🔥 27 Fun, Feel-Good Ideas for Taking Your Sales + Marketing on a JOYride

Real, raw, unfiltered sales + marketing advice for hustle culture expats who don’t know where to start

The Hot Dog Cart is a stiff middle finger kinda newsletter about how to put your health + happiness first as a solopreneur + small creator, and thrive in this new YOU-shaped era of life + business. 🦄 100% human. 🌭 97.6% sweary. I double DAWG dare you to get new cart-sized editions sent straight to your inbox:

Listen up, my feral misfits—this isn’t your typical gritty sales + marketing operation we’re embarking on.

We’re on a wild treasure hunt where every clue is written on a napkin + every mystery is solved with nothing but duct tape, guts, kindreds, and a side of irreverence.

We’re not following the bro marketing commandments; we’re laughing in the face of perfection, patching up our strategies on the fly.

We’re making it (more than) okay to figure shit out as we go!

The beauty of our journey lies in the glorious mess of trial, error, and duct tape miracles. We get to experiment, to make mistakes, and to learn from every hiccup + happy accident.

Our success isn’t about following a proven path—it’s about creating our own—one wild, unscripted moment at a time.

The perfect sales blueprint is a myth, a unicorn we’re never going to catch. Instead, we embrace our inner dreamcatcher + “hunt for our treasure” with nothing but experimentation, personality, wild ideas, and a refusal to play by the goddamn rules.

Our strategies will be messy, unpredictable, and brilliantly off the wall—a series of unconventional fixes that prove we can figure this shit out on our own terms.

And we will. Over time. Together.

The journey won’t always be easy or feel good, but the discomfort + fear we’ll experience doing it our way and figuring this out as we go will actually be MOVING us towards the things we want: health, happiness, and success.

TRUTH BOMB: Building a fun, feel-good business that supports your fun, feel-good life is a matter of sales + marketing.

The Land of Rebel-Haired Barflies

Inside Brandishing YOU, there are 63 (at the time of writing this) rebel-hearted barflies, all unlearning + reimagining this sales + marketing stuff together—solopreneurs, small creators, misfits, corporate expats, dreamers, and partners, who are just as messy, flawed, and brilliant as YOU.

We're not competing for the spotlight or pitching each other our shit. We're here building each other up, talking each other out of complicated things, and sharing our experiments (the good, the bad, and the duct-taped reality).

We're addicted to progress, not perfection, and we're here for all of it: the wild ideas, the missteps, and the unexpected breakthroughs.

If you’re craving a space where every screw-up is celebrated and every breakthrough is a shared victory, come join us. We keep this beautiful movement alive—together.

The solopreneur speakeasy where perfection’s overrated, progress is contagious, and the liquid courage is stiff enough to fuel your next fearless move. No fake smiles or empty promises—just a bunch of rebels, parents, partners, and dreamers like YOU, building fun, feel-good businesses that support fun, feel-good lives.

🔥 27 Fun, Feel-Good Ideas for Taking Your Sales & Marketing on a JOYride

Some of the things we’re telling each other in there…

1️⃣ Stop Trying to "Close" People

We’re not selling people into a cult. We’re starting conversations. Focus on talking to the right people, not pressuring the wrong ones.

2️⃣ Write a Bio That Feels Like You

Stop stuffing your bio with “helping [ideal client] achieve [desired result]” jargon. If your bestie read it and didn't immediately hear your voice, redo it.

3️⃣ Give Your CTA a Personality

"Click here" is what a robot would say. "Pull Up a Barstool" or "Let's duct tape this shit!," is what a fun human would say.

4️⃣ Talk Like a Person, Not a Personal Brand™

If you wouldn’t say it out loud, don’t write it down. Period.

5️⃣ Make Your Sales Page a Fun Read, Not a Force-Feed

People should finish reading your offer and feel excited, not exhausted. (Btw, I’m infamous for this… so don’t think you’re alone on any of this!)

6️⃣ Use Stories Instead of Hard Pitches

Telling a real, relatable story builds trust way faster than listing off “pain points” like a crime scene investigator.

7️⃣ Stop Acting Like Your Price Is a Secret

We are not a luxury handbag brand trying to cultivate mystery. Be upfront.

8️⃣ Send Emails That People Actually Want to Read (and Buy Because Of)

If it wouldn’t make your friend laugh, think, or at least roll their eyes in appreciation, you’re not being YOU enough.

9️⃣ Make Your Testimonials Success Stories Sound Human, Not AI-afied

"Jenn can’t stop talking about how amazing it was!!" 🙄 Nope. Not it. "I saved Jenn from quitting her business and moving to the woods." NAILED IT!

🔟 Reward the People Who Love You Most

Give your top subscribers, ride-or-dies, and/or biggest cheerleaders free access, sneak peeks, or VIP treatment. These are the people you care about most, let them know that.

1️⃣1️⃣ Give Your Offers Fun, Unforgettable Names

Are you selling “The Growth Accelerator Program” or “The Holy Shit, This Works Lab”? Your choice. 🤷‍♀️

1️⃣2️⃣ Sell the Experience, Not the Logistics

No one cares that your program has 12 modules and 7 worksheets. They care that it makes their life easier, better, or more fun.

1️⃣3️⃣ Start More Conversations That Aren’t About Selling

People buy from people they see themselves in. That’s it. Connect like a human, and sales start happening naturally.

1️⃣4️⃣ Share the Journey, Not Just the End Result

Don't just celebrate your win—celebrate every twist, turn, and screw-up along the way. Real growth happens in the messy journey. Share your process and show the world the grit that’s getting YOU progress.

1️⃣5️⃣ Own Your Weirdness

Your quirks, humor, and perspective aren’t just personality traits—they’re kindred magnets. Let people fall in love with the way you do things.

1️⃣6️⃣ Create a Freebie That’s Actually Useful (Not a 20-Page Sales Pitch in Disguise)

A good freebie should be so good it makes people want to pay you for more. Experiment to find out what that “thing” is for your kindreds.

1️⃣7️⃣ Make Sales Fun for Your Kindreds, Too

Replace pressure with playful banter + unexpected twists that make your kindreds feel like they're part of a fun, underground feel-good club—joy sells.

1️⃣8️⃣ Share the Offers That Light You Up

If you’re bored of selling it, they’ll be bored of buying it. Sell what feels good.

1️⃣9️⃣ Publicly Celebrate the People Who Buy from You

A little “HELL YES, [client name] JUST JOINED!” moment makes buying feel like a party, not a transaction. Go try it!

2️⃣0️⃣ Make Buying an Easy Yes

No 17-step checkout process. No confusing options. Make it stupid simple to buy from you. No one wants the upsell, downsell, sidesell shuffle before they check out. Boot, scoot, and streamline that shit.

2️⃣1️⃣ Rewrite Your “Work With Me” Page Like a Friend Explaining What You Do

If your service page feels like a corporate pitch deck, rewrite it like you’re talking to your bestie about what this is about—how it came about, why it matters so much, and how you’re getting “the job” done.

2️⃣2️⃣ Stop Waiting Until a “Launch” to Sell

If your thing is available, tell people about it now. Not just during your Official Launch Window™.

2️⃣3️⃣ Experiment with “Trust Writing”

Share something raw, real, and scary—something your kindreds need to hear. Vulnerability builds connection, connection builds trust, and trust builds lives + businesses.

2️⃣4️⃣ Send More Love Notes to Your Kindreds

Not just “Hey, buy this” emails—actual “Hey, here’s a lil’ joy-hit to brighten up your day” emails. Make those times you’re showing up between the selling really matter.

2️⃣5️⃣ Sell Like You’d Want to Be Sold To

If you’d roll your eyes + get the “ick” at it, don’t do it. It’s going to do the same thing to your kindreds.

2️⃣6️⃣ Play the Long Game

Building trust takes time. Stop treating every post like it has to convert. Just keep showing up. We’re playing the long game.

2️⃣7️⃣ Stop Catering to the Algorithm Over Yourself + Your Kindreds

Social media’s a dumpster fire. Build relationships off of it. Email, Substack, community, referrals—those will last way longer than anything going on in the dopamine economy.

The thing about this wild treasure hunt we’re on—there’s no map, no step-by-step guide, and definitely no paved path.

It’s full of messy experiments, duct tape miracles, and unexpected twists, but goddamn will it be an adventure that heals + unites us.

Every misstep, every victory, and all the glorious moments in between are part of our treasure. Let’s hunt like our minds, bodies, and souls need this to surive + thrive because happiness is a fundamental human need… never let anyone tell you differently.

Pull up a barstool—if you have any last words for hustle culture, say them now; that phase of life + business is about to be dead to YOU.

To taking oursevles on a sales + marketing JOYride so legendary we’ll tell our grandkids about it,

Dre ‘Hanging Out of the Sunroof Waving 👋’ Beltrami

Founder, This Digital Playground
Gangster, The Entire Internet (Since 2014)
Beer Hater, No Matter How It's Brewed (Since 1979)
Step into your YOU-SHAPED ERA: Your Brand Dossier Is Waiting 🦄🦄🦄 >>>

P.S.

Care to back this wild hot dog-flavored “stand” I’m making with your vote of support?

I want to prove that small creators like us can make a real goddamn living without dishonest, empty, manipulative, predatory tactics.

So, this is me, shooting my shot.

High hopes, low expectations.

If you enjoy my off-the-wall analogies, pro-human ideas, and brutally honesty insights, the biggest compliment would be for you to recommend me to your kindreds + readers. If you want to recommend me directly through Substack, here’s a step-by-step guide (with visuals) walking you through the whole process.

I can’t do this without you. 🌭🫶

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Want more Dre in your life? Here are some of my most loved + shared thoughts, ideas, and rants so far:

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