If you’ve dipped any of your toes into the “make money online” world before you’ll know that you can’t really make much money without an email list.
Well, you can but it will be hard to sustain that income in the long term.
It can be disheartening when you’re just starting out so I wanted to share some words of wisdom on this topic that I learned from David Wood. I transcribed the best bits and sprinkled a few of my own thoughts below.
Believe me, IF you take action on the information here – you will make money online. Pay close attention.
“It does not take any more effort to succeed than it does to be mediocre. It is way more effort, it is way more energy, it is way more of your soul that gets sucked away being mediocre than it does being great and doing what you’re supposed to do in your life.
People say, “Well, they succeed at that because they’ve got a big list.” They just assume that everyone who succeeds online had a big list when they were new.
Do you need a big list to be ultra successful on the internet? Of course you do… Who do you know that was born with a monster list?
Some people look at Mack Zidan – he’s the number one recruiter in Empower Network, the only affiliate who’s recruited over a thousand people – he’s got a gigantic list with probably hundreds of thousands of people on it. He’s been doing this stuff for fifteen years. Do you think that when he started he had a big list?
“Do you think that somehow there’s some magical thing that happens to successful people that doesn’t happen to you? …We all start with zero… Don’t make excuses for why you’re not succeeding. Take responsibility and your life will transform. Rather than saying, ‘I can’t succeed because I don’t have a big list.’ Say, ‘I’m not successful yet, because I don’t know how to get a big list yet and I’m learning right now.’
Go out there and build a big list and stop being a weanie.
You don’t get anywhere by complaining about what you don’t have. One of the very first steps to success online is to build an email list.”
Do Not Delay Building Your List!
Kris Darty (ex-unemployed construction dude with an awesome success story) mentioned once that when he started out, he was making sales and driving traffic to his website. He was doing well, but he didn’t have a way to capture people’s emails on his website and he left thousands of dollars on the table because of it.
Think of all the people who bought one of his affiliate products and then disappeared from him forever because he didn’t have their email.
Think of all the people who came to his site, liked what they saw, but the timing wasn’t right to buy one of his products. They probably would have liked to get on his list so they could stay in touch with him.
You have to have a way for people to stay in touch with you.
Email is better than social media?
What? Lowly old “retro” email?
Yes, admit it, your primary email inbox is a more intimate place to you than your facebook account. It’s private and it’s personal. You don’t just give that address out to anyone.
Yes, social media has it’s place but don’t believe those out there who say that “email is dead.”
Your facebook or twitter account can get shut down any day. Once you have someone’s email address, you own that and you can always get in touch with them. So, if you have a great following on facebook and twitter (and whatever else) get to work on getting those people to opt-in to your email list.
You just have to be cool enough in your emails so they won’t unsubscribe.
Here are a few ways that I do it:
1. I write blog posts (like this one) and link to my capture page in the post itself, in my “About the Author” box below. The ads on the side lead to capture pages also.
2. I share my blog posts on facebook and twitter (and everywhere else), bringing my following over to a site that is owned by me where they (obviously) have the opportunity to join my email list.
3. I also have pages like this that I share in different places which capture email addresses as well.
If you don’t believe it will work, it won’t…
“None of this will work if you don’t believe it will work. If you don’t believe in yourself and you don’t have self confidence… you’ve got an issue. I used to have that issue, too. I solved it. If you don’t believe that it will work and you act in doubt all the time you’re going to have a very difficult time making any of this happen. And you won’t have a difficult time because it won’t work. It will work even if you do it and don’t believe it. The thing that will make it difficult if you don’t believe it is that you won’t actually go out there and do it. ‘Cause I’ve just found this weird thing with people: If they don’t believe they’re going to make money doing something, they don’t work very hard. So I see a lot of people out there that spend more time complaining than they do in action in their business. You’ve got to believe it. If there’s a secret, that’s it.”
So, today’s the day.
Start building your list.
Take this free resource – it tells you everything you need to know to grow your list to 1,000 subscribers in 30 days or less.
Related Posts:
Why you don’t need a big list to make an impact online
How to get your marketing emails opened [it’s not what you think]