I’ve officially written and sent over 400 emails to this list by now.

That’s excluding all of the welcome emails, flows, purchase receipts, and other automations I’ve written over. And yet, it feels like it’s been only a few months writing, researching, learning, and practicing all with the single purpose of making this email list as good as it can be.

Many things went great, many other things went poorly.

That’s how it goes. You experiment, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but whatever happens, the likelihood of success goes up with every experiment you do.

That said.

I have been extremely lucky when it came to a few things.

For example, when it came to choosing an ESP, an email service provider, when I first wanted to start this email list.

At the time I barely knew anything about this industry, let alone what ESP were better and which ones were worse. I didn’t even know what to look out for. But by some miracle I happened to have chosen Beehiiv. And I’m glad I did.

See, while Beehiiv hasn’t always been smooth sailing, I’ve seen a lot of updates, both good and bad—some of which so good I can confidently say Beehiiv is one of the best options for newcomers who’re looking to get into the game (potentially even veterans who’re looking for a change as well), throughout my time.

But even from the very get-go, Beehiiv has always offered everything I needed at more than affordable prices.

And even that has only gotten better with their latest update.

No joke, I’m literally paying only 30% of what I used to pay a few months ago because their plans got that much more affordable.

The best part though? And the part I really needed early on or I would’ve never been where I am today.

It’s entirely free to start with. Not free as in “you get a free 30-day trial”. But free as in “you can use this software absolutely free for as long as you want as long as you have less than 2,500 emails on your list”. And by the time you’re up to 2,500 people on your list, you’ve got no problem at all to pay the ridiculously low fee they’re asking.

The only caveat here is that you’ll be limited to the base package which doesn’t allow stuff like using their integrated creator or advertising network or fancy automations (both of which aren’t necessary early on in the life cycle of an email list).

Other than that?

Keep sending as many emails as you want for as long as you want entirely for free.

It’s fast & simple to set up and extremely easy to use, as well as fully customizable to your personal needs.

But enough about that.

If you’d like to check out what Beehiiv has to offer for you, maybe even play around with the software, again, entirely for free, then check it out right here: https://alexvandromme.com/beehiiv

(Yes this is an affiliate link, no I won’t persuade you to get on their paid plans. I’ll leave that to the guys over at Beehiiv to win you over with their superior software & service and let you decide for yourself)

Every product has flaws.

So does every service, every piece of content, every work of art, every person, every institution, and everything you see all around you has flaws. There’s nothing exempt from this rule.

But that doesn’t mean everything is bad.

In fact, it’s the contrary. It’s those flaws that give meaning and value to everything you use and consume. Perfection is another word for meaningless.

The things in life that don’t have flaws, don’t upset some group of people, or don’t work or function exactly as some group of people would hope, those are all meaningless and have nothing to offer.

People differ by nature.

Everyone has different needs and requirements, different interests and passions, different tastes as well as dislikes. Something that’s perfect for everyone, by definition, has to be so bland, so generic, so stripped of everything that gives it meaning, that it becomes all but useless, obsolete, and devoid of meaning.

Give me one valuable product, one great work of art, one anything really that does everything perfectly for everyone all around the world.

But let’s get back to why I’m yapping on about this.

What I wanted to make clear is that whatever it is you’re creating, it has to have a flaw.

And wherever there’s a flaw, there’s an opportunity.

More precisely, there’s an opportunity to highlight, not belittle, but highlight, maybe even exaggerate, your flaw. Talk about all of the flaws you can find about your product, then talk about why your creation has that flaw, what that flaw allows it to do or why it needs to have that certain flaw for it to work as you intended to do.

Every flaw gives meaning to a creation.

Highlighting the flaw turns it into a strength for the right group of people your creation is made for while automatically disqualifying and repelling everyone it doesn’t benefit (which would’ve been awful customers to deal with anyway).

A high-powered industrial vacuum cleaner will make a lot of noise—that’s considered a flaw. So highlight how much noise it makes by clarifying the noise is exactly because of the extremely high suction capability the vacuum cleaner has (something your ideal customer wants).

On the other hand.

A compact vacuum cleaner made for at-home use will obviously be a lot less powerful because it has to be a lot smaller, and more compact, maybe even with a pretty design, to fit in with the interior or be easy to hide away in a closet or a shelf. Highlighting the flaw of it being less powerful than an industrial one by explaining how a less powerful one allows it to be as small as possible while also being completely silent during its use.

Now, you might find this to be a stupid example, but either way you get the point.

Highlighting your flaws and turning them into sales angles is an extremely powerful copywriting tool that could singlehandedly ‘disarm’ your, oftentimes wary, customer from most (if not all) his objections—or at the least it won’t cause your customer to dismiss your product if he has to learn about your product’s flaws on his own without your explanation as to why that’s the case.

Anyway.

If you’d like to learn more about how to talk about, promote, and sell a great product (or even how to create one) then you might want to check out my Product Creation Made Easy framework.

It definitely ain’t cheap, but that gives you an indication of how high of a quality you can expect from it.

The product wouldn’t have been nearly as good, nor would I have been able to create a high-quality one, if it hadn’t supplied me with the resources I needed to support myself while I kept working on it to make it as good as it could humanly be.

Not to mention the amount of praise and kind words I get from people who bought the product at the current price.

Anyway.

Enough time talking.

Check out Product Creation Made Easy here: https://alexvandromme.com/product

 

You may (or may not) have seen my website already.

More specifically, the blog part where I upload most of my emails to get some (even though it’s not a lot) organic traffic, but mostly to have proof of work and build credibility with new people coming across my website, all with one single purpose—to grow my email list.

Anyway.

I specifically mention the blog part because by all standards, my blog looks incredibly old and ugly. If you didn’t know better you might think this is a remnant of some ‘90s blog which never got taken down.

Just look at it.

A white header, a blocky bright red navigation menu, an entirely black background, and every post is black text in an annoyingly yellow column outlined by a glowing white border. Needless to say…

My blog isn’t going to win a beauty contest anytime soon.

But this is done by design.

You load up the blog/website and it’s just different. Almost like entering a whole new world. It catches your attention. There’s something special to it… you can’t quite put your finger on what it is that makes it so enticing… after all, it really shouldn’t be.

But it is.

It just works.

And it’s done deliberately.

Nowadays everyone has to be beautifully designed and pleasing to the eye. Now, I don’t know who said it originally, but someone a lot smarter than me came to the realization that “in a beautiful world, the ugly stands out”.

And so it is in marketing.

So the next time you create something, anything, no matter what it is, maybe try switching it up. See how ugly you can make it.

Maybe it”ll stand out. Maybe it won’t.

Either way, you’ll undoubtedly learn something new in the process.

Anyway.

Speaking of creating something new. If you’re interested in ideating, creating, and launching a profitable digital product in 21 days or less then you might want to check out Product Creation Made Easy, which teaches you my entire product creation framework.

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

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

Today a reader asked me for an estimation as to how long I’ll keep selling “Your Very First Email Marketing Steps” and my thought process behind it.

So here it goes:

First, I’ll keep selling it until sometime tomorrow (read: before tomorrow's email goes out). No idea when or what time that’ll be because I’ll have to unpublish the web page manually and I’m not going to bother doing it at a specific pre-determined time.

It could be tomorrow morning or in the afternoon—whenever I think about it and I’m done with the other stuff I wanted to get done tomorrow.

So for your safety: consider the offer gone early rather than late just to be safe.

As for my thought process of not selling it anymore (at least not publically to everyone one my list all the time). It’s exactly that.

It’s meant to be only for new subscribers and they get one chance and one chance only.

This helps me whether they buy it or not.

If they buy the product a few things will happen: 1) I’ll recover my ad spend while also proving my worth to the new readers from the start and 2) they’ll immediately get educated on my ways of doing things, will move up my “value ladder” and get more heavily involved in my world.

If they don’t buy the product, we’ll, then they’ll discover that I wasn’t messing around with “you’ll never get another chance” and know I’m not one of those marketers who always shout the same old BS of “the clock is ticking” when there isn’t even a clock to begin with (like those websites with a countdown that restarts when you refresh the page).

So whatever happens, I’m eating steak anyway.

But enough about that.

If you’re still on the fence about getting Your Very First Email Marketing Steps, it might be time to decide.

Here’s the link for the last time: https://alexvandromme.com/yourfirststeps/

Long-time readers would remember my crazy banana-focused antics from back in the day when I used to haunt the adventurous lands of X.

I haven’t been as obsessed with my favorite elongated yellow fruit anymore these days.

But I got reminded of “the good old days” today by looking at my bookshelf, in which I have a banana-themed notebook I once got gifted by a happy customer who discovered me through the weekly Twitter Spaces (if you don’t know what they are, think of it as a podcast) I used to host.

Anyway.

I used to talk about bananas almost every day. So much so that I very quickly became known as “the banana guy”. People would tag me in every post they saw which dared to mention bananas. Every other person talking about bananas would be labeled a fraud and a copycat. The comments on my posts were filled with banana jokes. People would send me messages saying they thought about me while walking past bananas in the supermarket. Hell, I even received pictures from people showing off their shampoo that smelled like bananas or their newly purchases socks with tiny bananas on them. More often than not, when I hopped on calls with people, whatever the reason, be it consulting, coaching, or just a casual chat, they’d show up and greet me with one or more bananas in their hands—even the CEO certain software tool I used (and still use) for my business referenced the bananas when they first reached out to me after I signed up to use their services. And yes, I got sent banana-themed presents and fan mail.

I hope I don’t have to tell you how powerful and valuable this was.

The funny thing is that this originally all started by accident.

Later on, though, I learned how to create buzz, engagement, and an image like this (with its many, many extremely valuable side effects) on demand. I realized it could be created by design. There was a repeatable formula for it—no miracles or happy accidents required.

This insight came to me after studying the dialogue of Pirates of the Caribbean.

See, TV shows and movies alike love to write dialogue in a way that’s entertaining, powerful, but above all, memorable. I’m sure you can name many popular and memorable lines or quotes right now without having to do much thinking (if any thinking at all).

Those types of lines or quotes are, by definition, free advertising and help out a ton in not just the lifecycle of that specific movie but also in every following movie (or episode/season for TV shows) they create.

Truly powerful stuff for sure.

Anyway.

The thing Pirates did was genius—and so simple once you finally notice it.

Instead of having to write really powerful, emotional, entertaining, funny, or dramatic dialogue or catchphrases and pray that the audience agrees with the intended greatness of the dialogue, they play the game on easy mode by simply… having the characters repeat and quote their own (or other character’s) dialogue.

By doing so they’ll instantly make it “quotable”, because, well…, it’s already been quoted.

Even more.

The audience hasn’t only heard a specific phrase once. They’ve now heard it twice, thrice, or sometimes even four or five times in total.

And as radio stations discovered last century, if something gets repeated often, it’s also appreciated and liked a whole lot more.

But I know what you’re thinking.

You don’t want to become known as the banana guy or any other fruit guy (or gal) for that matter, so why does this matter? Well, this goes for just about everything and anything.

Your philosophies, your products, your services, your branding as a whole, and everything else that’s unique to you (and may or may not make you a lot of money).

So remember.

Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.

About that: one of the most useful methods for target repetition I know—seriously, it’s not even close—has to be email marketing (preferably daily, but any frequency could work depending on your market).

And if you’re not sure where to start with email marketing, then check out my new introductory email marketing course that easily costs half as much as the coffee order of your average white girl at her nearest Starbucks.

Anyway.

Click here to check it out: https://alexvandromme.com/yourfirststeps/

I felt proud after I promoted my extremely inexpensive new offer “Your Very First Email Marketing Steps” yesterday.

As you may (or may not) have noticed when you clicked the link, this product is 100% self-hosted on my website from the “sales page” (if you could call it as much) to the content of the course, and even the payment integration.

It took me a while to figure out how to do this.

And so I felt proud after it was done.

I knew there would be some hiccups here and there—that’s just how things go when figuring stuff out on your own.

Now, I’m not recommending you to do this yourself.

If anything, I’m urging you to use third-party tools and pre-built shopping carts. It’ll save you a lot of hassle as well as time (and probably money).

But this simply felt like a fun project for me to work on and it allowed me to better understand how all of this works.

Now that aside.

I immediately encountered one of these hiccups just today.

It just so turns out that my WordPress website wasn’t able to send any emails. That meant that the receipts (everything else I do through Beehiiv) weren’t being mailed to everyone who bought the course.

Luckily I fixed it already so that shouldn’t be an issue anymore.

But it just shows you how 1) you should always make a plan and 2) you should always expect your plan to break.

Anyway.

If you haven’t taken a look at this new offer yet, I’d highly suggest you do so.

It’s an extremely inexpensive—in fact, it’s laughably cheap—product that’ll show you everything you need to know to start your own email list and enter the world of email marketing (and nothing more).

Even more.

So far it’s only 5 modules but I plan on adding 2 more based on the advice and feedback people give me as to what other topics they struggle with before starting their email marketing adventure.

So being early gets you the added benefit of personally requesting up to 2 bonus modules.

That being said.

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

Last week I wrote an email about the new inexpensive offer I created for new email subscribers.

The reason for this offer is twofold:

First, I’m moving my focus from playing the social media game and growing my list that way to running paid ads. The main difference here is switching from a method that requires time as an investment to one that requires cash.

I’m not saying one is better than the other—they aren’t.

But it’s a new world I was to educate myself in and one that, at least currently, feels a lot more “my style”.

The thing with cash investments—and especially paid ads—is that you’d ideally want to see an almost immediate ROI. Doing so allows you to reinvest the money you make from ads to run even more ads which once again produce an immediate ROI and so on… allowing you to run ads “for free” almost indefinitely.

Or at least that’s the ideal scenario.

So I’m using this—extremely—inexpensive offer to break even on the front end when running my ads. Then, everything else I make on the back end could be considered “pure profit”.

As for the second reason.

This low-ticket offer provides me with an opportunity to do a few things 1) it helps me immediately prove my worth to the customer 2) they’re introduced to my world of products and offers from the get-go. Think of that first offer as a sort of “gateway” to everything else there is to discover. And 3) it helps me move otherwise free readers into customers—even if it’s only a mere $4.95, the fact that people bought something immediately flips a switch in their mind making it so they trust me a lot faster and are much less resistant to buying more products in the future (given the products are actually valuable).

Anyway.

That’s how it works in theory, at least. All that’s left to do is see how it turns out in practice.

That said.

I thought it would be unfair to give new readers the opportunity (they’ll only ever get to buy immediately after subscriber, never again) to buy this offer without giving you, a long-time and loyal reader who has already proven to stick around and regularly read and reply to my emails, that same opportunity.

So to set that right.

Here’s a link to check out my new offer “Your Very First Email Marketing Steps”: https://alexvandromme.com/yourfirststeps/

PS: I might remove this sales page in a few days just to make it fair and ensure that people can’t buy it anymore after having skipped the opportunity to do so right after subscribing. No exact date when I’ll remove it, just whenever I feel like it.

So if this interests you, then get it now.

PPS: Make sure you read the sales page to know what you’re getting. Don’t be pressured into buying something you don’t need.

Also, and this is important, don’t buy this if you previously bought “Email Extraordinaire”. This offer is a small subsection of the original offer—there’s nothing new here for you and you shouldn’t purchase this.

Once again, here’s the link to the offer. It’s only $4.95 so definitely check it out: https://alexvandromme.com/yourfirststeps/

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

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