The fear of highschool presentations

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Let’s take a quick trip down memory lane.

If you’re anything like most people, chances are you still remember the time back in high school when the teacher would force you to stand in front of the class and give a presentation about some random topic.

You’d get all nervous and sweaty. Your mouth would dry up so quickly that no amount of water would help. You’d stumble and stutter over your words.

Even more.

You suddenly became aware of everything you were doing. Where should you rest your hands? By your side? No that feels weird, behind your back, safe and hidden from view? No, the teacher doesn’t like that. The classic “in front of the crotch”? No, no, you’re not some bodyguard. What about flailing them around all the time? No, you don’t want to seem nervous—even though you very much are. And what about your feet? Should you lean? Where should you look? Oh god, they’re all looking at you. What if you say something wrong? How would you ever recover from this???

And on and on it went.

Maybe you didn’t experience those occasions as badly, maybe you experienced them even worse, who knows.

All that’s to say, this isn’t an uncommon experience.

But why is that?

Now imagine that you, at a similar age as the example above, met up with one of your best childhood friends (or a group of friends) and just so happened to start talking about the same topic as the presentation you had to give.

Your friend sounds interested and wants to know more about it. You’ve researched the topic for a while (or at least read the Wikipedia page) so you can talk about it for a while, if not for hours.

How easy (and even enjoyable, regardless of whether you truly ‘love’ the topic that was given to you) would that conversation, that ‘presentation’, be?

Answer: it’d be the easiest thing in the world, wouldn’t it?

But why is that?

And more importantly, how can we apply this knowledge to our current everyday life (I’m assuming you’re no longer being forced to give presentations in your local high school).

Well, for the answer to that question, you’ll have to check chapter two of my self-published and already well-received book titled,

“The Art of Loving to Write“.

(Available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle format)

It’s an incredibly short, yet powerful, read. And one so inexpensive (as opposed to some of my other products) everyone can afford it.

No matter who you are or what market you’re in. If you do any type of writing in your life (professional or personal), I can guarantee this book can and will be useful to you—so useful in fact that you’re likely to see immediate improvements the same day after you finish reading the book.

Which, good news, the book is short enough for you to finish it in one sitting if that’s what you like

Anyway, here’s the link to get your hands on The Art of Loving to Write: https://alexvandromme.com/loving


Bubbles

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Newsletters (and email lists by extension) are undoubtedly a big bubble right now and have been for a while now.

In fact, I’d argue in a few year’s time 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.

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

That 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. (sometimes send 20+ emails in a week and nobody complains)

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 Valhalla.

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


There are only two parts to a sale

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Those are: opening the sale and closing it.

There’s nothing more to it. It really is that simple. And yet most people stay stuck on the closing part, while completely disregarding the opening.

There are, as with anything, many ways to open a sale, or more specifically in our case, an email. Anyone who claims there’s only one way to do something is full of shyte and undoubtedly trying to sell you something (often something subpar, if not straight trash).

But that doesn’t mean some ways aren’t better than others.

You could learn a few evergreen ways of opening an email (which I do teach in Email Valhalla) and solely rely on those. But that does keep your options limited and runs the danger of boring you out when writing emails (and if you don’t enjoy writing them, your readers won’t enjoy reading them).

So where does that leave you?

Well, in my case, there’s a simple litmus test I use every single time I write an email to determine whether an email opener is worth using.

Now, remember, I’m a simple man.

I like to do business in a simple way. I despise everything complex—complexity is often a smokescreen for incapableness—and never want anything to do with it. So beware that when I tell you my litmus test you’ll almost undoubtedly reply by saying that it’s super obvious, that everyone knows this, and that this couldn’t possibly be helpful or worth teaching people.

But to that I’ll have to ask you to remind yourself that knowing and doing are 2 very different things.

Many people will know this, yes. Almost nobody will think this is something new or revolutionary, really, it’s the most old and obvious thing there is. But then again, almost nobody actively reminds themselves of this litmus test, this simple question, when writing emails.

And it shows, because so many people fail at writing actual good, engaging, valuable emails that can sell.

Anyway.

If you’d like to learn my simple litmus test (and how to actually implement it instead of merely “knowing” it), get your hands on the 7 evergreen ways to open an email or anything else related to building an absolute beast of an email (business) empire.

Then check out Email Valhalla today: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


The first “online” money I ever made

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I still remember when I received my first $1 (it was actually $5) from a donation I received on a free Gumroad product.

Oh how happy and excited I was. Truly I can’t even begin to explain it.

While a single dollar might seem insignificant, the meaning is tremendously powerful. It’s the sign of possibility. The sign of my first victory. The sign of a future.

“If I can make $1, I can make $1,000,000,” I said to myself.

And while I’m nowhere close to making a million dollars. That’s still a belief I hold. Something only made possible thanks to the unlimited amount of leverage the internet gives you—digital leverage.

I’ve also been writing emails for about 2 years now. And it still amazes me time and time again how powerful of a tool this is. Sending out an email and getting paid a nice $100 for more or less 15 minutes of work is always a wonderful feeling. Not to mention the long-term value of building a customer list and a collection of sellable (and scalable) products.

Imagine what the future would look like if you had 5x the list/audience size and double the number of products and value to offer—which are extremely conservative estimations.

Then imagine new launches, promotions, upsells, crossells, all very much repeatable and easily scalable without breaking a sweat.

Yeah.

Long story short: I truly can’t think of a better business model designed and optimized for longevity, autonomy, and freedom.

So my best piece of advice? Start building your email list.

And if you want to learn more about how to send simple emails that get you paid and keep your readers reading day after day, then click here right now: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


I lighted my jeans on fire

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Back when I was 15 I overheard this fun fact about denim.

Apparently standard denim jeans would be fire resistant or fireproof. (I don’t know the difference) This sounded crazy to 15-year-old Alex. See I used to wear jeans only. Nothing else. I had filled my closet with jeans. Which is funny if you think about it because I barely wear any jeans today.

But still.

Jeans? Fireproof? I couldn’t just believe that without testing it out myself, could I?

So little old me devised a genius master plan. Or something like it. Me and some friends from school at the time wanted to do a ‘scientific’ experiment and test the hypothesis that jeans are fireproof.

This was our plan:

I would take my jeans, spray them full of deodorant, and light them on fire with a lighter. Sounds simple enough right?

But here’s the thing. I was at school. This was during our lunch break. I obviously didn’t bring separate jeans with me. I was wearing THOSE jeans. So there I was. Spraying my jeans with deodorant. How else would we light it after all? We had to REALLY test it. So here it went, I had my lighter ready. 3. 2. 1…

Fire!

Immediately my jeans lit on fire. Everyone looked at me and we were all equally amazed, “Wow! Fire!”. So cool I thought.

But then it got hot. REALLY HOT!

My legs were burning, obviously. Why didn’t I think of that? I panicked because I was literally on fire. So I did the only thing I could think of. I pulled down my pants and got out of them as fast as I could. There I was. In the middle of my school, in my underwear because my jeans were on fire.

After taking off my pants, we immediately stopped the fire and that was that.

I had some burns on my legs, but not much. Just first-degree burns. My jeans had blackened in some spots, but that was about it. They weren’t really damaged. So in the end, it turns out: my jeans were fireproof…but my legs weren’t.

I did, however, learn something valuable that day. I learned experiments can cause harm.

Especially if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Sometimes it’s better to learn and accept the lessons others have discovered before you. In this case, I burned my legs.

But in business?

Imagine the damage you could do by not learning from others and having to discover everything for yourself? How much money would you miss out on over a month? A year? 10 years? How much, really? $10,000? $100,000? $1,000,000? $10,000,000?? I’m not quite sure. But it’s a lot, let me tell you that.

Luckily for you, you don’t have to discover everything for yourself.

I did the testing and experimenting for you. I’ve been writing emails for over 2 years months now. I’ve written plenty of emails that made sales. And so many more that didn’t. I now know which ones bring results, which ones don’t, and most importantly, I know why.

And if you want to learn what works and what doesn’t, then check out Email Valhalla right here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


How to get better at telling stories

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

In my emails, in my (back when I did all of these) X or LinkedIn posts, during X spaces, 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 tell stories—not to mention how good of a practice it is to develop your storytelling and, in turn, your copywriting abilities.

I've never encountered a situation in which sharing a well-told and relevant story didn’t help me out in some 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.

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, as you may have noticed during my last promotion.

That’s a lot of doing.

Anyway.

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


Sharks, Saturn, and something else

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Here’s a fun fact for you:

Sharks have been around longer than the rings of Saturn.

In fact, sharks first emerged on our planet 450 million years ago. Saturn’s rings, on the other hand, have only been around for a measly 400 million years. Now I don’t know about you but this baffles me. Especially because you don’t think about stuff like this in your everyday life. Most of us aren’t even aware of how old sharks actually are.

We see them on TV or social media once in a while and say “Oh yeah a shark, cool”. But that’s it. We don’t appreciate the fact that they are literally 450 million years old.

Jurassic Park is all the rage because those are dinosaurs. And dinosaurs are so cool because they’re ancient, pre-historic, animals…

Do you realize a Tyrannosaurus rex lived at the end of the Late Cretaceous? A time period that dates back to 90 million years ago. Not even close to the ancientness of our finned friends. And before you ask. I didn’t know this shark-saturn fact either. A friend brought up this fact and a quick internet search expanded and confirmed it.

But I get it.

I know why this crazy fact isn’t common knowledge. And why the “ancient” dead animals are cooler and more ‘appreciated’ than sharks.

It all boils down to human psychology.

We have sharks. We know all about them. Sharks are still around, dinosaurs aren’t.

We’re fascinated by everything that isn’t instead of everything that is. We love thinking about what it would be like to have lived together with dinosaurs. While we can’t fantasize about living with sharks. Because that’s normal everyday life.

We know what that’s like.

We want what we can’t have. You’ve experienced this many times in your life before as well. Ever wanted something so badly? Only to end up not caring about it once you got it. Or maybe it was the other way around. You didn’t care about something before you lost it. And that’s when it suddenly dawned on you just how much you actually had.

How important it was and how grateful you should’ve been.

Now think about how you can adapt this to work to your advantage. In your business perhaps. Think about how limiting the people you work with or qualifying people before you work with them can actually increase the value of your service.

Even though it’s still the exact same offer. Nothing changed. But people will want it more once they realize not everyone can get it. It’s a rare thing to be seen working with you.

In fact, I dive deeper into the psychology behind what makes an offer, or a product in this case, even more exciting than it would’ve been otherwise, just by changing a few simple details in my course Product Creation Made Easy.

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


Don’t be cheap

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Here’s an important thing many people forget when selling to creative people in creative markets:

It’s not just about “solving problems”.

More often than not, it’s simply about giving people joy, a lot of fulfillment, and something exciting to do. Whether that’s a cool design to quilt, an exciting writing prompt, or an original idea for a terrarium.

Even more importantly…

When selling creative markets, it’s almost never about being cheap or inexpensive. If anything, people will purposefully spend more money on their art or hobby, rather than less.

So with that said.

If you’d like to learn a new and exciting way I use every day to write highly entertaining emails which give me a lot of joy, fulfillment, and a whole lot of self-expression, then check out my course Email Valhalla.

Just be aware.

It ain’t cheap.

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


Why is the public so stupid?

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Here’s an insightful comment George Lucas said after a bunch of critics (who have no feel for the outside world and the common man) gave the first Star Wars an awful review, calling it the “infantilization” of film.

One critic even said, “What happened with Star Wars was like when McDonald’s got a foothold; the taste for good food just disappeared.”

Lucas’s response:

===

“Why do people go see these popcorn pictures when they’re not good? Why is the public so stupid? That’s not my fault. I just understand what people like to see”

===

Which brings me to my point.

Don’t get angry if your audience doesn’t “get” what you’re doing. Or it doesn’t see the value in what you’re promoting. It’s not your job to convert them—not directly at least. See, the truth is that it doesn’t matter. At least, as long as you know the difference between what your audience wants and what it needs.

Sometimes you gotta treat them like dogs. Not the filthy type, but the type who needs to take their medicine, yet won’t have any of it.

So what do you do? You wrap it up in ham and feed it to them anyway.

You need to understand your audience. To know what they like to see. Then give them exactly that. And only then, can you give them what they actually need. By including the solution to their problem in the thing they wanted.

It’s the same with email marketing.

And I’ll teach you exactly how to do this in Email Valhalla so people will pay attention from start to finish and actually learn the things they need to learn.

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


Fail fast, fail often

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You may (or may not) know that I’ve been working on competing (as far as there is any real competition lol) in new niches; more specifically hobby niches.

Doing so requires research—lots of research. Especially when it’s a niche I know almost nothing about—as is mostly the case for me.

So for the past few days I’ve been doing nothing but scrolling through tons of Reddit posts, reading hundreds of YouTube comments under dozens of videos, checking out every single course available about the subject on sites such as Domestika, Udemy, SkillShare, Coursera, going through the entire Facebook ad library trying to find every single ad ever written in the niches, and writing down every single detail I come across that might potentially be useful to me in one way or another.

Needless to say, I’ve spent quite a while researching (far too many) topics.

Is all of this research necessary?

Well, it might surprise you, but actually, no.

See, while doing some research is vital—you simply can’t expect to enter a market you know nothing about just like that and watch the money come flooding in. But you don’t have to do nearly as much market research as I’ve done over the past few days.

So why did I do all of this research?

Simply said, I was indecisive and afraid to fail. It was mental procrastination, to say the least.

In reality, it’s often better to do “just enough” research (or create a product that’s “good enough” in that case) and go with it. See what happens. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, now you can analyze the situation and figure out what went wrong. This allows you to move forward faster, rather than slower as some people might think, by learning from your mistakes and building your experience.

One of the best things you can do in business (and probably in life as well, although I’m probably not qualified to talk about that, yet) is to “fail fast”—as long as you analyze your mistakes, pick up the pieces, get back up, and try again almost immediately.

Anyway.

Another way to approach market research, which I also employed at the very beginning, is to use your email list, either to simply ask the questions you have to your list or by making offers, testing out new ideas, and seeing how people react.

To do that, it helps to write highly entertaining emails people love to open and read day after day.

Luckily, that’s something I can help you with.

Check out Email Valhalla here to learn more about just that: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla/