Email Valhalla

There are no wrong notes

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So says musical genius Jacob Collier.

“Every note can be played with every chord, as long as you find the right ideas and consequences to support it with.” (paraphrased)

He’s not just spouting BS either.

He proves the statement to be true time and time again.

Which goes against almost everything most people have ever been taught about music (if they’ve even been taught anything to begin with).

But this isn’t just for music. This goes for almost everything you do, every product you build, every service you launch, every art piece you create, every story you write, and even personal flaws you might have as a person or a business.

Nothing is ever “wrong”.

You just haven’t found the right ideas or scenarios to apply them to.

List all of your so-called “flaws” and find a way to turn them into a strength. Take away all of the ammunition your opposition might have, remove potential buyer’s objections, and better specify your target market (which includes repelling non-suitable buyers).

As for an example.

My flagship course, Email Valhalla, is an all-text, no video, no audio, no nothing other than plain-text course.

Some might call this a flaw.

I don’t agree.

I made the deliberate choice to keep it all text.

First, I simply don’t enjoy creating video or audio content. Writing is my bread and butter. And if I enjoy writing more, then you’ll enjoy reading it more as well (not to mention the fact that the content will simply be more valuable, more though-true, better put together, and of a much higher quality than it would be if it were in any other format).

Secondly, I find it hard and difficult to learn from video courses. They take too long to go through, it’s hard to stay focused since you’re easily deceived into believing you’re listening and studying while you’re mind is drifting off and not really focusing on the true meaning of what is being said.

Whereas text requires you to actively read (and think about) what is written.

This leads to me getting better results out of books and written courses than out of video courses or webinars.

And, assuming I do a good job of attracting like-minded and similar people, I’m guessing that’s the case for most of my readers, including you, as well (not to mention that my main form of communication, email, is a written medium).

So that’s that.

The flaw of it being only a written course isn’t so much of a flaw anymore, now is it?

Anyway, if you liked what I said, you might want to check out Email Valhalla and get it for yourself here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


The Wolverine teaches business

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I rewatched Logan—the Wolverine movie—a few days ago.

And while this isn’t the first time I realized it, it made me think about how much your current state of mind or current interests and curiosities shape the way you look at everything you see and hear.

Here’s what I mean.

The movie revolves around Wolverine—an otherwise insane mutant whose abilities include having razor-sharp claws he can extend and retract out of his knuckles at will as well as super-human regeneration, aka, everything he gets wounded, it’ll heal almost immediately—making him virtually unkillable.

But that’s not what we see in Logan.

No in the film we learn that the Adamantium—the metal that’s fused with his skeleton and what his claws are made from—inside his body has been poisoning him, making it so he’s slower, weaker, slowly dying, and only barely regenerates.

What does this have to do with anything?

See, this time around while watching, my mind immediately went “oh wow, that’s a great marketing lesson”.

Let me explain.

When building a business, if done right, you can make it so you can steal Wolverine’s power of super-human regeneration, or in business terms, you can survive, recover from, potentially even thrive, from everything that happens to you if you’ve got your foundations right (such as building a great relationship with your customers, backing up your list, and making sure you stay in constant contact through email).

But, and this is a big but.

You can still get sick, your business can still deteriorate and lose its powers…

When the disease finds itself on the inside.

If you’re making mistakes, if you’re messing things up, if you don’t understand your business fundamentals or your vital marketing principles, then your business doesn’t stand a chance.

So there.

A lesson from the man, the myth, the legend, Logan, The Wolverine, himself.

Anyway.

One of the best ways I know, according to my biased, but experienced and more-than-qualified self, is through my flagship course Email Valhalla.

Click this link for more information: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla/


You’re not in the business you think you are

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I once heard someone (who's a lot smarter than me) say "Every business is in the marketing business".

Well, so far I've never met a business, no matter how small or how big, where that's not the case.

No matter how good your work is, you need people to know about it or else you'll be doomed to remain a starving artist forever.

Another thing I discovered recently is that many people, my younger self included, have this wrong belief that marketing is 1) either something extremely difficult and requires talent or 2) something that takes a lot of time and distracts you from what you actually want to create or, worst of all, 3) believe marketing is wrong.

All of which couldn't be further from the truth.

I've never met anyone who wasn't "talented" enough to make it work. Hell, I'm confident I could take my entire framework and teach it to a 10-year-old in less than a week.

More.

I've worked with many people, some even single parents with 3 toddlers running around, who used my entire framework while only requiring 20 minutes a day to make it work.

And lastly…

If you truly have an amazing product, something that speaks to people on a whole different level, something everyone should know about because it'll improve their life, whether physically or mentally, then it's your duty to market it as hard as you possibly can.

If anything, it'd be unethical NOT to make other people aware of it.

That said, marketing isn’t for everyone—or at least not the way I do it.

See, how I go about things requires genuine curiosity and interest in your customers. You need to be able to sit down and truly think and empathize with your customers. If you're not passionate about what you do—if you can't talk about it for hours on end—this won't work out.

Why?

Because I don't work with copy-pastable templates or formulas. I work in a way that humanizes things and relies on your personal curiosity and genuine passion.

Anyway.

If you’d like to learn more about how I approach marketing, especially email marketing, then you might want to check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


How to actually get betterr at telling stories

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I know I’m not new or original with this one, but one of the best skills you can develop to aid your marketing efforts is the art of storytelling.

People have been telling stories for thousands of years (the oldest recorded story in history—The Epic of Gilgamesh—is over 4,000 years old).

Stories are how we learn and remember.

We evolved that way.

There’s simply nothing more entertaining than a well-told story.

More.

We all know how to tell stories. We do it all the time.

When you’re talking about your vacation to friends and family, gossiping about that awful customer experience you had to your co-workers, or when you made up that story as to why you couldn’t participate in swimming class to Miss Stephanie, your 5th-grade science teacher.

That’s all storytelling.

So it amused me when, a few days ago, I came across a bunch of people online discussing the best storytelling books and courses to learn from.

Why?

Well, the best way to learn (or rather improve, because you already know how) to tell stories isn’t by buying books on courses on the topic. It’s by practicing, by simply telling (or writing) stories each and every day.

If that’s not enough for you.

Then the second best way is to immerse yourself in great storytelling, which is easily done by watching great movies, reading more novels, and, if this is your thing (which it definitely is for me), going through and playing the best story-driven video games and experiencing the rollercoaster of emotions it makes you feel.

I’ve picked up a consistent daily reading habit since late 2022 and have been (re)watching a lot of incredible classics for the past few months, as well as re-visiting some of the all-time best video game releases in the last decade.

Now I’m not saying you should do the same.

I’m interested in game development, for one, so this works out.

But find the medium you enjoy and truly immerse yourself in it. By doing so you’ll essentially pick up the skill of storytelling through osmosis.

That is, as long as you consistently practice telling stories while you’re immersing yourself in them.

And the best way I found to easily and enjoyably share stories with other people is by writing daily emails—not to mention the fact it’ll also get you paid.

Anyway.

Check out Email Valhalla here to learn more about daily email writing: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


You don’t want money

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You want freedom over your time.

You want the freedom to work from wherever you want, with whomever you want, whenever you want, and on whatever you want.

But that doesn’t mean sitting on the beach all day drinking cocktails all day.

That gets boring quickly.

No, you do want to work. But you want work that allows for creative self-expression and interesting challenges to overcome. To keep pushing yourself further, to achieve more today than you achieved yesterday.

As the old adage says, it’s about the journey, not the destination—yet it never feels as such.

In short.

You don’t want less work.

You want less meaningless work so you can replace that time with more meaningful work. You might not even call it “work” anymore when it comes down to it.

But that’s what it is.

Work you truly and utterly enjoy doing.

And the only way to get there, and more importantly, stay there, in my humble and accurate opinion, is to start building something of your own. Develop your own skillset, build your own offers, grow your own customer base, and become your own employer (this includes working as a freelancer if that’s what you enjoy most).

Then, and only then, when you’re truly free to work on whatever you want while getting paid more than enough—which is only to rid yourself of all the symptoms that come with not being paid enough, not the goal in and of itself—then and only then will you truly live the life you’ve always dreamt of living, even if you don’t realize it yet.

You don’t want money.

You want the freedom of self-expression and meaningful work.

So stop wasting any more time and get to it.

And if I can recommend you a immensely valuable skill to learn that’ll be incredibly useful to you, no matter what path you’re going down, then it’ll be to learn and master the fundamentals of marketing, and more importantly, email marketing. Because that’s going to enable everything else you’ll be doing.

Anyway.

To learn more about my solution to master email marketing fundamentals, check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


An accidental masterclass in entertainment

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Yesterday I went to a basketball game for the first time in my life.

In fact, this was the first time I ever went to a live sporting event in a big stadium (aside from the martial arts ones I participated in myself when I was younger).

And man what an experience that was.

I found it absolutely astonishing how, during the whole 2 hours I was there, there was always something going on. Most of the time it was the basketball game in question—obviously.

But even when they called a timeout, during the mid-time break, and even during the 10-second windows when the ref called some mistake and they had to reset the game/give someone a free throw, at every single point, they’d tactically entertain the viewer with something else.

Whether it was a 10-second piece of hype music, asking the supporters to clap their hands, or the cheerleaders giving a 30-second performance, there wasn’t a single moment to feel bored.

Now I know next to nothing about sports (to be frank, it’s a miracle I even went to this event, but that’s a story for another time).

But I imagine this level of constant entertainment wasn’t invented/discovered/created from the start. There have been many breakthroughs throughout the years to become as competent at entertaining people as this event proved to be—with all of it’s different moving parts of the system combined.

Truly a masterclass of entertainment.

And I’d recommend everyone to go to events like these more often themselves to learn how to become a great entertainer—an invaluable skill when it comes to marketing.

Anyway.

That’s enough for today.

If you’d like to start improving your entertainment game today instead of waiting to go and see some local sporting event (or watch one on television), then definitely check out Email Valhalla to get yourself started.

Check it out here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


My long-awaited return to the boulder gym

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I’m going bouldering later today for the first time in months.

For the past however long it may have been, I couldn’t go because of an injury that had to recover.

But now, with lot’s of physical therapy behind my back, a lot of specific exercises, and a whole lot of patience, well now I’m finally going to get back at it on the wall for the first time.

Yet it’s still going to be a different session than I’d normally have.

See, I’ve been told to build it up from the bottom again. To go slow and see how it goes. My shoulder injury hasn’t yet healed completely so I can’t just go all out again, that could easily mess up my shoulder once again and send me back another few months.

There’s just one big problem.

Doing the easy stuff and taking it slow, as if I was a beginner (the advice my physical therapist gave me) is boring as hell.

So, logically I had to come up with a new game plan.

Instead of doing the usual bouldering stuff I’d do—only a lot easier—I’ll turn this first session into a technique session where I’ll spend the entirety of my time improving my movement and practicing the fundamentals.

I won’t just be going through the movements on easier climbs.

I’ll purposely turn the “easy” climbs (aka, not difficult on my shoulder) into real challenges of technical skill. The purpose won’t be to finish the climb. The purpose will be to finish the climb as flawlessly and as efficiently as possible.

This is called “forward intent”.

Aka, making something more difficult than it needs to be with the sole purpose of improving your craft.

Forward intent, as well as going back to the basics and practicing your fundamentals, is something you can (and should) do in business as well.

Add constraints to the things you do, really focus on practicing you otherwise wouldn’t, and don’t skip the “boring” parts.

And if you’d like to know a nice way to start improving your craft, especially your email writing ability, then check out my flagship course Email Valhalla, where I hone in on the fundamentals to get your email writing capabilities to the next level.

Check it out here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


Why I don’t mention my promotions on social media

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Nor do I even try to sell any of my products (let alone even mention them).

Here’s why:

See, my reasoning is twofold.

First, I simply can’t be bothered.

Yes I’m certain I could earn more money, sign more clients, and sell more products if I were to mention and actively sell on my timeline.

But I don’t enjoy doing so.

And seeing as how ‘enjoyment’ is one of my 3 main business pillars, alongside simplicity and freedom, that should already be reason enough.

But still.

The second reason, and a more “reasonable” answer for some perhaps, is that this is my way of giving something back to everyone on my list.

I’m intentionally limiting the people who have access to my products, services, promotions, and bonuses to those on my email list.

Yes obviously I’m creating content, writing emails, offering services, and coming up with valuable products because I want to get paid.

I need to eat after all.

But I’m not desperate to get paid—there’s a true superpower in taking the approach of “no matter whether you buy my stuff or not, I’m eating steak either way”.

I don’t just accept anyone and everyone as a customer. I just simply don’t allow just about anyone to give me money.

I’m very selective about that.

I can count more clients I refused to work with than I can the ones I did.

That doesn’t bother me.

Maybe you’re calling me crazy right now (and you know, maybe I am, who knows?) But still, I’d call you inexperienced in the way of dealing with clients. You have no idea how enjoyable it is to work with good clients and how absolutely awful and outright painful it is to work with your average Joe.

In a sense, you could say I’m not trying to build a business.

I’m building a lifestyle—one that’s enjoyable at all times.

And that requires extreme filtering.

If you’re not filtering (heavily) in your business, I can all but guarantee you’re not enjoying it.

So, let me ask you.

What sort of filters do you have in place in your business?

And if you’d like to learn how you can run a successful business while limiting the number of people who even get the chance to buy from you, then you might want to check out Email Valhalla.

Click here to see what I’m talking about: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


Start doing more doing

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One of the biggest improvements I made in my email and business career was when I started telling more stories everywhere I went.

In my emails, in my X or LinkedIn posts, during X spaces (when I used to do those), during consultation calls, in the DMs to explain concepts and close prospects, or simply outside of business when talking with friends or family members.

No matter when or where.

It’s always a good time to be telling stories—not to mention how good of a practice it is to develop your own storytelling and, in turn, your copywriting abilities.

I've never come across a situation where sharing a well-told and relevant story didn’t help me out in any way, shape, or form.

And I don’t want you to read this and think you have to become a guru who doesn’t shut up about storytelling tips, tricks, tactics, or god forbid, teaches you how to use ChatGPT to tell better stories, yet never actually tells any stories.

Seriously, there’s a direct inverse relation between how often someone shares storytelling tips and how often someone tells relevant stories.

That’s good life advice as well.

Don’t listen to the person doing the most teaching.

Listen to the person doing the most doing. (take that grammar nazis)

And talking about people doing a lot of doing—I happen to do a lot of doing, especially when it comes to sending emails, they get a lot of doing from me.

So much doing.

I sometimes even do the doing multiple times a day, like I’m doing right now.

That’s a lot of doing.

Anyway.

If you want to learn how to do the doing as well, then check out Email Valhalla: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


I love the Transformer movies

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And I’m not afraid to say it.

See.

Ever since I was young, I remember loving the Transformer franchise, getting multiple Transformers action figures as Christmas and birthday gifts and whatnot, and when I outgrew those action figures, I ended up spending hours playing Transformer video games.

I eventually outgrew those.

But then I started getting fascinated by film music, at which point I was deeply obsessed with—among others—the original Transformer soundtracks by Steve Jablonsky, and later got fascinated by filmmaking as a whole.

And look, the Transformer movies have many flaws—more than anyone could count.

It also didn’t get better as time went on (Don’t even get me started on the most recent releases).

But you know what? That doesn’t matter at the end of the day.

The franchise doesn’t take itself that seriously. And why should it?

It’s making a world of its own. I have no doubt that when Michael Bay was directing Transformers he said to himself “you know what would look totally sick and make for an entertaining picture?” and then did whatever he had in mind.

Without any fear of being ridiculed, of being parodied, of not making “the perfect picture”, there’s no sliver of doubt about the intention behind the films and their entertaining nature.

And it shows in the earlier films (and some scenes of the later ones as well, although arguably less so).

That’s the difference between the artist and the entrepreneur

A true love for the craft—not just the numbers.

And that, to me, is what it’s all about.

See, I don’t care about building the perfect business, the best-optimized funnel, the most automated systems, none of that. It’s not about that.

It’s about the creative freedom. About doing what you love. Thinking something might be fun and enjoyable to do and simply doing it no matter how ridiculous it might seem, how unoptimized it might be, or even how “the public might not like it”.

Authors end up writing the books they wish would’ve been written, simply because they want to experience the joy of reading that story.

That’s the way one should aim to build their creative business.

And if you’re interested to learn one of the ways—if not the best way—to go about building such business, then you might want to check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla