Email Valhalla

Getting more done in the same amount of time

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A while ago I received a hangboard—a wooden training instrument with specific-sized holes to train yourself to hang on to small ledges with anywhere from all 5 to 2 fingers per hand—as a gift.

A great and useful tool to up my bouldering game.

For months now, it’s been above the door of my room where I work, read, sleep, relax, and more than occasionally waste a lot of time—long story short, I’m in there a lot.

I also enter and leave a lot, whether it’s to get something to drink, to eat, to go to the toilet, to go on a walk, to the gym, to talk to people, whatever it is.

The consequence?

Every time I leave my room I use the hangboard.

It’s the easiest thing ever. It takes all but 5 seconds and it’s always “on the way” to whatever I want to do.

The result?

I get tons of practice and training without thinking about it, let alone realizing I’m “training”.

Now, I don’t know how this might be useful in your life, but what I do know is that you could use this same strategy to force yourself to write a small opening line (or a subject line) to an email every time you think of an idea worthy to write down.

You want to write it down anyway, so why not practice creating more curiosity in your writing—and then send it to the world and see what happens?

Anyway.

Another way to learn how to create more curiosity in your writing and improve your persuasiveness is by checking out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


I know nothing

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Yesterday, I, once again, went quizzing with friends.

I mostly go quizzing for the social aspect and the enjoyment that comes with it—definitely not to win.

Why?

Simply said, I know fuck all.

Truth be told, I can’t be bothered following sports, mainstream media, politics, or any of the other major topics most questions asked in a quiz are built around (after all, the aim is to cater to the general public).

Not saying there’s anything wrong with that—just not my thing.

And yet, out of the 50-something teams that participated we (mostly my friends) managed to place 12th. Definitely not bad to say the least. (something, something choose your friends wisely, I guess?).

Situations like this always make me think.

This isn’t so different from what I normally do. I’m not the smartest marketer out there, nor the most-talented writer, and definitely not the most successful advertiser.

All I know, and ultimately excel at, is to figure out who to listen to, learn from them, implement their teachings in my own business, and achieve rock-solid results.

It’s not the least bit new, sexy, or exciting.

Frankly, it just sounds boring and even obvious.

Yet so many people seem to struggle with this simple plan—whether it’s because of their ego, their inability to think critically about the information they allow themselves to absorb, or simply due to their laziness, I have no idea.

All I can say is, that it, quite literally, pays to study from someone who can demonstrate they know their shit—not to be confused with being full of it—and hyperfocus on doing so until you master that specific skillset… and only then move onto the next thing.

Speaking of a valuable skillset to build.

If there’s anything I would recommend to almost anyone trying to build a name for themselves, create something they think is cool and exciting, and sell it to the world, then it, without a doubt, would be the skill to write persuasive and entertaining emails your readers can’t help but 1) keep reading them day after day and 2) buy whatever it is you’re selling.

And for more information on how to learn just that, check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


The abysmal state of Hollywood

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What do The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the 2022 Halo series, and the last season of Game of Thrones have in common?

Yes, they all have abysmal ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. Clearly, the audience didn’t like them. But why?

There’s something they all share. A common reason why the audience hates them—sometimes even without knowing why.

It’s not that they necessarily had bad writing. Or that they had lots of plot holes. It’s not even that they often felt rushed and unpolished.

No, it’s something much more fundamental.

Here’s a tip. They all had previously built fanbases.

The Rings of Power has the fanbase of every Lord of The Rings lover, films and books alike. The Halo series was a highly anticipated movie by every gamer out there who, in their youth, spent hundreds of sleepless nights grinding behind their screen. And, well, the last season of Game of Thrones had millions of fans who watched all the previous seasons of course.

But then. Every single one of these managed to completely fuck up by pissing off their audience and not thinking—not even caring about what their audience wanted.

The Halo series barely has any resemblance to the original story, characters, and world that fans knew and loved from the games.

Game of Thrones managed to disregard some of the prior arcs and character-building that were built previously and made characters do things they never would’ve done with their personality, beliefs, and personal history just because it seemed useful to do so for the story.

And don’t get me started about The Rings of Power where the new show writers casually decided to do away with the decades of work Tolkien put into building the world and create his lore just because “they wanted to give add their own twist to it”—and publicly admitted to do so.

This is a common case of not thinking—not caring about your audience.

And it happens way too often.

Hollywood—and especially Marvel as of late—does it all the time. Think about how many films and shows with (badly written) heroical female leads you’ve seen pop up as of late. And how almost all of them completely flopped.

But this isn’t just limited to the movie businesses. No, no.

This is applicable to business as well.

Especially nowadays when it’s clear just how rampant the wave of newbie self-proclaimed masters, experts, gurus, and other nonsensical titles filled with people who don’t care about helping their audience.

In fact, most people who want to start a business come here with an idea of something they want to create, and only after it’s built do they ever think and wonder “Who can I sell this to?”.

When, in case it’s not obvious, it should be the other way around.

First ask yourself “Who do I want to help and what do they need?” And only when you’ve answered those two questions should you start creating something.

Always remember: market first, product second.

Which begs the question, how do you figure out what people want?

Well, for starters, if you happen to have an email list, it’s as simple as being in constant communication with your readers, writing entertaining and engaging emails, seeing which topics resonate, and if all else fails, simply asking them questions (which doesn’t mean you should always trust what people say—especially not if it’s about money or buying stuff, most people lie even though they don’t even realize it).

To get started writing these types of emails to stay in constant connection with your audience, check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


How to always keep your audience engaged

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Here’s a valuable persuasive writing tip (or any kind of writing for that matter) I learned from a screenwriter somewhere (can’t remember who or where I learned it from):

“Plot and character are the two main ingredients to keep the audience engaged.”

Or in other words, at any point in time, if you want to keep the attention of your viewer (or reader more likely), you either need to be advancing the plot one way or another, or you need to be developing the characters.

Fail to do either of those and you’ll end up losing the attention you fought so very hard to get.

One of the best examples I know of to see this in action is the 1987 film Lethal Weapon starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover.

It’s a one hour and 49 minutes long masterpiece perfectly giving the audience 15 minutes of plot (lots of action, attention-grabbing scenes, discoveries, and plot twists) followed by 10 minutes of character development (more mundane, day-to-day stuff, conversations, relationship forming, getting to know the various people) only to jump straight into non-stop action and plot-developing cinema and rinse and repeat.

At no point does either one become too much, or too little, and at no point does the film lose the attention of the audience by failing to do either.

A powerful lesson to bring into your own writing—especially when it comes to persuasive writing.

There’s many ways to go about doing so.

If you’d like to get a taste of a few of them, then check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


They Laughed When I Made An Email List – But When The Sales Started Coming In!

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There are two types of people in life:

Those who recognized the subject line and those who didn’t.

Let me explain:

See, one of the most famous ads ever written was the historic masterpiece written by John Caples and its headline was “They Laughed When I Sat Down At The Piano – But When I Started to Play!”

Caples then goes on to tell a (made up—which is dubious in its own right and quite possibly illegal nowadays) story about a man who sat down to play piano at a gathering with his friends.

The good friends they are all started laughing because this man had (as far as they were aware) never played a single note in his life.

But then, suddenly the man started playing the most magnificent music anyone had ever heard.

He earned admiration and respect from every single person in the room.

He then tells the story of how he learned to play piano from some music institutes across the country which would send him these lesson bundles to practice on your own (the product the ad is about).

The ad made a shit ton of money and with it easily became one of the most swiped and copied ads ever.

Which is laughably stupid.

Not the money-making part, it’s a good ad. But the swiping part.

The only thing you’re doing with swiping, well, anything, is shooting yourself in the foot. You’re not original, your audience will realize, you will look stupid, nobody will buy your stupid stuff, and you lose all credibility you had as a marketer—which probably wasn’t a lot to begin with since if you’re down to copy someone else’s work, you’re probably also doing a lot of other dubious stuff that hurts your credibility.

Am I calling swipe files stupid? No.

I’m calling the act of swiping stupid.

Swipe files are great for idea generation, to learn what makes something “good” and to improve your own ability.

I have a swipe file full of old-school ads (before 1990) which I open every morning when I hand copy an entire ad—a practice Gary Bencivenga, the world’s greatest living copywriter, and many other top players recommend.

But the stuff you write?

No, that needs to be original.

Your thoughts, your ideas, your interests, your style, and your structure.

You’ll never see me talk about swiping inside my courses. I simply don’t teach you how to copy, how to mindlessly follow some checklist that will undoubtedly end up with bad results, nor how to be a fraud and destroy your entire reputation and credibility.

I give you the tools and principles you need to succeed together with the freedom to experiment and grow on your own personal journey.

I created my courses as more of a guiding hand in the right direction than a step-by-step template on how to do something.

Anyway.

If this didn’t scare you off (which I hope it didn’t because you shouldn’t be on my list in that case) then go check out Email Valhalla today.

Why?

Because I said so. (how’s that for persuasive communication, huh?)

Here’s the link: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


Build yourself a base of operations

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Every building needs a foundation. Every project needs a base of operations. Every business needs a central place everything leads to.

The bigger the building, project, or business, the more vital the foundational layer is. You can build a crappy wooden shack on a crappy foundation but good luck trying that with a skyscraper.

Your business is no different.

In my case, the core of my business is direct marketing, or more specifically a central email list where I grow, keep, entertain, and sell to my audience.

The aim is to open as many “portals” (aka, entryways to my ‘world’ of business) as I can and have them all leading to my email list.

Whether this remains one single email list with fancy segmentation where needed or split up my email lists into multiple different ones depends on the context and the market you’re in.

All that matters is that everyone who comes into contact with my work, my offers, and my world should at one point (preferably sooner rather than later) end up in my email list. That’s how you effectively grow as a business.

Not by making one-time sales and never seeing the customer ever again. But by keeping the customer—the most important element of any business—around increasing the chance to turn them into repeat and even lifelong customers instead.

So now that you understand all of this. Do yourself a favor and check out my flagship course Email Valhalla, which will teach you all about how to write entertaining emails your readers want to read to build (and sustain) your base of operations.

Click here for more information: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


The case for positive bullying

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A few days ago I saw a video that went somewhat viral on social media.

In that video, someone was recording a young woman in the gym, who, at first, was doing wrist curls with a 1kg weight. After a few reps of normal wrist curls the woman turned her hand 90 degrees and started doing similar curls, except this time with the 1kg dumbell held vertically instead of horizontally.

That video was then shared with the caption “What’s she training for?” (talk about entertainment huh)

This, naturally, seemed to appeal to the “incel red pill sigma manosphere chronically online, never having touched a woman in their life, living in their mom’s basement, and projecting their own failures and insecurities onto everyone else to cope with their sad reality of a life” community who could think of nothing else but to sexualize a young woman doing wrist exercises that seemed similar in movement to what one might do with a cylindrical shape often attached to a person of a certain gender famous for growing beards (go figure).

There are many things to be said about this.

Firstly, that exercise is an extremely common and effective exercise prescribed by physiotherapists around the globe for all types of wrist injuries—something I’m no stranger to myself. In fact, I’ve had to do these very exercises myself (with equally “embarrassing” weights).

But even then.

It shouldn’t matter whether it’s an effective exercise or not. You shouldn’t be recording strangers in the gym (or anywhere else for that matter) and putting them on the internet to begin with.

How hard can it be not to record people without their permission?

But people will do everything to get some “social media street cred” and get their daily dose of dopamine when they see their likes coming in it seems (nobody’s safe from the addictiveness of social media—another great reason to get as far away from it as you possibly can).

There is, however, one exception where it’s ok, even recommended, to record people without their permission.

That’s if they’re actively committing a crime… and no, hurting your feelings isn’t a crime so stop recording people whenever you’re having an argument, Karen.

More.

Hurting people’s feelings is actually a tremendously effective method to 1) get attention 2) get people thinking about you (also called "living in their head rent free” as the young’uns call it nowadays) and 3) potentially making a positive impact in someone’s life.

The amount of times people have been “bullied” into bettering their lives is unbelievable.

As an example, I know many people, under- and overweight alike, who have been bullied into the gym and are eternally grateful for it (even though most of them will never admit it like that).

Now, don’t go around saying I told you to bully everyone about everything just because you can. No, definitely don’t do that. But do learn how to effectively utilize bullying when and only when done for a right and just cause (such as getting people to dramatically improve their health and quality of life).

With that said.

I also know from talking to people, that so many people out their dream of writing for a living. Even going as far as having made plans about what they’ll be writing about, how they’ll market their work, and how they’ll monetize everything.

Even more specifically.

The amount of emails I’ve received from people telling me they “will create an email list sometime soon” but never actually get around to doing so is staggering to say the least.

I can only conclude those people are failures at life, probably will never amount to anything, and should better give up sooner rather than later and accept the fact walk of life simply isn’t meant for them.

You simply won’t get anywhere without the discipline to follow through with the plans you made.

If, however, you don’t want to identify with someone like that, I can only suggest you start writing and building your email list today (your email list will make your marketing and monetization process so much easier it’s unbelievable).

And if you’re finally motivated and disciplined enough to start, then be sure to check out my flagship email course Email Valhalla which will teach you how to write simple entertaining emails that get you paid and keep your readers reading day after day.

Click here for more information: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


How to come out on top by being wrong

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The 2024 American elections are over.

Trump got elected—even going as far as winning the popular vote (the last Republican who won the popular vote was George W. Bush back in 2004).

But you’ve probably been bombarded with all of this information already.

So I won’t bother you with it.

What I will mention is how, earlier this week, I was thinking of writing a “my 2024 election prediction” email where I would’ve predicted Trump to be the winner (yes, yes, easily said after the fact I know, but that isn’t the point here).

Ultimately I decided not to write such an email.

I don’t have any specific reasons as to why I didn’t write one, but neither did I have a good reason why I shouldn’t have written one.

Frankly said, I simply couldn’t care less to share my prediction with the world (neither did I actually pay a lot of attention to the election itself, in fact). But this did remind me of an incredibly useful insight (something which could potentially earn you a lot of money—or help you in many different non-monetary ways).

In fact, it’s something I recently got reminded of (again) after reading Lawrence Bernstein’s newsletter about writing copy in financial markets.

The insight in question?

It's better to be wrong than wishy-washy.

Everyone likes predictions, it’s in our human nature. Also in our human nature is the need to want to follow and listen to people who dare to speak their minds (yes, even people who say they don’t like following others, do still have people they enjoy reading or listening to because of this very reason).

So it pays to be bold and make predictions.

At the same time, nobody remembers, much less cares about, you if you get something wrong. People simply move on with their life and act as if your predictions never happened.

The result?

An almost unlimited upside to making bold predictions without almost any downside whatsoever.

Don’t believe me?

Look at the most well-known analysts in their fields, whether it’s finance, politics, or sports, and check out their track records.

On the flip side, if you try to sound educated, explain the pros and cons or probabilities of each option, and ultimately conclude that “it depends” or “it can go either way,” then simply nobody would give you a single sliver of attention.

So to repeat: It's better to be wrong than wishy-washy.

And the best way to make such predictions and share them with your readers, as you should probably know by now if you’ve been following me for any length of time, is by writing simple entertaining emails people love to read (while also getting you paid).

For more information on how to write emails just like that, check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


Why positive thinking marketers have skinny kids

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Or so said the great, late Zig Ziglar.

(That’s “underfed and even starving” skinny—for clarification)

See, with today’s cancel culture, inclusion marketing, greenwashing, LGBTQ123+ and other diversity movements, there’s simply no shortage of people, companies, and big-figure enterprises trying to play it safe, pleasing their customers, and acting as if everything is always sunshine and rainbows.

Yet that’s the exact opposite of what you as a marketer, salesman, copywriter, coach, consultant, or other product seller/service provider, should do.

People (and by extension the world) run on problems.

The only reason people take action is to solve a problem. Everyone has problems, all the time—even Buddhists trying to reach a state of a problemless (not sure if this is a word) nirvana still have the problem of having problems.

And that’s a good thing too.

Otherwise nothing would happen, nothing would get done, you and I wouldn’t get paid, and there’d be nothing to life as a whole.

Life is a permanent conquest of solving problem after problem.

With that said.

What are people trying to achieve by pretending everything is ok? By “sharing happiness” everywhere they go and encouraging everyone that they’re perfect just the way they are, they can do whatever they dream of, and they shouldn’t let anything get in their way.

First.

They’re not getting paid that way.

But even more important.

They’re not helping people either.

Most people aren’t perfect the way they are. Acting as if that’s the case is ignoring the potential inside of everyone waiting to be released and become a better person day after day.

In fact.

If you’d really care about people, really want to help your customers, clients, readers, listeners, followers, and everyone else you meet. Then you’d tell them the hard and difficult stuff. You’d show them their imperfections, their flaws, their faults, and even make them feel the pain and shame that comes along with it.

But…

At the same time, you’d also present them with a solution to help them solve their problems.

That’s where your product or service comes into play.

And that’s how you get paid while actually helping your customers improve their quality of life—not by being all happy dandy all the time, acting as if everything’s fine all the time, when people are clearly in need and suffering.

As an example:

Many people are working jobs they don’t like, following orders they don’t want to follow, listening to people they can’t stand, all to please people they don’t even know, just so they can live a below-average life.

At the same time, modern technology allows for you to explore, share, and even profit from your hobbies and curiosities (seriously, the hobby market is a total goldmine).

Or in other words, it allows for “Sensible people to get paid doing what they love” as Alan Watts famously preached.

What’s the best medium to use to get started doing so?

You guessed it: Email.

At least, if you know what you’re doing, that is. That’s why I’d like to direct your attention towards my flagship course, Email Valhalla, where I’ll teach you how to write entertaining emails about the stuff you love that get you paid and your readers will love to read day after day.

Sounds interesting?

Then click here to find out more: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


Everything is slowly turning into a subscription model

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From your daily entertainment to your groceries, the clothes you wear, the books you read, the music you listen to, the hobbies you practice, the perfumes and fragrances you use, the cars you drive (if that market won’t completely turn into a subscription-based Uber-like “get driven by autonomous vehicles" service eventually), the traveling you might want to do, hell, chances are even the phones you’ll buy and every other gadget or consumable you can think of will become subscription based.

It might not be this year.

It might not even be next year.

But I promise you, based on how things are currently going, everything will and shall turn into a subscription model—even the things you couldn’t believe were possible.

So what should you do when it comes to subscriptions?

Should you follow? Should you be different just because you can?

Well, that’s not something I can answer for you. As with anything, it depends. I don’t know what you do, what you sell, who you sell it to, how much you’re charging for it, how much it costs you to sell it, how easy it is to deliver, how often people use it, how many people want it, and a lot more other vital pieces of information you’d need to make a decision like this (anyone telling you there’s a one-size-fits-all answer is trying to sell you horsecrap).

What I do know is that a lot more people are trying to jump into the subscription business (as will I eventually, not going to hide it).

And with that there’s also many people who are making the big mistake (unless they’re already a big industry name, then they can do whatever they want) of trying to sell the continuity as the first thing the customer sees.

In case you didn’t know, it’s a difficult sell to get someone to hand you money every single month.

A better way to do things (as far as my personal experience goes)?

Sell something low-ticket first (alongside selling yourself). Build up trust. Show them you know your stuff. Help them get a feeling of satisfaction.

Only after that, offer them a subscription to get more of the same (with more convenience and/or a better price) or offer them more (and better/more in-depth) complimentary stuff.

Something to think about and take into consideration.

Anyway.

If you’d like to learn how to sell, whether it’s a continuity or not, and more specifically, learn to sell it through email, then check out Email Valhalla where I share all the tips, tricks, deets, and secret sauce.

Click here to learn more: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla