Here’s some (useless) thinking I was doing yesterday:

My dad’s initials spell out DVD.

So one of the funniest things I could do is only date women with the initials CD and start a little disc collection in the family.

Now this isn’t a marketing lesson.

In truth, this makes no sense whatsoever—other than it being hilarious (and if you don’t get my sense of humor, then that’s a you-problem).

But it made me realize that despite how absurd this sounds, I could probably achieve it if I wanted to.

If for some reason all I cared about was this one particular goal and I’d be ready to sacrifice everything and everyone else that comes my way, just to fulfill this one goal. Then, even though I haven’t done the math on this, I’m 120% certain I could achieve this goal.

But that’s not all.

See, the above statement isn’t just limited to finding (and seducing) someone with the initials CD, is it?

It applies to everything.

There’s all this potential inside of me, you, and everyone else walking this earth. An insane amount of potential energy waiting to be unleashed, to be used to achieve just about any goal in life.

And that’s the thing.

You have the potential to achieve anything—but not everything.

You can’t be picky.

You can’t say “oh I’ll do this and this and this, and oh how about this as well?”. No it doesn’t work that way.

Pick one goal and one goal only.

More.

Whatever goal you pick. You’ll have to accept the sacrifices that come along with it. You can’t be picky with those either. You can’t take the good without the bad.

Here’s an example.

I made it my goal to “Build a business of my own that allows me to work whenever I want, wherever I want, and with whomever I want by way of writing,” (writing because that’s what I like to do—I’m not much of a video person).

That’s it.

The moment I try to do something else is the moment I fail in both.

Yes I could earn more money doing regular workshops, yes I could earn more money creating and selling video content, yes I could earn more money working with high-ticket copywriting clients as a freelancer, but those aren’t my goals.

In fact, they’ll take me further and further away from my goals every time I try to do something else.

I’m not saying not to experiment—of course you should.

But be clear on what it is you truly want.

I’ve seen many people—clients, readers, and friends alike—get distracted in the jungle of opportunity, losing track of their goals, and never getting closer to reaching their goals despite already “working” on their goals for the past year and a half.

Anyway.

This, like most important lessons in life, isn’t exactly a practical one.

You’ll have to figure out what it is that you want on your own.

But in case your goals involve creating and selling (digital) products or courses online, then check out Product Creation Made Easy—it’ll show you how to ideate, create, and launch profitable digital products in 21 days or less.

It’s all based on experience and insights I’ve learned by working in the trenches myself and learning from other industry experts. Everything’s battle-tested and ready for you to use.

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

 

That’s life.

Everyone in their life, sooner or later, has to realize that nothing bad ever happens, nor does anything good ever happen.

Things just happen.

They just are.

For better or worse, I’ve already been reminded of this fact multiple times this year.

When my X account got suspended (after having spent almost a full year working on it, creating content, and spending hours upon hours growing my account), people called it shit, and would easily label it as something bad.

But at the same time it made me start on LinkedIn where I already made a bunch of wonderful new connections and even improved my relationship with other people on X I barely spoke to.

More.

It made me realize what a real business is and isn’t (spoiler: a social media account isn’t a business).

All-in-all I now look back at this occurrence with a smile on my face.

I’m happy because this made me push my business further, leading me to make more progress in a week than I’d made in the past months combined.

For one, it made me double down on selling products and getting clients in ways that don’t rely on me having a lot of clout (as the cool kids say) on social media.

And if you want to learn how to get clients the same way I do, then check out my Abundant-Client System which teaches you my entire framework, to getting leads, qualifying prospects, and landing clients consistently and effortlessly.

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

There’s no long-form value, article-style, whatever-you-want-to-call-it email today.

And there’s a few reasons why.

For one, I didn’t prepare one. And I don’t have time to prepare one before it has to go out because I’m leaving early today to go play a chess competition game for the chess club I’m a part of.

I quickly looked if I had something lying around that I could repurpose but didn’t find anything.

So nothing planned.

But more importantly.

For a while already, we’re talking multiple weeks, perhaps even months, I always found this Sunday-type email the least fun one to write.

And if I’ve learned anything it’s that if I don’t have fun writing them, you sure won’t have fun reading them either.

I liked the system I had—which I called the “True Hybrid Email System”.

The system had a lot of benefits. Mainly, it forced me to write an article at least once every week, and these articles were some of the easiest to repurpose, even inspiring entire products, courses, or giveaways back in the day.

That said, my philosophy on what good and entertaining emails (and products) look like has changed.

So I might discontinue this type of Sunday email.

Instead you’ll get a simple daily email, like you’re already getting every other day except Sunday, but now you’re getting them every single day, including Sunday.

In case you’re new and have no idea what I’m talking about, check out the 40–50-ish articles I’ve written here: https://alexvandromme.beehiiv.com/

In case you do know what I’m talking about, reply to this email and let me know what you think of this change.

Did you like these Sunday-type emails? Did you read them or skip’em? Did you look forward to those or only to the daily ones?

Would love to hear your thoughts.

One practice I like to do is to add a “Secret Module” to (almost all) my courses.

What I mean by that is a course that isn’t immediately available upon purchase—one people often aren’t even aware of that exists.

Requirements to unlock the module could be writing a testimonial, sharing proof of work, finishing a particular module, or just waiting for a few days (i.e. bonuses via email sequences).

These are little personal touches added to make a course feel special (or at least that’s what I’m hoping it does).

More.

Those “Secret Modules” often tend to be one of the most valuable ones out of the entire bunch. Valuable in the sense of ‘most profitable once implemented together with the previous foundations already in place’—none of these secret modules are foundations or even required to make your business functions, but they do add a nice big chunk of cash flow.

And, at the end of the day, more cash flow with less work is what I’m optimizing my business for.

That’s also what I optimize my products for and what I aim to teach.

It just makes sense.

So if you want to discover this Secret Module I have in store for you in Email Extraordinaire, one that’ll teach you “How To Run … To Make A Metric Crap Ton of Sales” (I can’t show the full title, otherwise it wouldn’t be a secret anymore, now would it?), then check out Email Extraordinaire in the next 1.5 hours.

Here’s the link: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/EE

PS: Why 1.5 hours?

Well, because that’s the last chance you’ll ever get to purchase Email Extraordinaire (or at least for the next 6 months).

I’ll be closing the cart today at midnight CET (that’s 1.5 hours after this email goes out).

And you won’t have another chance to invest in your email writing skills with Email Extraordinaire until late July/early August at which time I’ll have completely revamped, updated, upgraded, visually overhauled, and improved upon every single aspect of the course, based on my own recent experience and customer feedback—so much improvement in fact I can guarantee you it won’t be available for any amount under $497 (potentially even higher).

But if you get it today?

You’ll get it today, including all upcoming improvements, and for less than 20% of the full price it’ll be in 6 months time.

So if you’re thinking about getting it, then what are you still reading for?

Get it here in the next hour: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/EE

Here’s a fun fact for you:

When Star Wars was first released back in 1977, while being an immediate success and raked in insane amounts of money, the likes of which had almost never been seen before, still not everyone seemed to like it.

More specifically.

Some critics called the movie “as simple as black and white—and not in a good way,” even going as far as writing “The blockbuster, bestselling movie Star Wars is one of the most racist movies ever produced.”

Another criticism read, “The force of evil in Star Wars is dressed in all black and has the voice of a black man… That character reinforces the old stereotype that black is evil.”

Here’s another example (taken word for word from the book George Lucas by Brian Jay Jones):

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Another critic even ‘pointed out’ that the two droids acted, and were treated, like slaves, all the way down to being sold to a young white man they called “Master”.

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Seriously, I wish I was making this stuff up.

This proves to me one thing and one thing only.

People will hate you no matter what. The more successful you are, the more the hatred will become.

There’s just no pleasing everyone.

One of my favorite quotes (and guiding principles) I’ve learned in the past year is from the great Dan Kennedy himself: “If you haven’t offended anyone by noon each day, you’re not marketing hard enough.”

The more I grow and learn, the more I realize how true this is.

Case in point: I’m offending people left, right, and center on LinkedIn (so much so I imagine I might get banned again soon, but I simply realized how insignificant that is and how little that matters) and things have been going better than ever.

Now, I’m not offending people just for the sake of it.

People get offended by me for calling out their bullshit takes

Example: Yesterday a big account (30k+ or something) made a post saying “You shouldn’t post with your ideal clients in mind, but with other creators in mind because they are the ones who engage with your content”

Ah yes, let me join the circle jerk of creators and fuel our dopamine receptors by getting lots of likes and comments but making $0 in the meantime (also, that creator is a ghostwriter so what a good thing it is that her ideal client is the exact person that’s reading the posts of the people who comment on here stuff—shady and manipulative tactics everywhere).

Even more, the post had hundreds of likes and comments, all of which are positive ones.

I’m guessing either most people are brainwashed and just don’t know any better than to join the circle jerk (which is a good thing for you and me because that’s less competition) or nobody on LinkedIn even dares the oppose someone else’s views because the platform is full of politically correct professional types who wouldn’t dare sharing their honest views in fear of getting canceled (I’ve been on the platform for 2 weeks and already don’t like a lot of what I see).

But enough about that.

If you get offended by me. Then either 1) grow up and realize you might be brainwashed to believe things that not only don’t help you make money but actively hurt you in the process or 2) leave my list and go haunt another person who’ll tell you stuff that makes you feel good, yet offer no actual solutions.

And if you happened to stay, you might like to learn how to actually get paid by writing simple emails that keep your readers reading day after day.

If so, check out Email Extraordinaire today: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/EE

P.S. I’m closing the cart to Email Extraordinaire for 6 months today at midnight CET (that’s in 4 hours).

If you purchase the product now (or have already bought it in the past) you’ll keep your access indefinitely (meaning you'll also get the massively improved product at the ridiculously low price of only $97, compared to the $497 or more it'll end up costing when I relaunch it)

Everyone is so worked up about building their list, growing their numbers, getting more clicks, yada, yada, yada.

Stop it.

That’s the mindset of a short-term thinking marketer.

Not that of a banana-loving, empire-building, freedom-focusing, life-enjoying, awesome-being, cool person such as yourself (that’s who you are since you’re on my list).

See, you and I. We don’t play the game following the same old rules everyone else lives by.

We do things our way.

And that means thinking long term, not caring about the open, the click, the size of your list, or whatever the market tells you is currently working right now.

This also goes back to something Ben Settle often refers to as psychological vs sociological marketing (and business worldbuilding by extension).

Psychological marketers do the above thing.

They care about their open rates, CTRs, LTVs, ROIs, and everything else you can put on a spreadsheet.

Sociological marketers?

They don’t.

They care about what matters. The long-term vision. Building the business you dream off, doing it YOUR way.

What does this have to do with list building?

Well, first, it’s realizing you’re not in the list-building business. You’re in the relationship-building business.

I care about building the relationship I have with you and every other reader of mine (and you probably should too).

This means I’m not concerned with milking as much money out of every person on my list as possible. It doesn’t matter to me what’s optimal or not.

I’d happily pass on big sums of money if that means building the business I dream of, doing things the way I want to do them, not having to bother with complex funnels, nightmare logistical problems, or any other issues most psychological businesses suffer from.

Which perfectly reflects the way I teach email writing in Email Extraordinaire.

• No complex funnels

• No swipe files

• No sequences whatsoever

• No selling the click

Just pure unadulterated information on building and growing a list aimed at fostering a healthy and engaging relationship between you and your readers, allowing you to write simple emails that get you sales and keep your readers reading day after day.

If that sounds like your jam, then click here for more information today: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/EE

PS: And when I say ‘today’ I actually mean it. If you’re reading this email than it means you have approximately 9 hours (or less) until I close the cart on Email Extraordinaire and it won’t be available to purchase for at least another 6 months.

By that time I’ll have completely revamped, updated, upgraded, visually overhauled, and improved upon every single aspect of the course based on my own recent experience and customer feedback—so much improvement in fact I can guarantee you it won’t be available for any amount under $497 (potentially even higher).

But if you get it today?

You’ll get it today, including all upcoming improvements, and for less than 20% of the full price it’ll be in 6 months time.

So if anything, at least check out the link and decide whether it’s for you or not.

Anyway, here’s the link once again: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/EE 

Newsletters (and email lists by extension) are undoubtedly in a big bubble right now (as they have occasionally been multiple times in the past).

Give it a year and about 80% of all newsletters will disappear, either on their own or because people get tired of them and unsubscribe.

Case in point: most people always start by subscribing to 10-20 newsletters but trim them down to a select 2-3 a year later.

So what's the takeaway?

You need to stand out and be memorable while you still can.

The goal is to end up along those 2-3 email lists people stay subscribed to.

Which means everything you do should be with the following thought in mind, "how do I become the most memorable in my reader’s mind?".

This means: 1) be original 2) go against the grain 3) send often, the more the merrier—and no, people won't get tired of seeing you in their inbox, I'm living proof of that. (I wrote 16 emails just this week and nobody complained)

With that said.

There’s a right way and a wrong way to go about it and write emails.

Do it wrong and in the best-case scenario it’ll take you months, if not years to make any meaningful progress.

Worst-case scenario, you’ll burn out, start blaming the system or the market, believe it’s all a scam, and give up before anything good happens.

Make sure you do it right by studying the fundamentals I teach in Email Extraordinaire.

Here’s the link: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/EE

P.S. Reminder, I’m closing the cart to Email Extraordinaire for 6 months this Saturday, January 27th (that’s today) at midnight CET.

And it won’t be available for purchase again until 6 months later. At that time it’ll have seen so many improvements based on my personal experience and feedback from current customers that it’s undoubtedly going to increase in price (more than double even).

Get it now and save yourself a lot of trouble (and money) later on.

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 Email Extraordinaire. I simply don’t teach you how to copy, how to mindlessly follow some checklist which 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.

Email Extraordinaire is more of a guiding hand in the right direction than a step-by-step template on how to do something—which can be said about every single product of mine since that’s just how I do business.

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 Extraordinaire today,

Why today?

Well, because it’s the last day you’ll ever get the chance to do so. In about 16 hours I’ll close the cart for good (or at least for the next 6 months) and you won’t be able to purchase Email Extraordinaire.

So don’t waste any more time and check it out today.

Here’s the link: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/EE

A new reader (who I’m not sure wants me naming her) asked:

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“To grow my email list… Should I create a lead magnet teaching people how to make money online?”

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The question you should ask yourself is, “Who do you actually want on your list? Newbies trying to learn a skill because they need money or already-successful business owners who are likely to hire you/buy your products?”

A lead magnet teaching people how to make money online will attract a bunch of people who are NOT making any money (at least not online).

Maybe that’s what you want, who knows?

It’s definitely not what I want, that’s all I can say.

My solution?

Make your email list and the emails themself so interesting, entertaining, and valuable to the people you want so you don’t even have to bother with lead magnets.

Now, this obviously depends on the market you’re in.

There’s no one-size-fits-all advice out there. And anyone who pretends there is has only one goal in mind: to convince you their method is superior and get you to hand over your hard-earned cash in return for their courses teaching you their “super new, never before seen method, that works all the time, everywhere, no matter what”.

That said.

I’m also selling a course, yet.

But I’m not claiming it’s for everyone.

It’s also nothing new. Everything inside can be found somewhere else on the internet, potentially even for free.

All I’m saying is that Email Extraordinaire will teach you the necessary foundations, it’ll help you lay the groundwork of your email business so you can grow your list, get paid, and figure out where to go from there on your own (or with help from others).

People who want to save money shouldn’t buy this.

People who have already been mailing for months and are making a steady and consistent income with it shouldn’t buy this either.

People who want to save time and effort figuring everything out and getting started on the right path on the other hand should.

It’s up to you, really.

I’m merely giving you to opportunity to buy.

At least for the next 25-ish hours. Because that’s when I’ll stop selling Email Extraordinaire for at least the next 6 months (and I’ll be increasing it’s price fivefold when it’ll be available for purchase once again).

So check it out today and see for yourself.

Here’s the link: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/EE

One of the most enjoyable attributes of my list is how diverse the people on it are.

We’ve got game designers, architects, medical specialists, electrical engineers, PhD university lecturers, bakers, long-time professional copywriters, meditation specialists, college students finding their way in life, tattoo artists, bodybuilders & fitness influencers, founders & CEOs, music producers, firefighters, finance advisors, ghostwriters, cinematographers, and many many more, many of which I likely still have to discover.

I know this because I try to speak with as many of my readers as possible.

Every reply I receive I respond to, without fail, and I always invite people to reply with their thoughts, share their problems, or just tell their story.

I also always try to engage in conversation, to learn more about the person on the other side.

But even more, I’m almost always able to join the conversation about whatever they are doing simply because of the many, many interests I have and the continuous studying and gathering of experiences I try to do in my daily life.

Which is also a requirement for almost any creator in any market, and that’s especially the case for copywriters (or people practicing to write copy for themselves).

And don’t just take this from me.

This has been confirmed by many of the top copywriters, I’m talking A-list copywriters and certified legends in the field. Joseph Sugarman referred to it as broad and specific knowledge—both of which are required to have as a copywriter.

Just a few days ago I had this exact same conversation on LinkedIn with David Deutsch, one of the world’s most successful copywriters today responsible for over $1 billion of copywriting success stories, about how every single copywriting legend had way too many interests too count.

And not just the “Oh yeah, that’s fun” type of interest but the “I’m obsessed and I’ll spend 6 months of my life figuring this stuff out” type of interest.

But that’s not all.

Simply having those interests won’t get all of these people on your list, nor will it allow you to build long-lasting relationships with anyone.

You need to actually talk about all of those interests as well.

That’s what so many people miss when they think you can only ever talk about one or two subjects because otherwise you’ll confuse your audience.

What a load of crap.

The only thing that’ll happen is you’ll bore your audience and become nothing more than a daily encyclopedia reaching out to them.

Of course, you have to keep it relevant.

But please, for the love of everything that’s holy. Talk about all of your interests and more.

Do this and you’ll stand out like a 15-year-old Twitter life coach in a conference full of old-school hardcore WWII veterans discussing the struggles and hardships of human life.

Don’t limit yourself.

And if you want to learn how to easily (and fast) write interesting and relevant emails that get you paid and keep your readers reading day after day, no matter the topic or the interest you’re talking about.

Then check out Email Extraordinaire: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/EE

P.S. Reminder, I’m closing the cart to Email Extraordinaire for 6 months this Saturday, January 27th (that’s tomorrow) at midnight CET.

If you purchase the product now (or have already bought it in the past) you’ll keep your access indefinitely (meaning you'll also get the improved product at the ridiculously low price of only $97, compared to the $497 or more it'll end up costing)