Here’s something to think about:

“Working for free” is a coping mechanism for not daring to get rejected.

Many people will work for free or for testimonials before they feel comfortable getting out there and charging for their offer. Even though the only thing they have to do is to get the right offer in front of the right person and they’ll say yes.

And sure.

You might get 5 people who say ‘no’.

You might even get 10, 20, or even 50 people who reject your offer.

But why should that get in the way of you making more offers and getting closer to your next yes—your next client?

I’ve worked with many people who didn’t see any proof of work of mine. No testimonials. No prior results or projects. Some of them didn’t even read my emails to see whether I actually walked the talk.

At the end of the day, it’s a numbers game.

Learn the fundamentals of creating a great offer, getting leads, qualifying prospects, and ultimately landing clients. Do this and you’ll be golden.

And on that note.

While I only briefly brush on the offer side, I do go in-depth in the latter 3 fundamentals to learn in my Abundant-Client System.

So if you’d like to learn more about getting leads, qualifying your prospects, and landing clients consistently and effortlessly, then click the link right here to learn more: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/clients

I didn’t write an email for the first time in over 400+ days.

In fact, I didn’t write an email for the past 2 days.

First things first, my original plan for Saturday was to write an email late into the evening/night after I came back from my boulder competition.

Turns out, I was absolutely knackered afterwards.

I got home and almost immediately fell asleep. So that happened.

Then Sunday we had a family event planned and I also took time to recover because my body definitely needed it after the competition. I might have pushed myself a bit too hard this Saturday because everything is in pain, many many cuts and bruises, and my left front delt is swollen.

But nothing that won’t heal.

That said, it’s Monday now and I’m back baby.

If anything, I just took the weekend off for the first time ever.

Which reminded me of an important fact. And the reason why I started doing this in the first place.

I can choose to take time off whenever I want. The business runs no matter where I am or what I’m doing. If I wanted to I could take an hour or three or four of my day right now to batch create some emails for the next month and that’s all the work I’d really have to do.

Everything else I do is extra.

Now, I don’t know about you. But that’s a damn fine business model if you ask me.

And since I’m back, and also simply because I can, I won’t link some product of mine today.

Instead, let me use this email to ask you a question.

I’d love to know how close you are to running a business like this yourself. If you have one, what’s your favourite part about it?

And if you don’t have one (yet), what’s something that’s been holding you back from getting one going?

And, if for some reason you don’t want nor care about such a business model, why not?

I’d love to hear your answer and learn more about your situation, insights, and experience.

Simply reply to this email and I’ll get back to you right away.

It’s become a core hobby of mine last year.

Bouldering is fun, exciting, and sometimes scary, but above all else, it pushes you outside your comfort zone.

As with any sport or skill, you start with the basics. You take a few simple routes to get the gist of it. Understand how things work and build up the confidence to try trickier routes.

And it’s with those trickier routes where you sometimes have to take a leap of faith, quite literally.

Some routes have been designed with jumps in mind, where you have to leave to the safety of your footing behind and launch onto the next part of the course, believing in your ability to catch it and continue climbing.

None of the routes are extremely high, but it’s a scary feeling, nonetheless.

One of the biggest mindset shifts I had to make early on was to believe I could actually complete these routes.

I remember in the early days I wouldn’t even try to climb some routes. It seemed like I hadn’t the slightest chance of pulling those off.

But I had to convince myself to get out there and attempt them anyway if I hoped to improve. Now, I didn’t immediately succeed in everything I attempted, but once in a while, I could get one—raising my confidence and allowing the next run to be even smoother.

What does this have to do with business?

Dan Kennedy said it doesn’t make sense to promise people amazing results if they feel they won’t be able to achieve those results. Or in other words. How likely does the prospect feel they’ll be able to achieve the result you promise them with your product/service?

This is an objection you have to overcome.

Tell them how easy it can be. Show them proof of other people in similar situations who achieved the results they desire. Nobody will buy your product or service if they don’t believe themselves capable of using it successfully.

And if you want to learn more about creating products people will buy.

Then check out Product Creation Made Easy here: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/product

As you may (or may not) have noticed, I ran a little experiment today.

More precisely.

I deliberately didn’t send an email at my normal local time of around 3 pm. In fact, it’s almost 6 hours later right now.

Why am I doing this?

Well, I once heard Josh Spector, who runs a 40,000+ email list called For The Interested, mention in an interview a little tactic to see whether you really have “fans” on your list.

Or if it’s just a bunch of readers who don’t really care much about you.

The tactic?

Don’t send an email for a day—or send one a lot later than you normally would.

Then just wait and see whether people will message you asking about your missing email. If you do get one or more of these questions, then you’re doing it right (remember, if one person asks something, a hundred are thinking it).

So that’s what I did today.

And lo and behold. I received 4 such questions (one of which was from my mom, but I count it).

This shows you the power of daily email and building that relationship.

That said.

If you didn’t read yesterday’s email. I introduced my Barbaric Business Builder program. It’s an all-new group coaching program in which I’ll help you build your “Barbaric Business”—a business so simple, so primitive, even a 12-year-old could build one in 60 days or less.

The program consists of weekly calls where I’ll teach you how to implement the 4 key components of a Barbaric Business: The 4-Question Business Plan, The Email Empire, The Fantasy Funnel, and the Product Creation Made Easy Framework.

The calls will be recorded so you can go back and rewatch them whenever you want.

You’ll also be able to ask me questions throughout the week and I’ll personally help you set everything up, grow your email list, create your funnel, launch your products, and build your flagship offer.

And all of this for the low investment of $125/week.

This way you can make money as you go and you’ll never have to pay me more than what you’ve earned (just one or two product sales will already be more than enough to cover the investment).

So if you liked what you just read and you want to hear more — reply to this email with “BARBARIC” and I’ll give you all the details and get you up and running if you seem like a good fit.

That’s what I’ve been working on for the past few weeks.

In fact, it’s more “writing everything I’m currently doing down” than doing actual work to make it function.

Why?

Well, because that’s the exact level of simplicity my current business model has.

I’m serious.

There’s nothing fancy, shiny, or spectacular about what I do. But it works. It has always worked and it will always work. It isn’t based on some recent trend, hype, or anything else that’s only temporary.

It’s based on the teachings of old-school direct marketing legends, simple persuasion principles, and the evergreen natural desires of people.

More.

I often talk about my 3 main business (and by extension, life) pillars: simplicity, enjoyment, and freedom. And this business model hits all 3 of them. So much so that some people might even call my business model primitive or unsophisticated.

And you know what?

I like the sound of that.

So I’ve officially come to name it The Barbaric Business Model (trademark pending).

Even more.

I’ll be launching The Barbaric Business Builder, a group coaching program where I’ll help you build your own Barbaric Business—a business so simple and so effective even a 12-year-old could build a profitable online business in 60 days or less.

The program will have weekly sessions where I’ll guide you through the entire process step-by-step, ranging from setting up your own email strategy to creating your flagship offer, building out your Fantasy Funnel (also trademark pending), and filling it with your very own profitable digital products according to my beloved Product Creation Made Easy framework.

The Barbaric Business Builder will officially start next week.

I’m looking for 5 people to join and no more.

The investment comes down to a mere $500/month, which is incredibly low considering that’s what I charge for a 60-minute consultation call. But I want to reward you as an early-action taker since this is the first edition of the Barbaric Business Builder.

I’m guaranteed to increase the price next month, so don’t procrastinate hopping on this offer (and don’t worry, once you lock in your price, it will never change).

What about guarantees and promises?

Well, due to the nature of the work (I spend all of my time working with you and you keep everything I give you), there’ll be no guarantees, nor big promises.

But you can decide to leave and cancel your payment anytime you wish, no questions asked.

If this got you interested and you want more details — reply “BARBARIC” to this email and I’ll send it over.

For the past few days I’ve been working on a new flagship offer.

More specifically, an email course teaching the fundamentals of my entire email framework, strategy, and philosophy. It’ll be a standalone and one that’s aimed to get everyone up to speed on how I do (email) business. As well as allow you to build your email-powered business yourself.

As I mentioned last month, I’ve taken Email Extraordinaire down to rework and blow new life into that course—which will become the high-level & advanced course you can (if you want to, it’s not necessary) take to level up your email game even more.

Most people will have more than plenty with just the new and first-level email product I’ll be releasing soon.

Why am I doing it like this?

Simply said, it pays to have one main offer—the flagship offer—which you spend 80% of your time on to sell.

But that’s not all.

The flagship offer also serves as an introductory offer to explain everything else you have for sale. In fact, all other products and services won’t make sense without having bought (and gone through) my flagship offer.

It’s all interconnected.

You can’t build an 80th-floor penthouse without first building the foundations of the skyscraper it’s built in.

This gives your business an almost story-like continuity, everything makes sense, people go from one offer to the next, they first learn to play by the rules of the main game, and only then can they venture forth to play variations of the game and even break some of the rules once in a while.

So think about what your flagship offer is in your business (and whether you even have one).

And keep an eye out for my upcoming email course as well, because it’s looking like a damn fine one if I may say so myself.

In the meantime.

Why don’t you check out Product Creation Made Easy, which teaches you more in-depth how I ideate, create, and profitably launch new digital products in 21 days or less (and don’t worry, this was created before I came up with my flagship offer centered product suite, so it’s a standalone which makes complete sense without needing something else).

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

Here’s an (unsolicited) testimonial I received a few days ago from Vince Mao, a daily reader, and an incredible writer, thinker, and father of two:

===

Hey Alex,

It's kinda become a thing for me to improve my writing over the past year since speaking with you.

I've been consistent.

– 21k posts on X and archived my account in case I share the same fate someday.
– 45 issues of my weekly newsletter
– nearly 300 short videos
– 25 articles on Medium now as I've shifted to honing my long-form writing this year.

Since our talk, I've invested in several courses (including your email course). I'm slowly going through them and taking action on every lesson. I also have a recording of your talk.

In short, endless content and clarity of my voice to write just about anything centered around my values.

As for launching offers, I have a three-year plan around your advice. I have two young children to care for so my momentum is at a glacial pace…but it's also just as massive.

Consider this an additional piece for you to continue your efforts. Thanks again for meeting with me last year. I stand by my remarks. Your calls are well worth a higher price (definitely now as I'm sure you've improved substantially).

===

I’m not only sharing this to stroke my ego (although that’s part of it).

But more so to show you how far people can get if they stay consistent and execute the plans they make. And yes, even if they work a 9–5, have two young children to take care of, and live an overall busy life.

This is what true “life-changing” moments look like.

Not your average 18-year-old Twitter AI bro still in high school who has 25 hours a day available to launch a newsletter talking about the latest AI advances (which they often don’t understand anything about) and makes an average hourly rate of $0.012 through ads, yes is able to convince people on social media he’s “balling”.

But I’m getting off-topic.

See, Vince is improving his writing day by day, he’s putting out tons of content, outperforming/outlasting most wannabe digital writers (most people stop before ever writing 10 weekly newsletter issues), and he’s gotten clear on his vision, his mission, and his values.

On top of that.

He’s got his entire offer plan figured out for the next 3 years.

That alone is worth millions. Too many people fail to plan (or even think about) their long-term strategy—something I give a lot of attention with my clients—only to wander around aimlessly from idea to idea, never building something truly wonderful, let alone something that’s truly theirs.

Not all who wander are lost… but all who wander without a long-term strategy to justify their wandering are.

Anyway.

If you don’t want to be a lost wanderer.

Then you may find my clarity calls to be a wonderful opportunity for you.

Check it out here: https://calendly.com/alexvandromme/clarity-call

Stubborn people love to mention the whole “coaches coaching coaches on how to coach coaches” thing all the time.

Most of them also like to use the argument of “the fat personal trainer”.

But when you think about it, those two arguments mostly contradict one another.

See, the first is used to make fun of everyone and everything being a pyramid scheme. “Oh you teach other people how to do X so they can do X and teach other people how to do X as well? That’s a scam,” they say.

It’s a convincing argument if you’re only using 2 brain cells.

Not to mention the fact that this implies that every single teacher, university professor, coach, consultant, and even your local kindergarten teacher is running a pyramid scheme (yes, people teaching in kindergarten once used to be in kindergarten themselves).

On the other hand.

Those same people will use the argument that “nobody buys from a fat personal trainer” (which is true) but then again, implies that every person teaching you how to coach (can be replaced with anything) has to be a coach (again, replace with anything) themselves.

So clearly they can’t make up their minds.

Which is great, because that leaves the playing field open for the big guys and gals like us to profit from.

But why am I talking about this?

You see, if you’re anything like me, you might have wondered whether what these short-sighted and stubborn trolls are saying might actually have some truth to it.

I have actually worried about “doing the right thing” in the past myself.

And here’s the thing.

This is how the world works. This is how information and education gets passed on from generation to generation.

You learn something from someone who has a lot of experience in said thing. And then you can do that same thing yourself. But with the added bonus of being able to choose how you apply it.

Let’s say I want to learn how to play the guitar.

I might want to go to a master at playing the guitar and ask me to teach him. This guy in question could be a true master at playing the blues. And he’ll distill his wisdom of playing the blues onto me.

During the process, I’ll learn how to play the blues really well, as well as get an almost complete overview of how to play the guitar in general.

Now, I can choose to specialize in blues as well (maybe even teach it myself if I wanted to), or I can venture forth and experiment with other styles.

In my case, I’ll probably dabble more into classical guitar or flamenco.

I’ll learn the basics, and then, if I’m really passionate about it, I might even add to the body of knowledge of flamenco guitar by adding slight flavors, textures, and improvements to it that I picked up from having a teacher who played the blues.

Thus creating and adding value to society and the world.

Then the next generation comes around and will build upon my contributions.

This is how knowledge is passed on. This is what people mean when they say “standing on the shoulders of giants”.

Sometimes it’s a few people who made a lot of contributions.

Most of the time it’s many thousands of people who each made small contributions generation after generation.

Speaking of contributions.

I didn’t invent the entire market of creating and selling digital products. But I learned what I could from people who came before me, from all types of different fields, and then went into the industry myself, added my own flavors from experiences I’d gained in different fields, and added to the body of knowledge by creating (and sharing) my own unique frameworks.

More specifically, a framework that’ll help you ideate, create, and launch profitable digital products in 21 days or less.

Which you can check out here if you’d like to earn more: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/product

I don’t often do this.

But I just now wrote a post for LinkedIn that I thought held incredible value (even though it’s only 122 words to be precise).

So I simply had to share the same message with you via email to make absolutely sure you’ve seen it.

I’ve written about this exact topic quite often already, but it’s been a while since I last talked about it. And repetition never hurts (an important lesson on its own).

Anyway, here you go:

===

Growing up is a mistake.

If there's one thing I've learned from studying other master creators, it's this:

Never let your inner child die.

The secret to building something great, revolutionizing your industry, and doing the unexpected is to embrace your inner child and do the things you think are cool, even if no one else thinks it's cool.

From George Lucas to Walt Disney to Steve Jobs, George RR Martin, JRR Tolkien, Stan Lee, Gary Gygax, Fred Rogers, and many, many more.

None of them would have built the empires they built if it weren't for their recognition of the importance of embracing their inner child.

So the next time someone tells you how you're a child, take it as a compliment.

===

And with that said.

Let me, once again, share my inner child with you today.

No traditional offer for now.

Instead.

Here’s a link to a YouTube video I’ve watched more than a dozen times already over the past few years and one I repeatedly come back to now and then again. If you’re ever unsure about what it truly means to embrace your inner child, then this is a great place to start.

I cannot recommend it enough.

Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

I’m a big movie guy.

Well, I’m a big a lot of stuff guy. But for the sake of today’s email, it’s movies.

(Stick with me for a moment, it’ll all make sense in a second why I’m talking about movies)

One of my (and almost everyone else’s) favorite movie franchises is Pirates of the Caribbean. There’s a lot of good (and bad) to be said about it. Many of which has already been said by other people I won’t bother you with today.

But I want to talk about something else.

Something not many people often talk about.

And that’s the quotability of the dialogue.

See, we all know famous lines of movies that get quoted a lot. Think of lines such as “I am your father”, “I’ll be back”, or You shall not pass”.

All great lines and great scenes.

But Pirates has it’s own unique trick to create this quotable dialogue.

You might remember quotes such as “Why is the rum gone?”, “This is the day you will always remember as the day you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow”, and many more.

And there’s a huge difference here.

While some scenes were definitely great, most of them weren’t. They’re just average scenes with average dialogue.

So why are they so quotable?

Because the characters themselves often quote others or repeat their own dialogue. And they use the same lines in multiple settings, under multiple different conditions, often with different outcomes and with different emotions to them.

Simply said.

Pirates uses a lot of repetition to make you remember certain lines of dialogue, almost making a game out of it.

This makes the dialogue immediately quotable because, well, the movie shows you how quotable it is.

So getting back to what this has to do with you.

If you want people to pick up a certain habit, if you want them to do something, if you want them to remember something, then show them how to do it, when/where they can do it, and most importantly, repeat yourself often.

I dive deeper into this topic in Product Creation Made Easy where I show you how you can create your products in such a way that ensures people will take action and actually do the stuff you tell them to do, remember the stuff you teach them, and even repeat what you said to others—at which point they’re basically doing your marketing for you.

If you want to learn more about that, then check out Product Creation Made Easy here: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/product