List Building Archives

Is your list too small for list swaps?

March 1, 2026 by John Bejakovic

For several decades now, I’ve been recommending list swaps as a way to grow your email list.

(List swap = you promote somebody else to your list, in exchange for them promoting you to theirs.)

The #1 objection I hear is:

“My list is too small to make it worth anybody’s while.”

How small is too small?

4 people?

100 people?

200 people?

I was recently on a call with a list owner who has a list of 1,500 entrepreneurs. He said he’s worried his list is too small to do list swaps!

That dude asked for my advice about approaching people for list swaps. What I told him is:

1. A fantastic lead magnet and solid emails will go a long way.

Right now, I’m doing a list swap with somebody who has a list of 150 people… because he’s willing to custom create a lead magnet I know my audience will get value from. Plus his emails are solid.

2. You can always offer to make things right.

If somebody’s list is bigger than yours, you can offer to promote them multiple times, now and then again in 6 months or in a year etc. (In the end, that’s the deal I ended up striking with the guy in point 1.)

3. Money can plug the gap. You can always offer to both promote the other person AND to pay them something to make the exchange more equitable.

So?

Are you convinced now?

Are you gonna rush out and start doing list swaps?

I hope so.

But if not, I gotta tell you my dark-psychology conclusion here:

I don’t think list size is really what’s holding people back from doing list swaps.

Rather, I think it’s the same old culprit that holds back pretty much everybody, pretty much all the time:

Fear of rejection.

Putting yourself out there… and having somebody tell you no or ignore you… and feeling so small and worthless because of it.

If that’s your situation, then I’d suggest, in the words of business coach Rich Schefren, that you put your business goals ahead of your personal development goals.

It would be great to not care about being rejected, or to just do stuff in spite of this fear.

But while you work on that, it can make sense to look for alternate routes to achieve your business goals.

I’d like to point you to an opportunity to do so right now.

Maliha Mannan, who runs the Side Blogger and who is a member of my Daily Email House community, has a list of 9,000 online creators and business owners and people who want to become such.

Maliha is auctioning off a classified ad spot in every Sunday edition of her newsletter… FOR THE REST OF THIS YEAR.

Bidding starts at $2.

More info here:

https://www.skool.com/anthill-club-6065/your-official-invitation-to-my-basementbackyard-party

Daily Emails 101

February 27, 2026 by John Bejakovic

Over the past few weeks, I have been spending a lot of time talking to Nick “The Knife” Bandy, and trying to persuade him to create a course that I want to buy and maybe even sell.

The background is that Nick has an email list, which he has been growing for the past year with a low-stress ad funnel to a low-ticket product that runs at a VERY slight profit, indefinitely.

In more specific numbers:

Nick’s low-stress ad funnel gets him about 100 new buyers on his list every month. And for every $1k Nick puts into this funnel, he gets $1.2k out before he’s even sent an email. He only checks in on it every few months.

Every time Nick mentions this ad funnel and this way of growing his list, my stomach growls and I start to salivate a little.

I’ve been trying to get him to create a course about this, because frankly I myself would love to have a similar funnel and would love to grow my list, with buyers, on autopilot, at profit. Come on!

The trouble is, Nick is kinda busy.

He’s got his regular $12k/month CMO retainer (part time, come on!)…

… he’s got partner revshare deals he has been kicking off…

… and because he has created one successful low-stress ad funnel, he has now decided to create a second.

I will keep pushing Nick, and maybe if I succeed, and he creates his course, I can make it available to you too.

Meanwhile, all I can do is daydream.

Today I was in the shower — no joke, and no direct response hyperbole — and I found myself thinking how I could create a low-ticket something called Daily Emails 101.

Daily Emails 101 would walk those who have or want to have an online business through the first 101 days of writing and making sales with a daily email newsletter.

Daily Emails 101 would be the most wonderful, exciting, and nichiest guide to this niche topic, and I’d make sure it inspires as well as informs.

Is this something you would want?

I mean, if I were to create Daily Emails 101, and if I were to promise to get you a deal on it that nobody else will get, not outside of this email, would you put down, say, $5 today to have the option to buy Daily Emails 101?

Hit reply and let me know.

If you say yes, and you’re serious enough to put down $5, maybe I’ll create it… maybe I will sell it to you for an unimaginably sexy price when it’s done… and maybe, when Nick does create his “low-stress ad funnel that grows your list at a profit” course, I will be ready to unleash it on the world, a few copies at a time (I’ll even put your name inside of it to say thanks).

I’m jealous of this lead gen funnel

January 4, 2026 by John Bejakovic

Last August, I promoted Igor Kheifets’s $3.99 book, Click Send Earn, as an affiliate.

$3.99? As an affiliate?

Yes. Because Igor pays out a $30 affiliate commission for each $3.99 sale.

The result was I sent two emails, and made Igor 69 sales, while making a little short of $2100 in commissions for myself.

Igor has got a super smart lead gen funnel here, and the offer he makes — $3.99 sale, $30 CPA — has gotten a buncha other list owners besides me interested in promoting.

Maliha Mannan of the Side Blogger promoted, as did Csaba Borzasi, as did Lawrence Bernstein of Ad Money Machine, with a promo that did so well last October that he is reprising it right now, just three months later.

The reason Igor can offer to pay all these folks $30 for each $3.99 sale is that he has a half dozen order form bumps and a long list of upsells once people buy the book.

Igor knows what a new customer in this funnel is worth to him, and I suspect it’s over $30. Of course, each new customer becomes worth much more when they get on Igor’s email list and are getting exposed to Igor’s back-end offers, many of them high-ticket, which Igor knows to convert.

I am frankly jealous of Igor for this funnel. I would love to have affiliates jostling and clamoring to promote either of my two books, or the new book I’m planning to publish this year.

But who’s got time and energy enough to create and dial in all these order bumps… and upsells… and copy… and funnels… and back-end offers?

Igor does, apparently.

And he does it while working 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, and having a family, and two kids, and writing and publishing comic books, and playing video games, and watching Netflix.

It wasn’t always like this.

Igor used to work 70+ hour weeks on his biz. He was grinding and hustling and making $130k a year. That might sound like a dream to you except it really wasn’t, considering how much he was working, and how little he was able to enjoy it. Plus he was making literally 3% of the $4.3 million he makes a year now.

Today, Igor works much less, gets much more done, makes much more money, and enjoys his free time without thinking about working or feeling guilty for not working.

I’m telling you this because this past November, Igor did a masterclass covering his system for getting more done in less time. He documented the exact productivity system that took him from A to B, from overworked and underpaid to having lots of free time and making a lot of money and publishing comic books.

I’ve been through Igor’s masterclass. I’m taking ideas from it. I’m applying them to what I do.

And starting tomorrow, since it’s the fresh start of a New Year, I will be promoting this system to you as well.

Of course, there will be a special deal.

Of course, there will be bonuses.

Of course, there will be a bit of a party theme, it being only a few days after New Year’s Eve. But party theme or not, the promise here is serious:

Work less, get more done, and feel zero guilt when you’re not working.

If that’s something that makes your subtle body tingle, then read my email tomorrow.

2 simplifying questions to ask yourself

November 17, 2025November 16, 2025 by John Bejakovic

I was waiting in the line at the coffee shop this morning. The barista was making a latte with oat milk for another customer, and she looked up at me.

“Coffee?” she asked.

I nodded and said yes.

“Well?” she said with a bit of frustration in her voice, waving her hand to indicate I should be a bit more specific than that.

I’m telling you this fascinating story because I want to set up something email-marketing related.

I’ve been running my revived Daily Email House group for a few weeks. I invited people to post about problems they are having, and see if the group can help. Came the following problem:

===

How do I grow my list? That’s my biggest problem.

===

“Well?” I said when I read this question, waving my hand to indicate that the question-asker should be a bit more specific than that.

If you’re reading this right now, odds are excellent that you already know two dozen perfectly good ways to grow an email newsletter. Maybe more.

The fact is, there are hundreds and possibly thousands of ways to grow an email list. Many of them can work great. What’s more, there’s a ton of good and free information online about how to put most of them into practice.

And I guess therein lies the trouble. There are simply too many choices, including too many good choices, when it comes to growing an email list.

It paralyzes people, the same way that a choice of two dozen sourced coffees from around the world… prepared with two dozen different techniques including V60s and aeropresses and pretentious pourovers… resulting in two dozen final products like lattes and batch brews and cortados and americanos… can paralyze people, if they don’t already know exactly what they want.

To help with that (not the coffee, but the list growth), let me propose two simplifying questions:

1. “Which platform do I believe in?”

A “platform” is any technology or site or organization that’s already got the attention of some humans. Here are few examples:

– Facebook

– YouTube

– Substack

– Google

– Amazon

– Pinterest

– Email newsletters

– Yellow Pages

– AM radio

– your local Chamber of Commerce

…

Pick a platform from the list above, or some other platform you believe in. You can believe in it because you believe it has staying power… because you feel some affinity for it… because you think that the kinds of people you want to attract are there… or ideally all three.

2. “Do I prefer to pay with money or time?”

You have to pay, unfortunately.

The question is whether you’d rather pay with a dozen hours a month spent creating content, or reaching out to people one-on-one, or building yourself up to be a more attractive and fascinating person…. or whether you’d rather spend a few hundred dollars a month to get the platform owners to push your message out for you.

There are pros and cons to both paying with money or time, including ones which are nonobvious.

For now, just go with your gut. You probably have a sense of which one is a less painful cost to you to pay each month — a dozen hours of your time, or a few hundred dollars from your wallet.

Once you have your two answers to the question above, the path will be clear. You will know what to do — again, most of the details are out there on the Internet, and it’s just a matter of committing to it and following through.

But what if you pick the wrong platform, or you start to pay with one currency and you realize you made a mistake, and you want to switch?

It’s not really a big problem. Anything you do will be infinitely better than doing nothing, and pivoting to a new platform, or switching from paid in time to paid in money, or vice versa, is pretty straightforward.

Did this help?

I hope so.

But if not, my Daily Email House community is still there, waiting to help people who want to use their email list to pay for a house.

Over the next few days, I will be releasing a Daily Email Habit Starter Pack, including a proven way to grow your email list, which is based on my own personal answers to the two questions above.

If you’d like to get inside Daily Email House in time to get this Starter Pack:

https://bejakovic.com/house

Free training on client acquisition by half-cow-selling copywriter

September 6, 2025 by John Bejakovic

Even in the small world of “dudes who write daily emails about writing daily emails,” you can sometimes miss good people.

And so it was that, a few weeks ago, while putting together a group of people who have email lists and sell stuff related to email marketing and copywriting and course creation, it was for the first time ever that I heard of a guy named Alin Dragu.

I’m telling you this because in the weeks that followed, Alin and I agreed to do a “list swap.” That’s a lurid term for a clean idea. Basically, Alin and I agreed to let our respective lists know the other guy exists, and to coax our readers into joining the other’s list as well.

Alin has a long-form optin page that does a thorough job boosting his status and making the case for why you might want to hear from him daily. In a few words, Alin’s got:

– Endorsements for his daily emails from people like Daniel Throssell and Brian Kurtz

– The title of Vice President of a $2.8M Advertising Agency

– A testimonial from a copywriting client who sold a half cow (yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like) thanks to Alin’s email copy

… and if authority is not enough, Alin also has a legit and exclusive bribe bundle to entice you to sign up to his list, good for only the next 48 hours, just because you happen to be a diligent reader of my newsletter.

The core piece of this is a video training called “Warm-Ish Client Acquisition,” in which Alin lays out a (coldish) outreach strategy that led to two copywriting retainers worth $6k. Alin previously only made this training available inside a $300 product, but it’s yours free.

Also, Alin’s bribe bundle contains a copy of his book, Meaningful Marketing, and Copywriting Catalyst, a collection of copywriting tips.

And it’s all free. Did I mention that? FREE.

But only if you act before the deadline, which, tick-tock, is waiting like the crocodile in Peter Pan to bite the arm off the careless and the tardy.

To get Alin’s bribes and to sign up to the man’s list in time:

https://alindragu.com/john/

Why I didn’t build a list in the copywriting/marketing space

April 12, 2025 by John Bejakovic

Yesterday I mentioned how a while back, I followed Travis Speegle’s MyPeeps program to build up a new email list of dog owners via paid ads. To which a long-time reader wrote in to ask:

===

Just curious, John, how come you didn’t build a list in the copywriting/marketing space? I’m using a different process myself that will help me build a list with a combo of content + paid ads so curious to hear how come you don’t try to grow your existing list.

===

Good question.

First off, I frankly don’t want to build a “copywriting” list.

I haven’t primarily been writing about copywriting for, I don’t know, the past two+ years, ever since I stopped working with copywriting clients, and maybe before then.

I have been writing about persuasion and influence and psychology on the one hand, and online businesses and marketing on the other hand, and random other stuff that I find funny or interesting on the third hand.

But the real question is why not build up this existing list, and why start a new list instead?

I thought about it. I came up with a few reasons, ranked here from most logical and therefore least likely to be true, to least logical and therefore most likely to be true:

#1. I wanted to do a demonstration for the people inside the implementation group I ran when I first promoted MyPeeps. I didn’t want people who were building up their own lists to throw up their arms and say, “Of course you can do it because you have all these assets I don’t have!” A new list would make the demonstration cleaner and more persuasive.

#2. I was genuinely thinking to do this dog list as a side business of its own (I still think it could be viable). The list building implementation group I ran seemed like a good moment to kick that off.

#3. My simple opportunity-seeking mindset, which lives at the core of my person, and which says it’s more exciting to start something new and risky than to toil away on something familiar and proven.

#4. Because it’s simpler to run ads for a new, impersonal list than an existing, personal list. About that:

Like I said, I ran a 4-week implementation group for the people who bought MyPeeps when I promoted it as an affiliate.

In that group, I could see people running ads to build up their own personal lists.

AND IT DID NOT WORK.

Not because paid ads are a scam, or because Travis Speegle’s MyPeeps course doesn’t deliver.

Travis lays out very simple and yet very proven process to make paid ads work for list building, whether it’s your own personal list or an anonymous list of dog owners.

The reason it didn’t work for many people is because they refused to follow a crucial step in Travis’s process.

In fact, even when I pointed out to people they were skipping this crucial step, they nodded at me, smiled in appreciation of my looking out for them, and then turned around and continued to do exactly what they had been doing, which was skipping this crucial step.

What is this step?

Travis’s MyPeeps course describes is very well in module 1 and again in module 5.

If you would like to build up a new list, or to grow your existing list, you can find full info on Travis’s MyPeeps below:

https://bejakovic.com/mypeeps

P.S. If you have bought MyPeeps, forward me your receipt. I’ll share with you the recordings of the calls and my own notes that I initially did inside the implementation group last year.

And if you’ve already sent me your receipt, check inside the bonuses area that I gave you access to.

I’ve added a “DO YOU MAKE THESE MISTAKES IN PAID ADS FOR YOUR PERSONAL LIST?” document in there (very subtle, I know). It highlights the crucial step so many list owners are skipping when creating ads to promote their existing personal list, and explains how you can maybe avoid doing the same.

My advice on actually building an email list

April 11, 2025 by John Bejakovic

A diligent reader writes in with a familiar question:

===

Hi John,

From what I’ve seen, Daily Email Habit helps you with your already existing email list, right?

My question is, do you have any course or advice on actually building an email list first. Correct me if I’m wrong about the Daily Email Habit.

===

The diligent reader above is absolutely right. Daily Email Habit is about emailing your existing list.

List building is not my forte or my focus, and therefore I don’t sell a course on it.

But last year, I did promote Travis Speegle’s MyPeeps course, all about how to build a large, engaged email list.

I bought Travis’s course myself before promoting it. I thought the content was great. I ended up promoting it to my list and even running an “implementation group” on the back of it over 4 weeks.

As part of this implementation group, I started a new list (dog owners, since I’d done a lot of client work in this space once upon a time)… I went through Travis’s training… and I followed what Travis advised to the letter.

The result for me personally were new, qualified email susbcribers at about $0.60 a name.

If you are looking to build a list, then MyPeeps is my recommendation for how to do it quickly, on a budget of $10-$20 a day, so you end up with subscribers who actually want to read what you have to write and buy what you have to offer.

If you’d like to find out the full details on MyPeeps, or start building an engaged email list today:

https://bejakovic.com/mypeeps

P.S. Within that implementation group, I did three live calls with the participants.

I also had an 8-page document of notes I personally took from Travis’s course.

If you do decide to sign up for MyPeeps, forward me your receipt, and I will hook you up with the recordings of those calls and my own notes, to help you get more out of this course and to do it more quickly.

Why I collect personalization data I never use

March 14, 2025 by John Bejakovic

Bridget Holland, a marketer out of Sydney, Australia, who runs a content marketing agency called NoBull Marketing, writes in with a question:

===

I did a presentation for a business networking group yesterday about email marketing, and I used one of your emails as an example. (Frequency, formatting and results more than content. I was comparing it to a nicely formatted monthly email with stacks of articles, and arguing that either could work but you have to find out what was right for you and your market.)

For the first time ever – oops, embarrassing – I realised that you don’t use those first names you collect when people subscribed. (I had to go check that you collected them!) That you have no opening greeting at all.

So the question is:

* Why don’t you use greetings? Did you ever? If you did and you’ve stopped, has it made a difference? Either for the entire list, or for new subscriber behaviour?

* Why don’t you use personalisation? And since you don’t, why do you collect first names?

===

I never used personalization in my emails because, like I wrote a few days ago in the context of calibration, it feels fake to me.

I don’t like it when people do it in emails I read, particularly in the body of the email. You know what I mean, [firstname]?

In the words of David Ogilvy, “The customer is not a moron. She’s your wife.” Or your mom, or your college roommate from UC Santa Cruz, or your ex-flatmate from Budapest, or an ex-girlfriend.

(The only person I’ve seen using personalization well is Daniel Throssell, who gets creative with it. However, in order to make that work, you have to police new subscribers to make sure they put in their real name when they sign up, which I don’t feel like doing.)

So like Bridget asks, why still ask for a name, if I’m never going to use it in an email?

Two reasons:

1. Most people do fill it out, and honestly. I make an occasional habit of doing a bit of detective work on new subscribers, and this bit of info can be helpful.

2. Filling in a first name is a commitment and give for those who choose to make it. It’s a tiny commitment, but I figure it’s important. The work of training strangers of the internet to become dedicated readers and customers starts early, with such baby steps.

With all that said:

I remember the early days of my own marketing education. I put a lot of time and thought into topics like “First name on optin form, or no first name???” I now largely feel it doesn’t matter much one way or the other. Really, it’s just personal preference, and then inertia.

I’m not sure if anybody will profit from this in-depth discussion. But Bridget wrote in to ask, and I figured others might be wondering the same. In any case, I’m grateful to Bridget for sending in her question, and I wanted to highlight it here.

And since I’m busy writing my upcoming and new and still highly unfinished book, and since my self-imposed March 24 deadline is nearing, I would like to invite further reader questions.

Because answering reader questions makes for particularly easy and yet engaging emails.

So if you got small questions, big questions, questions about influence, copywriting, or how to style your hair, then I invite you to hit reply and let me know.

There’s a fair a chance I will answer your question in one of these emails over the next week or so, and will be grateful to you in any case.