I’m a big email fanboy.

You’ve probably realized that already by now. But man I just love writing and sending these emails.

It’s enjoyable to think about and create your story. It’s enjoyable to play this little game of “How can I relate this ridiculous thing to something of value for my audience?”

It’s also fulfilling to see the enthusiastic responses flooding in after you made an engaging and entertaining email. It’s great knowing that you’re able to put a smile on people’s faces by sharing your story via a medium almost everyone nowadays has access to.

Because of that I always convince people to create their own newsletter and experience the same joy that I get to experience.

With that comes the educational part of convincing people why having an email list is so crucial as a creator. But it also includes the technical part of educating people on how to create a newsletter and what the best practices are for growing one.

It’s at this point that I’m often surprised when I hear how many people aren’t aware of Beehiiv yet.

Either they don’t know about the platform and use another one like Substack (eww) or ConvertKit (still slightly eww). Or worse. They don’t have their own newsletter, don’t realize the amazing potential of owning an email list, or worst of all. They aren’t even aware of the possibility of starting their own.

Because of those reasons I deem it my mission to repeat this once again. Very clearly this time. How amazing having an email list is and why you should at least consider trying out Beehiiv.

Beehiiv is slick and it has a bunch of tools that other email providers don't have. Like a nice-looking website, straight out of the box, that doubles as your email archive. This one alone makes it better than ConvertKit already. The ability to archive your past mails.

Nothing is ever lost.

No article, paragraph, sentence, or word is wasted. You can write something once and it’ll remain useful for years to come. You can keep directing traffic to your articles. That’s what the giants such as Justin Welsh and Dan Koe do. That’s where they get the most of their traffic from.

Beehiiv also has an amazing referral program. Recommendations from and to other newsletters. And an ad network if you want to monetize your newsletter that way.

Just as important:

More than any other email platform I've directly used or indirectly heard about, Beehiiv is stable and reliable. It doesn't crash. It doesn't lock up. It doesn't fail to send out emails you meant to send and it doesn't sneakily send out emails you didn't mean to send.

But really, try it out for yourself and see. Maybe it's not for you. Or maybe you will love it.

There's no risk either way. Because Beehiiv is free to start using and to continue using indefinitely — for sending emails and for the website.

You only have to pay something if you wanna upgrade to some of the fancier growth and monetization tools — which I've done because it's well worth the money for me, and because I've decided to stick with Beehiiv for the long term.

So like I said, I encourage you to give it a try. But I know that encouragement, good arguments, and lists of shiny features are often not enough to get people to move.

So I'll give you a bit of encouragement.

And if you try out Beehiiv using my affiliate link, I will hop on a call with you to help you figure out 1) what to write about 2) how to best promote your newsletter 3) and how to monetize it.

If you're interested, here's what to do:

1. Head to Beehiiv using this link: https://www.beehiiv.com/?via=alexvandromme

2. Sign up for a free account. You don't have to sign up for anything paid. I am counting on Beehiiv's quality and service to convince you to do that.

3. Once you've signed up, reply to this email with proof of the confirmation email you get from Beehiiv and I’ll get back to you. There’s a 48-hour deadline on this offer to help you with your procrastination. You’re welcome.

Music is a big part of my life.

Both listening to, playing, and creating my own. Although I’m still in the early stages of learning how to create music.

I’ve been playing the piano for over 7 and I’ve picked up a classical guitar a few years back. But I haven’t made a whole lot of progress on the guitar if I’m honest.

I played a bit of flamenco on that one. But that didn’t last long.

Aside from playing those two instruments I’m extremely into film music and music orchestration in general. I’ve got a whole playlist filled with over 80+ suites of music from different films.

Yes almost everything from Hans Zimmer is included. His music has been a great inspiration for me during this journey.

But it’s much more than that.

For example I recently found myself in a phase of being fascinated by both old Viking-inspired music and Mongolian throat singing.

There’s something of beauty to hear how other cultures developed their music.

The reason why I’m sharing this is to make it clear that my music taste differs vastly and not everything is as widely available.

For that reason I find it almost impossible to use Spotify. All of the music I listen to is from YouTube because Spotify doesn’t have nearly as much of the “weird” music.

I’m also not downloading every single YouTube video I like so I almost always have at least 1 YouTube tab open on my PC to listen to my music.

But this comes with a drawback that I just experienced 30 minutes ago. (And why I’m writing this email). I went to one of my favorite compilation videos of Norse music. Upon arriving at said video all I saw was “Video unavailable”.

Now it might be just temporarily taken down by the owner. Or it might have been taken down permanently for some reason. I have no idea.

But this goes to show you that everything which you don’t fully own can (and will) be lost eventually. Even the audience you’re building on social media.

The news about Zuckerberg’s new social media platform Threads is already spreading like wildfire. We have no idea what will happen to Twitter (or Threads).

We have no idea how long Twitter will keep existing. It doesn’t even have to go so far.

At any moment something could happen to your account. You could lose it. You could get hacked. You could get banned. Any of these situations will end up in you losing everything you’ve built.

That’s where an email list comes in. You are on my list. You are reading this email.

Whatever happens to my Twitter account doesn’t matter. I can always contact you right here.

Even if Beehiiv (my newsletter platform) shuts down. I can always export my email list and start using another service.

This is mine and can’t be taken away.

We think something like this would never happen. Until it’s too late.

So stop wasting time. Don’t be reliant on the social media platforms you’re using. Secure the safety of your work. Start building your email list today.

Here’s a fun fact for you:

Sharks have been around longer than the rings of Saturn.

Yes. Seriously. Sharks first emerged on our planet 450 million years ago. While Saturn’s rings 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. I’m sorry what? We don’t appreciate the fact that they are literally 450 million years old.

But 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. No I didn’t know this either. A friend brought up this fact and a quick internet search expanded and confirmed my knowledge about this topic.

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. They’re here.

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’s 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.

So that being said.

I only take on 4 people to work with at a time and you have to fill out a qualifying questionnaire beforehand. I don’t work with people who I feel don’t have what it takes to make it as a creator.

So if you think you have what it takes to make it as a creator. Then apply to work with me to build your business, optimize your funnel, automate your process, and start earning while working less than 3 hours a day.

I went bowling as a team-building event with some people from my chess club yesterday.

You have to know. I like sports in general. I like to be outside and be active.

Mostly because I’m good at most of those activities.

But also because the general vibe is always nice and I’m in love with the feeling of progression. Especially if it’s some kind of physical progression.

Seeing yourself gradually improve at tennis, bowling, baseball, bouldering, and all other sports in existence. That’s got to be one of the best feelings out there.

Ironically enough. I absolutely suck at bowling. My first 5 throws were all in the gutter. I wasn’t off to a great start.

But I didn’t give up.

I started to dissect why I was throwing so awfully and started making small improvements. Throw after throw I started improving and I ended up scoring 1 to 3 points here and there for the next couple of throws.

But then it happened.

I got ready. Ball in hand. Looking at those 10 pins in front of me. I started making that little silly walk you do before you throw your ball. I aimed my trajectory dead-center. Locked my eyes on that middle pin and threw my ball.

As it always happened, I tended to overshoot to the left and it went off course. But I ended up knocking down 5 pins!

That’s nothing to boast about.

But it was the best feeling ever for me. I realized I was gradually improving. 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 3, 1, 2, 5. That’s what improvement looks like right there.

From there on out I became more consistent and started throwing better balls. At the end of the game I ended up scoring a few 7’s, 8’s, 9’s, and even a spare!

Needless to say. I was last for both games we played. But I just know the next game I play won’t be the same.

After our bowling session I played 3 games of pool against one of the friends I was with.

I won all 3 of those.

I always had a better talent for pool. Much more than bowling. The fact that I used to play pool once or twice a month back in high school helps as well.

But I’m not here to boast about my pool skill or (lack of) bowling skills. I’m here to drive home a crucial life lesson.

We all have our own unique talents in life.

Some activities/skills come naturally to us while others don’t. But a lack of talent doesn’t mean you can’t become good or even great.

I (clearly) didn’t have a talent for bowling. But with practice, experimentation, and consistency I, too, can become a decent bowler.

That’s the same with writing, content creation, funnel building, marketing, and sales. No matter your talent, previous experience, or current knowledge. You can become a great creator and build an online business that gets you paid while working less than 3 hours a day.

This Friday I sent out an email explaining how I last half my email list overnight.

In case you missed that email. No worries. Nothing truly bad happened. I simply cleaned up my email list.

But I ended that email by asking people to reply. It could be anything they wanted. A simple “hey”, “banana” or a question you’d like answered. The purpose was to get some more replies to help out with the quality of my newsletter.

This helps me avoid the spam folder in the future.

I didn’t think much of it. I wasn’t expecting a lot of replies. I mean why would you bother? I wasn’t giving much in return. But boy was I wrong.

I got a tremendous amount of responses. It took me hours to respond to every single one. So from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.

I appreciate you. You stuck around in my email list after the clean-up for a reason. And it shows.

Because of that I’d like to give back. It would feel wrong to get so much support and not give 10x as much value back to you.

So with that said. Here’s what I’m offering today.

I’ve written quite a lot of words, articles, newsletter issues, giveaways, courses, you name it.

I’ve been in this game for almost 6 months and I during that time I’ve been building the habit of writing for 1–2 hours first thing in the morning. Long story short. I have a lot of useful resources available to share.

Reply to this email with ANY problem you’re facing regarding building your creator business.

This could be growth, positioning, offer creation, lead flow generation, funnel building, writing frameworks, mindset shifts, automation tools, or even my opinions about certain courses of others.

I’ll probably have something in my arsenal that can help you. And if I don’t I’ll create one right then and there.

You have nothing to lose.

The solution to your problem might be one email away.

Looking forward to hearing your responses.

Ascend 101

Lessons about building a one-person business, writing, and self-improvement

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I’ve been hosting Twitter spaces for the past month now.

These past spaces allowed me to connect with big creators, create a stronger bond with my listeners, practice my speaking skills, show my expertise live, and build my authority by doing so.

It’s crazy how often spaces get slept on by most Twitter creators. Let me show you why they matter.

Should you host spaces?

When it comes to building an audience. There’s one key rule that everyone must know. It’s not about the quantity of your audience but about the quality.

The worth of your audience comes from the quality of each individual person. Not from the sheer size of it.

An audience of 1,000 loyal fans is worth 100x as much as an audience of 10,000 random followers who don’t care all that much about you.

There are numerous methods to increase the quality of your audience. Hosting spaces is one of them.

We’ve talked about how hopping on calls with people increases the bond. There’s something about that face-to-face connection that makes the connection stronger and more valuable.

But you can’t hop on a call with every single follower you’ll ever gain.

So that’s where spaces come in. Instead of merely reading your content. They’re now directly listening to your ‘content’ and your voice.

That’s great because your voice has so much personality embedded in it.

You’re able to express yourself in ways that written content doesn’t allow you to. This makes people feel much closer to you. They’re slowly becoming true fans.

Spaces are THE most efficient way to build authenticity on a large scale.

Not to mention how great a way it is to spread your name as well. (and to build up your public speaking skills)

So with that said. I’d recommend everyone to start hosting spaces once they hit 1,000 followers. 

Build that authenticity and authority even more. It’s time to go all in and spread your name as much as you can.

3 steps to hosting your first space

Hosting spaces is all about providing a good listener experience. People will leave if you have poor audio quality. Test this out before starting a space.

Step 1) Explore other spaces

The fastest way to learn is to copy from the best.

Hop into different rooms from different creators. Listen to how they structure their spaces.

– What do they talk about?
– How long do their spaces last?
– How many speakers are there?
– How does the audience interact?
– What format are they using?
– What’s the overall vibe?

Every creator’s space will have a unique experience. Find your favorites and replicate them.

Step 2) Know how to score your spaces

You’ll be exploring different spaces. Learning how to host pleasant spaces yourself.

But that means you’ll also have to recognize which ones are good and which aren’t. The amount of listeners only tells you so much after all. And you can’t copy everything you see from every single space.

Some common criteria to look for (and score each space on) are:

– How good is the audio quality?
– How well produced is the space?
– Do they have a structure they stick to?
– How deep do they dive into a topic?
– How much interactivity is there?
– Does the space serve a purpose?
– What makes the room cooler than others?
– Do they pitch an offer? How?
– How much business success does the host have?
– What’s the social status of the speakers?
– How much entertainment/humor is there?

Ask these questions. And score them on a scale ranging from 0 to 10. Add up the scores and that’s the total quality of the space.

Adapt the criteria as you develop your own style of spaces.

Step 3) Choose a format

As you’ve noticed by now. You can host spaces in numerous ways. Some examples are:

– Having a discussion with your friends
– Bringing guest speakers to interview
– Bringing up randoms to speak
– Giving a lecture on your own
– Hosting a panel of experts
– Holding a debate
– AMA/Q&As

Experiment with these and see which ones you like.

The interview format is probably the easiest to start with. Giving a lecture on your own can be daunting, but you’ll develop your skills fast.

Having a discussion with your friends is fun, but it’s difficult to stay on topic and keep it interesting for the listeners. It’s advised to have at least 1 person (the host) to help everyone stay on topic.

These are the foundations you need to work out before hosting your first space.

Figure these out. Decide on a topic and a format. Pick a time & date and start advertising your space on Twitter.

Do this consistently at least once a week. I promise you it’s worth it.

Cheers

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P.S.

Whenever you’re ready. Here’s how I can help you:

1. Hop on a Clarity Call with me: Remove all of your uncertainty. Get clear on what you have to do, when you have to do it, and how. Let’s get you on the right track to achieving the freedom you deserve.

2. Work 1-on-1 with me: We’ll determine where you stand and where you want to go. Then we’ll devise a roadmap to get you from A to B. And get you there in the next 30–60 days.

3. Download all my products for FREE: Ranging from every resource I ever read to everything I know about content creation. It’s all waiting for you to claim it. Start your journey to financial freedom the right way.

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And if you've got a moment, I'd love to hear what you thought of this edition of Ascend 101.

Send me a quick message – I reply to every email!

I did the unthinkable. I cleaned up my email list. All inactive readers have been ‘purged’. I even had some readers who were consistently bouncing my emails. (the emails were being blocked)

From 700 readers to a whopping 430. That’s an enormous difference.

Almost half my list.

The good news is that my open rate will be sky-high from now on. As will the deliverability of my emails in the future.

In all honesty. My email deliverability wasn’t great.

This cleanup was necessary. A friend of mine reached out to share that some of my emails (more than half) were ending up in his spam folder.

I did recently change to my custom domain. Which I might have had to be more strategic about.

I’m far from an email deliverability expert.

All I know is that ISPs are a thing and that there are methods to improve how often your emails end up in the primary inbox as opposed to the promotion or the spam tab.

But that wasn’t even the worst part.

As it turns out. A lot of the responses to my emails would also end up in MY spam folder. I’ve been working through these responses. I promised I would reply to every single one. And nothing’s going to change that.

I’ve been slowly getting back to them today. But I might have missed a few in my spam. My inbox might have already deleted some of them.

So if you’ve ever reached out to me.

Whether on the welcome email or on any other. And I haven’t gotten back to you. Let me know.

I’ll gladly answer any questions you have.

Just reply to this mail and I’ll get back to you ASAP. (yes I’ll check my spam this time and fix this so it doesn’t happen again)

That being said. Even if you don’t have a question. You could do me a HUGE favor by simply replying to this email. It can be whatever you want.

Reply with “hey” or “banana”.

It’s going to prove that people actually like my email to the internet services that determine whether my emails are spam. It’ll help me reach more people and avoid situations like this in the future.

You have my thanks.

2 days ago I sent a mail about my upcoming course. It included a poll asking your thoughts about the current curriculum.

There wasn’t a single negative response. Which my ego absolutely loved.

But the best part was that there were some great suggestions. One of the suggestions went as follows:

First things first. I do go over how to use Twitter lists effectively in my module about finding and building your dream audience. So no worries there.

It’s an important skill to get the hang of and I’ll definitely go over it.

As for growing beyond Twitter. That’s something I didn’t touch on. Or at least not directly. The skills and methods I teach are meant to be universal. And they could easily be adapted to work on different platforms as well.

But there isn’t a single example/explanation/module that shows how that would look like. And that’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while since I’ve gotten that response.

Should I include a module like that in the course?

After a bit of back-and-forth discussion with myself I settled on not adding such a module for 2 reasons:

1) I don’t have any experience on other platforms. Many people in such a situation would educate themselves by taking a course on other platforms or interviewing experts on the matter. And then sharing that information in their own course. I don’t want to do so. This type of “knowledge sharing” is a plague on Money Twitter. Too many “experts” claim they know what to do without having any experience in the matter themselves.

2) I’m a huge believer in picking 1 platform and sticking to it for more than a year. It’s a waste of effort to grow on different platforms simultaneously. Every platform is a whole new game to learn. A whole new workflow to adapt to and tie in with your other existing workflows. And it’s just a mess. Especially when you don’t have many validated ideas yet. That’s why I advise everyone to stick to Twitter until they reach a big enough size. Have fully streamlined their workflow. And know with 100% certainty which of their tweets will perform and which won't.

That’s not to say I’ll never add such a module in the future.

But I’ll never add one before 1) I have (successful) experience with it myself and 2) my target audience is at a stage where it makes sense for them to expand to other platforms.

Until then. It’s all Twitter for me. If you do want to expand to other platforms yourself. I won’t hold you back.

Everything we do is based on human psychology. And that’s the same on any platform. So with a bit of adaptation you’ll be able to use the same principles I teach on other platforms as well.

But that’ll be something for you to figure out on your own for now.

Something that you don’t have to figure out on your own is how to monetize your Twitter by pursuing your passion and creating content about it. If that’s something you’d like help with I promise you’ll be interested in my clarity calls.

calendly.com/alexvandromme/clarity-call

I’m going to be controversial from the get-go.

I don’t like Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I just don’t.

In case you don’t know. Which I doubt. It’s one of those classics in the world of self-improvement and how-to-get-rich books. Some might even say THE classic.

So because of its reputation I had it on my wishlist for quite a while.

A few weeks back I finally got my hand on the book. I don’t enjoy reading ebooks or PDFs or audiobooks even. Whenever I read something. It has to be a physical book. Hardcover or paperback. Doesn’t matter.

Just let me have something physical.

I’m old-school in that way. It’s satisfying to flip the pages and highlight important sentences. I also like to see my progress by filling up my bookshelf. It helps to stay motivated.

You can’t help but look at the books on your shelf. You easily forget about digital copies. You can’t put them somewhere where you’ll notice. And out of sight is out of mind. That’s a lesson about environmental design.

But anyway back to the book.

Most people seemed to praise the book so I had to get it and check it out for myself right? I’m not one to go looking through reviews or anything.

I don’t care about the opinions of others. You can spend ages reading through reviews to find the best book, the best place to eat, and the best new phone, only to never make a decision. People simply never agree on anything.

So I don’t waste my time reading opinions. I’ll find out for myself.

The book arrives at my home and I’m happy to dig in. Only to find out real soon that it was an instant disappointment. It’s nothing more than a “feel good” book if you asked me.

Yes yes you need to believe in yourself. You need to want it real bad. You need to really WANT it. And on and on and on.

“Don’t quit. Keep going. Believe in yourself.”

Honestly I never seemed to fully understand the title until I started reading it. THINK and grow rich.

Now while I do appreciate a good book about having a proper mindset and the power of thought. This wasn’t it.

I’ve read As a Man Thinketh by James Allen. And man. Let me tell you.

That was one hell of a good book. It’s a short read. But don’t let that fool you. It’s a powerful read as well.

Remember last week’s email where I talked about the power of social proof? About how I read The Cather in the Rye because of it? (and almost every single book I ever read)

I talked about how powerful social proof is. How it makes business (and life) easy.

But there’s another side to it as well.

Sometimes it fails to deliver. That’s the thing about social proof. You have to back it up. It becomes more and more difficult to deliver.

People with all sorts of different expectations and requirements will start becoming interested in finding out more about your offer. You’ll keep growing to the point where the quality of your offer equals the social proof you have.

You’ll plateau. Which in business means you’ll start dying.

This email wasn’t to say Think and Grow Rich is a terrible book. Who am I to make such a claim? It simply wasn’t for me and I surely won’t ever recommend it to someone.

If you want to know which books (and course, articles, threads, and more) I WILL recommend. Check out my Ultimate Content Creator’s Toolkit (it’s free) here: alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/UCCT

Yesterday I shared that I’m working on building a course.

The course focuses on building your own creator business. I share my own methods and frameworks.

From branding to positioning and monetization. It’s all included.

I don’t want it to be another growth guide. Neither do I want it to be a “How to make money doing coaching on Twitter” guide.

I want it to work for anyone. Regardless of what ‘niche’ you’re in.

This past year I’ve spoken with countless people across different fields:

• B2B sales

• copywriters

• ghostwriters

• Forex Traders

• fitness coaches

• Notion creators

• digital marketers

• meditation gurus

• brand consultants

• graphic designers

• affiliate marketers

• community builders

• productivity coaches

• SaaS business owners

They all differ in what they do, who they target, and how they operate. But the underlying fundamentals remain the same.

That’s what this course will teach you — the foundations for building your business in a digital age. Leveraging the power of social media. And becoming a creator in the process.

And of course. Using all the systems that allow you to work less than 3 hours a day.

Here’s a quick overview of modules I’ve already (partially) written:

• Design your winning profile

• Find and build your dream audience

• Write content that gets you growth, leads, and sales

• Crafting an offer people can’t refuse

• Closing prospects on a sales call

• Making friends through DMs

• Selling through DMs

• Tools to automate 90% of your business

• Hosting the best spaces on Twitter

• Thread writing masterclass

• How to get your emails opened

• Social media positioning guide

• Create attention-grabbing tweets every time

• Your 6-month blueprint

• The first steps of creating a newsletter

• Different monetization routes explained

As you can see. I’m working on making this course worth your while. Not just another “Engage often, keep posting, DM people, hop on calls, and get paid” guide.

But this is where I need your help. What were your first thoughts when you read these chapters?

Do they interest you? Are they different from what you were hoping for? Are there important topics that I didn’t mention yet? I’m open to any and all suggestions.

This course isn’t just a solo project of mine.

It’s a collaboration with my audience. With people who have a need for such a course. It’s a collaboration with you. Let’s make a wonderful product together.

Let me know by voting on the poll below.