think prioritizing generating content has impacted First Direct?
“Well, with content, at times you don’t see the immediate rewards like you do with some other forms of marketing efforts. Content is one of those things that’s always a long-play strategy. Sometimes it can be rather thankless in some respects because you wonder why you’re creating it. You wonder if it’s making an impact. Does it matter? And when you hear the stories from people saying, they saw this, and they’ve been reading this, and it’s helped them grow their business. They put it into action and now they know how to make sense of things. You know, that’s where it shows that prioritizing the creation of content has a positive impact.
So, for First Direct, the impact it has had for us has been one where we’ve helped clients. We’ve helped them to grow. And we’ve helped them to see ways to focus on the positives of growing their business versus all of these other negative things that are out there.”
Why do you think the Weekly Vibe is valuable?
“The Weekly Vibe is valuable because it’s a constant flow of good information. Obviously, you know, the whole idea of ~vibes~ is that we want to give some good vibes! We want to provide value! The Weekly Vibe is valuable because it’s cutting through, it’s simplifying, breaking it down. It’s giving businesses information piece by piece that they can put it into action. The Vibe has that value for businesses. It can help them to find ways to grow, to strategize, and to impact their communities and their businesses. And it shows how all those things connect to make good decisions that can help to grow their business into the coming year, and the years to come.”
What is a lesson you have learned from either the making of the Weekly Vibe or a specific article?
“I think the whole process of putting together content for the Vibe has been impactful. It’s been interesting to see all the other all the various aspects or facets that are impacting business owners. You know, one specific article that comes to mind is based on our BeGrowthDriven episode on purpose and “How a Purpose Drives Business Decisions.” We really drilled into, for example, how people approach finding their purpose. It really shows how purpose impacts people that are reaching out for business but just in other areas of life too. All those things are interconnected. The same drive that someone might put towards business, they could put towards any goal that they have in life.”
Do you have a go-to article to share?
“There’s a lot of articles that we touch on how’s, how to use. Obviously, “How do These Marketing Channels Stack up?” is an important one. The how articles are where we can actually dive in and create content that provides value to businesses. It’s important to know how to use information or how to use strategy AND how it ties altogether. The simple stuff.
The biggest challenge I’ve seen over the last 24-plus years of consulting and working with companies has been just not knowing how to take action. Often, it’s just the one move to take action that is a game-changer for a lot of businesses. So, a lot of the things that we break down in our content, in our articles, are simple. For example, ways to do email better, or some things to help you stay productive and motivated!
These last couple of years have especially been challenging for a lot of people. So, anything and everything that’s going to help pull people forward, versus pushing people back, has been very impactful and provided value. So those are my go-to articles that I’d like to share with folks. And it’s been great to see them be impactful for people!”
My Take-Away
As much as I have enjoyed the writing and learning process of creating the Weekly Vibe these past 20 months or so, seeing the way the content has impacted people has definitely been the best part.
Writing an article and sending a newsletter every single week has impacted me personally as well. I don’t have a marketing OR a writing background. So, writing as much as I have about marketing and business growth has been a massive learning experience. As much as I have learned about marketing from all of the research and training I have done, so many of my takeaways from the past year and 7 months have been from the making of the Vibe itself. I have really seen the value of repetition and how much can be gained by sticking with something. It’s also amazing how much my belief lid has grown because of the Weekly Vibe. Writing 100 of these has taught me just how much persistence and effort influence success.
“Businesses are only as successful as the communities they serve and the people connected to them”
I wanted to say, thank you all for opening and reading the Weekly Vibe for 100 editions. Businesses are only as successful as the communities they serve and the people connected to them. We are privileged to have all of you as part of our community and we hope to see you for the next 100 editions!
-The First Direct Team
(Interview answers have been edited for length and clarity.)
We have grown SO much since the Weekly Vibe #1
These are the two articles from the very first Weekly Vibe.
