BILLY OPPENHEIMER: FROM SKI INSTRUCTOR TO 10M+ VIEWS PER MONTH WRITER

Morning!

Have you seen this stuff with Gary Lineker? No idea what is going on, but it’s all over my Twitter feed. So if anyone wants to update me on why everyone wants to boycott the BBC, please do let me know.

Anyway, today I’m going to break down someone you’ve probably never heard of… but it’s about time you did!

- He’s one of the brains behind a New York Times bestseller.
- He’s raking in 10M+ impressions per month on his socials.
- And he writes my current favourite newsletter.

Oh and the scary part, he’s just getting started!

Breaking Down The Strategy

When I first dipped my toe in the world of marketing I knew nothing. I looked around me and had no idea how certain brands were doing so well or how certain people were able to build such big audiences.

I could only ever see where they were - not how they got there.

But after being in marketing for a while now, I’ve gotten chance to see exactly how people do it from the start.

• I’ve seen how apps like Thursday went from inception → 111k+ monthly downloads.

• I’ve seen how Nathan Baugh went from 0 → 250,000+ followers across socials.

Today, I have the perfect example of someone who is currently rocketing to the top, and I’m going to show you exactly how they’re doing it.

So without further ado, meet Billy Oppenheimer, writing/research assistant to New York Times Best Selling author Ryan Holiday and author of the SIX at 6 newsletter.

As I said, you’ve probably never heard of Billy before and I don’t blame you for not knowing him.

But the way he is propelling himself to the top in such a short space of time is incredible to me and he’s someone that you should definitely be keeping an eye on.

So that’s exactly what I did, I kept my eye on him, and in doing so I’ve quickly realised that where he is today - is no fluke.

In fact, it’s a magically crafted journey of positioning, marketing and amplification.

I’ve spent this whole week going down the Billy Oppenheimer rabbit hole and here is exactly how he is growing viral:

1) He got paid in credibility

Billy’s journey all began with this cold email:

I love a good cold email story. Where someone gets to collaborate with their idol all because they took a leap of faith.

But the genius behind this isn’t the fact Billy sent an email. It’s the fact he chose to get paid in credibility.

As a young lad just coming out of college, Billy could’ve done like any other recent grad and applied for a job in the “real world”.

Instead, he sought out a way to gain credibility at speed.

A) Billy Oppenheimer, Blog writer for Specsavers = 0 credibility

B) Billy Oppenheimer, writing/research assistant to Ryan Holiday = Huge amounts of credibility

Now you might think that this point doesn’t apply to you, you’re never going to cold email your idol now, right?

Yeah, me neither, but it did make me think of how and where I could get paid in credibility.

For example, “Seen in Forbes” on our website would be much more valuable to us than a new client. So maybe it’s worth us writing a free article and getting paid in credibility?

Not the greatest example, but the point is, getting paid in credibility can be priceless.

2) Leveraging credibility to become an authority

Billy went from doing the odd gig for Ryan to being his full-time research/writing assistant.

His credibility was now there in abundance, yet still, he had no authority.

So he set about leveraging the credibility he had to make people start seeing him as an authority.

He began by adding his title to his social profiles to instantly showcase his credibility and position himself as much more than just “A writer”.

Then he began talking about his lessons from working with Ryan on a day-to-day basis.

He posted on LinkedIn about it:

He posted tweets about it:

And he even posted content around the lessons he’d learned from people around Ryan, like the great Robert Greene who wrote ‘The 48 Laws Of Power’.

As you can see by the engagement on these posts, people started to listen.

But not just listen, they also started to see him as someone worth listening to. By matter of associated (and backed up by amazing work), Billy had positioned himself as an authority in the space.

And as that authority grew he started to attract some pretty big names, as you can see from the people below which I pulled from his following…

3) Building a list

If you’ve been around the marketing sphere for a while you’ll understand that there’s a big difference between building an audience and building a list.

The latter is much more valuable and also much tougher to do.

One of the most intelligent things Billy has done is to start growing his list from the off. Ironically, this was a lesson from his mentor Ryan Holiday.

In a recent podcast I watched Billy explained that for him the list is like having his 1000 true fans ready for whatever he wants to do next.

If he writes a book → He has people to sell to.
If he starts a podcast → He has people who will listen.

He doesn’t know what’s next, but I’m very confident building his email list will be one of the best decisions he ever made.

Plus, he sends awesome emails - I highly recommend.

4) Standing out

At this point, Billy has the credibility, he has the authority, he has the positioning and he has a strategy to win - no matter what’s next.

But standing out is how Billy took himself from a 7/10 to an 11/10.

We live in an age where everyone posts content and everyone is sending newsletters.

The problem is that everyone is doing it the same way. The same formats, the same templates, and the same hooks.

My favourite thing about Billy is that he does whatever he wants in the way that he wants to do it.

That differentiation, THAT is his competitive advantage.

Take his threads for example. No one in the world would recommend having a video at the start of your thread. But Billy does it and get’s millions of views doing it.

These 2 threads alone have 3.8M views between them.

He does the same on LinkedIn. While everyone else is posting selfies, he’s sharing content like this:

He hasn’t “Picked a niche”, “Gone with the trends”, “Worked with the algorithm” or any other advice people would usually give.

Instead, he created his own category. A category of one.

That is the main reason he is killing it.

I want to be clear here as well and say that Billy isn’t just a guy with a huge following that is getting this reach and engagement. As I write this, Billy has:

- 4800 followers on LinkedIn
- 17,000 followers on Twitter

Nothing too crazy, yet he is getting eyeballs on him that most writers can only dream of.

I’m pretty sure this is just the start for Billy and it has been well and truly awesome to watch (and continue to watch) his growth first-hand.

Billy is an awesome writer, but he’s also a terrific marketer.

My advice: pay great attention to what he’s doing and emulate as much as you can.

Right, that’s all from me. But before I go, let me leave you with my favourite Billy Oppenheimer clip:

“The work is the win.” I love that.

— Niall

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This has been a breakdown of Billy Oppenheimer's marketing strategy. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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