In my email yesterday, I wrote about a chargeback I’d gotten earlier in the day. I asked for advice.
And I got it.
I got advice about possible ways to handle the current chargeback better.
I got good advice on how to prevent it in the future.
I got personal stories and experiences and consolation from others who have been there before me.
I can say I’m honestly grateful to everyone who wrote in. I can also say it’s reminder of something important:
People start email lists to do marketing. To sell stuff. Perhaps to become seen as an authority at whatever it is they do.
But if you do it right, it ends up going way beyond that.
I heard Codie Sanchez talking on a podcast a few days ago. As you might know, Codie runs Contrarian Thinking, a newsletter with some 250,000 subscribers, about buying and selling businesses. She’s built an eight-figure info business off the back of that newsletter, plus maybe several other 7-figure businesses also.
But it goes way beyond that. Codie said that via her newsletter, she’s automatically and without any extra effort also gotten:
– Unique business opportunities
– Financing
– Business partners
– Employees
– Advice and guidance
– Access and connections
My experience has been similar.
I’ve had direct job offers from people reading my newsletter. I’ve had business partnership offers.
People have shared their personal stories with me. I’ve gotten good business advice, from people who are qualified to give it.
I’ve hired people via my list, and I’ve been hired by people on my list.
I’ve gotten insider tips and tricks from people at the very top of the game.
I’ve met some of my readers in real life. We’ve gone to conferences together. I’ve even gotten nice stuff in my physical mail box from people who read these emails.
All of that fell out automatically, as a side-effect of relentlessly, mercilessly, unfailingly writing a 400-500-word email every day, and sharing something I have learned, or something unnerving that happened to me, or a bit of inspiration, or a bit of frustration, like I did yesterday.
I guess you see where this is going. But since this is a marketing newsletter, I will force myself to spell it out:
Start an email list.
Write to it regularly.
Preferably daily.
Good things will happen as a result. And if bad things happen also, you will have a powerful resource in your email list to deal with it.
I have a course about how to relentlessly, mercilessly, unfailingly write a 400-500-word email every day, and to make it interesting for yourself and valuable for your readers. If that’s something you’d like to do: