Late last year, somewhere around Christmas, I promoted an offer I called “Ready, Set, Launch”.

Ready, Set, Launch was a 2-week cohort-style ‘challenge’ where I’d help all participants ideate, create, and launch their new digital products.

I would host 4 separate “lessons” or calls where I’d teach everything people had to know about product creation and give them an exact gameplan and step-by-step guide about what to do, how to do it, and most importantly when to do it.

Then, in between those calls, people could ask questions or get some help from both me and the other members of the community.

At the end, everyone would have a finished product ready to launch and with a full launch plan ready to follow so nothing unexpected would happen.

Unfortunately, I chose to cancel the plans for that specific offer because the timing wasn’t quite right (with it being the holidays and everything).

I refunded everyone who already paid and that was that.

Or so I thought.

Turns out, people really liked the idea and wanted to see it happen.

So here I am, with my “reworked” version of Ready, Set, Launch. This time there’s it’s not a cohort-style offer. That means no big group calls at specific times.

Instead, I decided to turn it into a one-on-one done-with-you offer so everyone can get the most out of it at a time that best suits them and their needs (no need to watch recordings and miss out on being able to ask valuable questions live during the lessons).

Until now I hadn’t named this new done-with-you offer. But I found it fitting to honor the last offer by giving it the same name, “Ready, Set, Launch”.

So if you’d like to join the second coming of Ready, Set, Launch, then all you have to do is reply to this email and express your interest.

There’s no sales page. No public payment link.

The only way in is by replying to this email.

Some more practical information:

The price to get in is $297 (or $197 if you own Product Creations Made Easy).

I’ll keep this extremely limited to only 3 spots—full is full.

The deadline to get in is Sunday (that's today) at midnight CET.

Since it's a one-on-one, we'll schedule our calls at whatever date and time suits you.

Now you know.

Reply to this email if you’d like to get in.

Let me know if this sounds familiar:

You have a cool idea for a new product you’d like to create.

It might even be the best idea you ever had. You can’t stop thinking about finishing it and seeing the amazing amount of people who’ll end up throwing all their hard-earned cash at you.

So you spend weeks, or even months working on your offer.

Day and night you’re fine-tuning every single detail of your product. Making sure everything’s just right and ready to go.

After an ungodly amount of hard work, it’s done.

It’s finally time for launch day.

You promote it everywhere you can think of… but nothing. Not a single sale. You worked so hard these past few weeks. And for what?

It was all for nothing.

Your product is a total failure and nobody seems to be interested in it.

The problem?

It’s not that your product sucks. I can guarantee you 9 times out of 10, your product is more than good enough to get some sales. In fact, it’ll likely be better than the shit most people are (successfully) selling online.

So why isn’t it working for you?

It’s your positioning.

You haven’t positioned your market in such a way that your target audience is interested in it.

Sometimes, all it really takes is to change the messaging of your product, the title, the subtitle, the marketing headline, and the thing you focus on. In case you haven’t realized it yet, those are all things that don’t actually have anything to do with the product itself.

Your product isn’t the problem.

It’s the way people perceive your product.

Luckily for you, I have plenty of experience with positioning products and making sure they catch the attention of the people you’re targeting.

More.

You can get my help to not only position your finished products, but actually ideate, create, and launch the damn thing from start to finish as well!

And all of that for a measly $297 (or $197 if you own Product Creation Made Easy).

All you’ve gotta do is reply to this email and express your interest.

But don’t waste any more time.

You’ve only got until midnight (CET) or until all spots are filled.

So what are you waiting for?

Reply now.

P.S.: Here’s some more practical information about this offer.

We’ll hop on three different calls, one per week for every stage of my Product Creation Made Easy framework. During these calls we’ll strategize every step of the process—together—and at the end of the call you’ll know exactly what to do and focus on for the upcoming week.

During the week you’ll have permanent access to me over text so no question goes unanswered and no mystery remains unsolved.

At the end of the three weeks, you’ll either have a finished (and launched) product or you’ll at least have your completed first draft including the launch strategy in case you’d rather take more time creating and optimizing what you have on your hands (this depends entirely on you—I'm ready to help you go all the way).

As for some practical information:

No, you don't need to have bought Product Creations Made Easy for this offer. But obviously, if you have, it would only make things easier for yourself.

The price to get in is $297 (or $197 if you own Product Creations Made Easy).

I’ll keep this extremely limited to only 3 spots

The deadline to get in is this Sunday at midnight CET.

Since it's a one-on-one, we'll schedule our calls at whatever date and time suits you.

I don’t have a sales page created.

The only way for you to get in is to personally reply to this email and let me know you’re interested.

Just reply and let me know

Here’s a fun fact about every single person you’ll ever meet in life:

They’re all afraid of change.

Some more than others, sure. But at the end of the day, people have always been, and will always remain, inherently afraid of change.

And that’s a good thing too. It helped us survive as a species for thousands of years. Now I’m no historian or evolutional biologist. But I’ve always been interested in these topics, read quite some books about it, and you can trust me on that statement.

That said.

In today’s day and age, a fear of change might not always be the most beneficial attribute to have.

So what can you do against this?

Simple.

You slice every “big change” up into tons of much smaller parts. Tiny parts that you can do without having it feel like “change”. This way your brain won’t ring the “change” alarm and go into panic mode, stopping you in your tracks and halting all types of progress you might otherwise make.

This is also how the best marketers, salesman, and even conmen “trick” or persuade people into handing over their hard-earned money.

After all, typing in your credit card details after seeing an ad for a new expensive supplement is difficult, almost impossible to do.

But only clicking the ad when asked is easy. Once you’ve clicked the ad, typing in your email address isn’t that much more difficult. Then, after reading an entertaining email, having to answer a survey about your preferences isn’t a big change either.

Then after getting back the results of your survey, you’re greeted with an offer for a free trial-run of a supplement that perfectly fits your needs, so you let them deliver it to you and use it, since, after all, that’s not a big change either.

Now your free 7-day dose of the supplement is used up and you really liked the product so you order more of it, because you’ve been using it anyway, so that’s not much of a change either.

See how it works?

More.

It’s not just for making the sale. You can apply this concept for everything you want.

Can’t get yourself to write a book? Start by writing one sentence.

Do you struggle to get up and go to the gym? Start by putting on your gym shoes.

Don’t feel like doing that big pile of dishes? No worries, just clean one plate—that’s it.

For all of these examples, once you take one step, you’ll find yourself taking the next without any resistance. Same for the next one after that, and the next, and the next, and before you know it you’ve finished the entire task.

And so it goes when it comes to building a whole new digital product you can sell and profit from for the rest of your life.

You don’t have to create the whole thing.

All you have to do is sign up for my new one-on-one 3-week done-WITH-you service where I’ll help guide you every step of the way to ideate, create, and launch your new digital product. We’ll tackle the contents of your product, the positioning, and how you can best launch your course with all of the upsells, crossells, downsells, the whole shebang or as fancy as you want to make it, so you can have the most profitable product you could imagine.

More.

You don’t even have to do any “signing up”.

All you have to do is reply to this email expressing your interest.

Seriously, that’s all there is to it.

Reply now if you’re interested.

P.S.: In case you’d like some more practical information, here it is:

We’ll hop on three different calls, one per week for every stage of my Product Creation Made Easy framework. During these calls we’ll strategize every step of the process—together—and at the end of the call you’ll know exactly what to do and focus on for the upcoming week.

During the week you’ll have permanent access to me over text so no question goes unanswered and no mystery remains unsolved.

At the end of the three weeks, you’ll either have a finished (and launched) product or you’ll at least have your completed first draft including the launch strategy in case you’d rather take more time creating and optimizing what you have on your hands (this depends entirely on you—I'm ready to help you go all the way).

As for some practical information:

No, you don't need to have bought Product Creations Made Easy for this offer. But obviously, if you have, it would only make things easier for yourself.

The price to get in is $297 (or $197 if you own Product Creations Made Easy).

I’ll keep this extremely limited to only 3 spots

The deadline to get in is this Sunday at midnight CET.

Since it's a one-on-one, we'll schedule our calls at whatever date and time suits you.

I don’t have a sales page created. The only way for you to get in is to personally reply to this email and let me know you’re interested.

Everyone’s always screaming about why you should buy this or why you should buy that.

But even more important are the reasons why you SHOULDN’T buy.

In this case, why you shouldn’t sign up for my new one-on-one 3-week done-WITH-you service where I’ll help guide you every step of the way to ideate, create, and launch your new digital product. We’ll tackle the contents of your product, the positioning, and how you can best launch your course with all of the upsells, crossells, downsells, the whole shebang or as fancy as you want to make it, so you can have the most profitable product you could imagine.

Here we go:

Reason #1:

You already know exactly what to do. You know how to do it. You know when to do it. And you know with certainty that you’ll get around to doing it (preferably sooner than later).

Overall, you have no doubt you can accomplish everything on your own.

If that’s so, don’t waste your money. You don’t need this.

Reason #2:

You work better on your own—even if it means taking longer to finish and achieve anything. If that’s your style, and you don’t want anybody to butt in and mess with your workflow or tell you other ways of experimenting/going about things. Then this won’t be beneficial to you at all.

Reason #3:

You’ve already created plenty of products and courses, all with their own level of success.

This isn’t a “getting you from 10 to 15” type of offer. This is very much a zero-to-one or maybe even a two-to-three type of deal.

If you’re already beyond that level, this isn’t for you.

Reason #4:

You can’t handle feedback or get defensive when people give you critique.

I will point out the things you’re doing wrong. I will critique the ideas you have and tell you when they’re likely to fail (on the flipside, I’ll also tell you how to make your ideas better and when they’re likely to succeed).

But you need to be willing to kill your babies. That’s part of the business.

If you can’t do that, this isn’t for you.

Reason #5:

You’re a perfectionist and you’re unable to try anything else.

Listen up, this one is especially important. And this goes for everything I do, everything I say, everything I teach, and everything I sell.

If you’re a perfectionist, none of my stuff will ever work for you. I have nothing in common with perfectionists. I’m as much of an anti-perfectionist as you can be. I ideate quick, I plan quick, I build quick, I refine quick, I don’t slow down, nor do I try to get everything perfect—at least not right from the get-go.

And all if this is reflected in my frameworks and the way I teach people to go about their business.

Don’t get me wrong. I do prioritize quality in everything I do. But I live and die by the 80/20 rule.

In my mind, “perfect” means getting it 80 percent of the way there. The other 20 percent is “beyond perfect” and will hurt you more than it does you any good.

If you can’t handle working like this, then you shouldn’t buy this. In fact, you should think twice about listening to anything I say and staying on this email list because it doesn’t complement your way of thinking as a perfectionist.

Anyway.

Here’s the practical information about the offer in case you’re still interested:

We’ll hop on three different calls, one per week for every stage of my Product Creation Made Easy framework. During these calls we’ll strategize every step of the process—together—and at the end of the call you’ll know exactly what to do and focus on for the upcoming week.

During the week you’ll have permanent access to me over text so no question goes unanswered and no mystery remains unsolved.

At the end of the three weeks, you’ll either have a finished (and launched) product or you’ll at least have your completed first draft including the launch strategy in case you’d rather take more time creating and optimizing what you have on your hands (this depends entirely on you—I'm ready to help you go all the way).

As for some practical information:

No, you don't need to have bought Product Creations Made Easy for this offer. But obviously, if you have, it would only make things easier for yourself.

The price to get in is $297 (or $197 if you own Product Creations Made Easy).

I’ll keep this extremely limited to only 3 spots

The deadline to get in is this Sunday at midnight CET.

Since it's a one-on-one, we'll schedule our calls at whatever date and time suits you.

I don’t have a sales page created. The only way for you to get in is to personally reply to this email and let me know you’re interested.

We’ll take it from there.

Not an exhaustive list but here we go:

* Self-expression is everything. It’s a must. There’s only so much to talk about in every single market. Sooner or later (hopefully sooner) you’ll realize that everyone teaches the same principles, the same strategies, and the same foundations as every other person. The difference lies in the philosophy of that person and how they choose to express themselves through their work, their content, and their offers.

* There’s unlimited potential in almost everything you do. Digital leverage makes it that way. If you’re able to make $1 doing something online, you’re able to make $1,000,000 doing it.

* You need nothing to get started except the discipline to keep at it and get the job done. No fancy tools, no expensive certificates, not even years of prior experience (you build that up along the way as you develop your own skillset and level up in the game)

* On that note. You don’t even need to be the smartest person in the room or even the most talented. If you can write more than the other guy, show up more often, keep at it for longer, and create a philosophy that’s 100% unique to you (and stick to it), you’ll win.

* The work you’ll do is as creative, as rewarding, as enjoyable, and as fruitful as desire it. Nothing is holding you back from taking on big projects and spending all your time working on them, nor is there anything holding you back from slowing down for a while and enjoying other hobbies that have next to nothing to do with your business.

* Realize how blessed you are. Other people would kill to be able to wake up and just write about what interests them. So write, write, write as if your life depends on it… because in some way, it actually does. But realize it’s a privilege to write.

* You’ll feel like nothing’s working at first. There’s a lot you need to get right, piece by piece, but don’t let that scare you. You will get it right. Everyone does given a long enough timeframe. All it requires is self-reflection and experimentation (lots and lots of experimentation, and no one can teach you how to do this, because it has to be yours. It has to be uniquely yours or else it’ll fall flat and fail).

* The sooner you get started (and the sooner you fail), the faster you can get back up and figure it out for good. Whenever it feels like nothing’s going right or you have no idea what to do next, that’s exactly when you’re closest to your biggest and most important breakthrough (except when gambling).

Anyway.

A great way to both get started and level up if you’ve been at it for quite a while is to productize your business.

Turn all the experience, knowledge, and wisdom you have into digital products you can sell for various prices to as many people as you prefer without any costs of reproductions.

My final, extremely biased, yet honest, and experienced piece of advice?

Get somebody to show you the ropes and jumpstart your creative online business.

For example, my new one-on-one 3-week done-WITH-you service where I’ll help guide you every step of the way to ideate, create, and launch your new digital product. We’ll tackle the contents of your product, the positioning, and how you can best launch your course with all of the upsells, crossells, downsells, the whole shebang or as fancy as you want to make it, so you can have the most profitable product you could imagine.

Here’s how it works:

We’ll hop on three different calls, one per week for every stage of my Product Creation Made Easy framework. During these calls we’ll strategize every step of the process—together—and at the end of the call you’ll know exactly what to do and focus on for the upcoming week.

During the week you’ll have permanent access to me over text so no question goes unanswered and no mystery remains unsolved.

At the end of the three weeks, you’ll either have a finished (and launched) product or you’ll at least have your completed first draft including the launch strategy in case you’d rather take more time creating and optimizing what you have on your hands (this depends entirely on you—I'm ready to help you go all the way).

As for some practical information:

No, you don't need to have bought Product Creations Made Easy for this offer. But obviously, if you have, it would only make things easier for yourself.

The price to get in is $297 (or $197 if you own Product Creations Made Easy).

I’ll keep this extremely limited to only 3 spots

The deadline to get in is this Sunday at midnight CET.

Since it's a one-on-one, we'll schedule our calls at whatever date and time suits you.

I don’t have a sales page created. The only way for you to get in is to personally reply to this email and let me know you’re interested.

We’ll handle it from there.

Dangle the right product in front of the right person at the right time and you’ve got yourself a sale.

That’s all you need.

Finding the right person is easy (and this means thinking about it for at least 10 minutes). So is finding the right time (just mass-create content and advertise your product and the magic of internet marketing will do its thing).

The difficulty lies in finding the right product.

See, everyone can make an offer that some people are slightly interested in. But creating an offer that most people—or at least your target audience—desperately need is a whole different story.

It’s the difference between “Oh I’ll bookmark this because I might want to get this later” and “Damn where did I leave my credit card? I need to buy this shit”.

It’s the difference between receiving a message from someone saying “Nice sales page, I’ll buy this later!” (they never do) and getting a testimonial from someone saying “This product changed my life”.

Luckily for you though, there are a few ways you can use to discover what your audience desperately needs and come up with the perfect offer, the perfect packaging, and the perfect positioning to make sure you’ll get flooded with buyers without having to put in much, if any, effort at all.

In fact.

These aren’t just any old methods.

I’ve used every single method myself, multiple times, even going as far as using ALL of them before I created my Abundant-Client System—which turned out to be a certified winner and became the biggest launch I ever had at that time.

More.

I share both those methods and the exact case study of how I applied them to pre-validate the perfect product idea, design, and framework for one of my best launches ever in Product Creation Made Easy.

But why go through the trouble of coming up with the prefect product, the perfect positioning, the perfect target demographic, and the perfect narrative all on your own when you could sign up for my latest offer where I’d personally help you do all of this and guide you every step of the way through?

In case you’ve missed my previous 2 emails:

I'm talking about a new one-on-one 3-week done-WITH-you service where I’ll help guide you every step of the way to ideate, create, and launch your new digital product. We’ll tackle the contents of your product, the positioning, and how you can best launch your course with all of the upsells, crossells, downsells, the whole shebang or as fancy as you want to make it, so you can have the most profitable product you could imagine.

The process is simple:

We’ll hop on three different calls, one per week for every stage of my Product Creation Made Easy framework. During these calls we’ll strategize every step of the process—together—and at the end of the call you’ll know exactly what to do and focus on for the upcoming week.

During the week you’ll have permanent access to me over text so no question goes unanswered and no mystery remains unsolved.

At the end of the three weeks, you’ll either have a finished (and launched) product or you’ll at least have your completed first draft including the launch strategy in case you’d rather take more time creating and optimizing what you have on your hands (this depends entirely on you—I'm ready to help you go all the way).

As for some practical information:

No, you don't need to have bought Product Creations Made Easy for this offer. But obviously, if you have, it would only make things easier for yourself.

The price to get in is $297 (or $197 if you own Product Creations Made Easy).

I’ll keep this extremely limited to only 3 spots

The deadline to get in is this Sunday at midnight CET.

Since it's a one-on-one, we'll schedule our calls at whatever date and time suits you.

I don’t have a sales page created. The only way for you to get in is to personally reply to this email and let me know you’re interested.

We’ll handle it from there.

He said the #1 problem people face when selling stuff is that they, as the creator, are too close to the product.

Apparently, according to him at least, people get emotional when selling all the time and that’s the biggest hurdle to their sales.

To which I responded, “I’m pretty sure the #1 problem is trying to sell dogshit”.

After all, we live in a world where everyone’s famous, yet nobody has any clue what they’re talking about.

The guy’s response?

===

(paraphrased because I can’t be bothered to copy-paste it)

“While it’s definitely important that your offer has a certain degree of quality, most people actually end up ruining their chances by becoming perfectionists and obsessing over the quality, making sure everything is just right, infinitely delaying when they’ll end up launching their offer.

It’s much better to just put something together, get it out there, get feedback, and improve on the go.”

===

First off, it reads like AI wrote it.

Secondly, his entire response is nothing more than a platitude you’d read on Twitter.

And thirdly, I’m very much a fan of rapidly creating products and implementing your ideas as fast as possible—can’t deny that.

But even I respect myself and my customers way too much to “just put something together and sell it”.

Sure you’ll get a few sales.

But once people realize you’re feeding them horseshit while they paid for caviar with edible gold, well, let’s just say they won’t be coming back anytime soon.

And as anyone with more than two brain cells in this industry knows, the back end (that includes repeat customers) is where you make the majority of your income.

So no.

Please don’t just create shit and try to sell it.

You can create high-quality offers (without becoming a perfectionist) while also doing it fast and efficiently.

In fact, that’s what my new product-building offer is all about.

I’m talking about a new one-on-one 3-week done-WITH-you service where I’ll help guide you every step of the way to ideate, create, and launch your new digital product. We’ll tackle the contents of your product, the positioning, and how you can best launch your course with all of the upsells, crossells, downsells, the whole shebang or as fancy as you want to make it, so you can have the most profitable product you could imagine.

The process is simple:

We’ll hop on three different calls, one per week for every stage of my Product Creation Made Easy framework. During these calls we’ll strategize every step of the process—together—and at the end of the call you’ll know exactly what to do and focus on for the upcoming week.

During the week you’ll have permanent access to me over text so no question goes unanswered and no mystery remains unsolved.

At the end of the three weeks, you’ll either have a finished (and launched) product or you’ll at least have your completed first draft including the launch strategy in case you’d rather take more time creating and optimizing what you have on your hands (this depends entirely on you—I'm ready to help you go all the way).

As for some practical information:

No, you don't need to have bought Product Creations Made Easy for this offer. But obviously, if you have, it would only make things easier for yourself.

The price to get in is $297 (or $197 if you own Product Creations Made Easy).

I’ll keep this extremely limited to only 3 spots

The deadline to get in is this Sunday at midnight CET.

Since it's a one-on-one, we'll schedule our calls at whatever date and time suits you.

I don’t have a sales page created. The only way for you to get in is to personally reply to this email and let me know you’re interested.

We’ll handle it from there.

Six months ago I launched Product Creation Made Easy, and quite successfully if I may say so myself.

In that time I’ve spoken with plenty of students who went through the course, some faster than others. While I don’t have the results of everyone, I do know that those who truly took the time to study and, more importantly, apply what they learned, meaning they ideated, created, and launched their new products (mostly courses), had some truly amazing results.

For example, there’s this one student (who I’m not sure wants me naming him) who built a guitar-playing course for older people in a later stage of life who weren’t sure whether they could still learn how to play or if they ‘wasted’ that opportunity.

It took him all but 3 weeks from the first time he started thinking about such a course until he was completely finished with everything and no longer had to lift a single finger (including promoting and launching it).

Those 3 weeks of work (in reality he only worked about an hour a day for those 3 weeks) landed him a sweet $6,000 paycheck, dozens of happy customers who’ll likely buy his future offers as well, and not to mention, he now owns a proven and permanent asset (the course) that he’s able to build upon, expand, and keep on profiting from for years to come…

And all of that with a measly email list of only 200 people!!

Anyway.

This isn’t the average result of just about anyone launching a course.

In fact, there’s something I haven’t told you yet.

The guy reached out to me a couple of times asking if I could help him with some questions he had. Mostly questions about how he could best position his otherwise “yet-another-guitar-playing-course” and a few other questions about adding upsells and other best practices.

So I looked over what he had for a bit and gave him some pointers as to what to think about and focus on.

Two weeks went by and he got back to me sharing the incredible results of his launch. And while he told me he couldn’t have done it without me, I’m not sure how much of those results can be attributed as opposed to his ruthless mindset of implementing everything he learned, combining it with his passions, and giving it everything he has.

Either way, this did spark me with an idea.

Something I thought about once in a while but never tried before…

And that’s a one-on-one 3-week done-WITH-you service where I’ll help guide you every step of the way to ideate, create, and launch your new digital product. We’ll tackle the contents of your product, the positioning of it, and exactly, step by step, how you can best launch your course, upsells, crossells, downsells, the whole shebang, so you can have the most profitable product you could imagine.

The process is simple:

We’ll hop on three different calls, one per week for every stage of my Product Creation Made Easy framework. During these calls we’ll strategize every step of the process—together—and at the end of the call you’ll know exactly what to do and focus on for the upcoming week.

During the week you’ll have permanent access to me over text as well so no question goes unanswered and no mystery remains unsolved.

At the end of the three weeks, you’ll either have a completely finished (and launched) product or you’ll at least have your completed first draft including the launch strategy in case you’d rather take more time creating and optimizing what you have on your hands (this depends on the scope of your product and the time you have available).

But here’s the catch:

This is something new I’m trying in the sense that I don’t often do “client/coaching work” (or at least not anymore).

I like my free time, you know?

So I’ll keep this extremely limited by only opening 3 spots for people who are interested. Three spots and not a single one more.

It’s first come, first serve as well. I don’t do favors. I don’t reserve spots.

And on top of that, if you want in you’ll have to decide before next week (the deadline is this Sunday at midnight CET).

I don’t have a sales page created.

I don’t have a payment link (to make sure we don’t go over the three-person limit).

The only way for you to get in is to personally reply to this email and let me know you’re interested.

We’ll handle it from there.

If this sounds like your cup of tea, don’t wait any longer.

Reply now.

This email is close to 2,000 words.

I can guarantee this to be the longest email I’ve ever written and it might very well say the least out of any email I’ve ever written while simultaneously saying the most out of any email I’ve ever written.

It’s paradoxical, and yet it works. (that’s a reference only the truly cultured understand).

Anyway, I warned you.

Start reading at your own risk:

======================================

Would it surprise you if I told you I already created a “business plan”—more like a vision—for the next 50 to 70 years of my life, depending on how long I’ll be able to walk this wonderful planet?

Well, I have.

But before I dive any deeper into it, let me just tell you something… this isn’t meant to be practical advice. This isn’t meant to be used as a guideline or something to strive towards. If anything, I’d suggest you forget everything I talk about right now and pretend I never wrote this.

What I’m about to share with you doesn’t just walk the fine line between visionary and pure lunacy… It IS pure lunacy, no doubt about it. In fact, I’d even argue it should deserve a whole new category of its own.

Hard, relentless work likely won’t cut it. Burnouts are a given. The amount of patience, determination, and quite possibly luck, someone would need to pull this off is truly off the charts and out of this world. But as a wise man once told me, “You don’t know where the line is until you cross it.”

And I’m damn determined to figure out exactly where that line is.

See, it’s 2024. Almost everything is digitalized in one way or another. There’s barely a person left who isn’t, is in one way or another, plugged in and online at all times. You’re able to reach a near-infinite amount of people just by pressing a few buttons without even having to leave the comfort of your couch.

Technology is evolving at incredible speeds allowing you to create everything you can imagine.

Yet, people’s vision isn’t evolving at even close to the same speed. And neither is their marketing…

Before I continue, let’s look at how current-day online marketing (for independent creators and entrepreneurs) is mostly done

First, you’ve got the usual options of joining and engaging in online communities (e.g., on Discord, Reddit, Skool, Circle, various forums, hobby or theme pages, …) that share your interests. Then you’ve got the general “building an audience” social media route (LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, …) as well as more specific (market)places (Upwork, Fiverr, Etsy, Amazon KDP, Steam, Itch dot io, Soundcloud, Spotify, you name it).

All great tools on their own.

And that’s where many people stop.

But not you. You know better… you know if you stop there you’ll be entirely dependent on some algorithm or the whims of the next update to the platform—as well as its regulations—that may or may not break your entire business overnight. You’re essentially gambling for success this way (and gamblers tend to lose—big time).

If you’ve got any brain cells in you, then you should be in this for the long game.

That means, setting things up so you're in control. You decide your own success… without having to pray that some algorithm shows your work to the right people at the right time, let alone consistently and reliably.

So you’ll want to think about building something you own, something you have absolute control over and where you don’t have to please an algorithm or fight an uphill battle to get your content in front of your audience… As well as somewhere you can focus on marketing not just your work, but yourself as the creator behind it… something like a personal blog, or, even better in my humble yet biased opinion, an email list.

When you realize your email list is the true base of operations and everything else is only a portal for people to come into your world (the email list) where you can entertain them and build a deeper relationship with them so they'll stay for years to come (again, you're playing the long game) and all but guaranteeing they'll read, consume, and buy a lot more than they would've if you'd tried to get the one-time sale… that’s when the real game begins.

But there are as many of these portals to get people onto your email list as there are grains of sand on Earth (possibly, I didn’t count).

Just to give you some inspiration:

The first and foremost method people use (aside from the ones I mentioned earlier) is to use paid advertisement to get people interested in what you have to offer, maybe give them something for free which they can use (or that’s purely entertaining—this depends on the market you’re in) in return for signing up to your email list.

But what if you don’t want to spend any money?

No worries, there are plenty of other options as well.

Here we’re already entering a terrain that not many people (definitely not nearly enough) are thinking about using and abusing.

For example, going on podcasts or interviews with other people/channels/businesses in your market (or related markets)—the smaller ones especially are always happy to talk with anyone. Or writing articles and press releases for (online) magazines and blogs. As well as your local newspapers or radio stations—they love to interview local people who are doing something creative in their lives.

Everyone is looking for news and entertainment all the time. You just have to approach them and ask (make sure you’re allowed to plug your work or your email list at the end—most will allow you to do so, but it’s best to double-check).

Taking it yet another step further: unleash your inner Brandon Sanderson (to stay in theme as creatives) and grow your own all-around entertainment-focused podcast like he does with his “Intentionally Blank” podcast as a supplement to all the books he’s writing.

This is truly where most people stop.

Only the true devout, the maniacs, and the mentally insane in our world would dare to go beyond. Probably for the best because you’d need to be a special type of deranged to even dare thinking about taking it to this next level.

What level am I talking about?

The level of madness where people start thinking “Why build a business around one product, service, or offer when I could build a whole universe around one central narrative?”

That’s where you start thinking like a publisher.

This is where you start writing books, comics, and graphic novels, releasing video games, board games, or card games, recording songs, albums, and soundtracks, creating paintings, sculptures, or even action figures, directing animated series, films, and documentaries…

All with the intention of creating one coherent universe where everything’s interconnected, one thing leads to the next, the movie follows the book, the action figures follow the movie, the video games follow the action figures, the paintings follow the video games, the books then references the paintings in a later installment, which then again follows the albums, the documentaries, and everything else, all in unison, all living together in harmony, supporting one another and strengthening each other to the point where there are a bazillion gateways for people to come to discover, enjoy, and ultimately become obsessed with everything you’ve built…

And no matter where people are in your universe, they’ll always find themselves on a road that leads to your email list in exactly the same manner as every road would lead to Rome.

Yes, this is a lot.

If anything, this is too much. Especially for just one person to accomplish. No doubt about it. I warned you in the beginning…this takes work. It might not even be possible. I haven’t got the slightest clue. Probably nobody really does.

The least I can say is that this isn’t for the weak-willed, the weak-minded, and the lazy… not in the slightest.

I repeat, these are merely ideas meant to inspire you. I haven’t even started working on 10% of this. It will take years or even decades to do all of it. And nobody’s forcing you to do everything. But it’s great to have goals you can’t possibly reach. It’s good to be motivated and have something to drive you.

Nobody got anywhere without a vision.

And well, mine just happens to be… well, however extremely, more than likely, unattainable this is…

I can’t, in good conscience, suggest you try anything even close to this. No doubt many people who’d attempt such a thing would go insane or completely burn out, draining every single drop of life and creative expression they have left… even attempting to do just two or three different things on this list would probably mean the end to most people.

If anything, I recommend you NOT to do this.

But just in case you happen to be as crazy (and as overly optimistic and long-term-focused) as I am.

This might just get you inspired to make something happen.

Remind yourself that just because you barely see anyone else attempt something like this doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t do it. More often than not, you’ll become MORE, not less, successful by doing the things others don’t.

Circling back a bit…

Don't forget, you're not limited to solely talking about your projects from a creative perspective. In fact, it’d likely hurt you if you did. Realize that people won’t be solely interested in your work. If you’re attempting anything close to my crazy vision of the future I’ve laid out right here, and if done right, they'll be interested in YOU (and everything you put out).

So share stories about the development, about how you came up with your ideas, what inspired you, even talk about the work of others and what you thought was missing from their creations—a common reason for making your own version—be bigger than life. Show them there’s a real person behind this universe you’re creating.

At the end of the day, people just want to be entertained, which opens up a whole new world of things to talk about.

No doubt this universe will become bigger than you. It will outlast you if you put everything you have into it (which also means someone else will cause its downfall when you’re no longer around—you either die a visionary or live long enough to see them kill off your babies).

But as long as that’s not the case, you’ll have to be the driving force of expansion—you and the characters that inhabit your universe and the many worlds it holds.

There’s no plug for anything today.

I wouldn’t feel comfortable “selling” you on something like today’s vision only to plug something of mine that can’t even come close to helping you understand or even try to get started on completing a task as big as this one.

The only thing I can offer you is a helpful piece of advice—unproven and untested, not even backed up by my own experience. This is at least how I’m currently working towards tackling the above. And that’s by starting things slow. Focusing on every aspect one at a time. And building the foundation first (you can’t build a skyscraper on a rushed foundation after all).

And that foundation is nothing less than learning to write and entertain, as well as growing your email list.

Even more.

Do all of your learning in public.

Start new projects all the time. Share your progress. Give regular updates. Talk about what you’ve learned, where you made mistakes, and how you’d go about avoiding those same mistakes in the future.

When it’s time you can ever start educating other people on the skills you’ve learned and the experience you’ve gathered.

There are many places you can learn, record, and even build stuff in public.

Personal websites, portfolios, and blogs are good.

Building an audience on social media platforms is better.

Growing your own email list which you own, control, and gives you direct access to every single one of your readers is the best.

Remember, you’re playing a long-term game here.

You’re not in it to MAYBE go viral and MAYBE get a chance at becoming popular and extremely rich. You’re here to guarantee you’ll be seen and guarantee you’ll have a decent income.

You probably won’t get extremely rich, sure. But chances are you wouldn’t have gotten rich by enslaving yourself to a social media platform, hoping the algorithm works in your favor, always following whatever the latest trend or the latest update is, following the crowd wherever you go, and never truly being able to master something or to stick to one formula.

Instead, you find a format that works and stick to it for decades. You become a platform onto yourself by building an email list which you control.

Most importantly, you take your marketing into your own hands, doing things you can control, which guarantees a positive outcome.

Everyone who’s out there playing the algorithm game is gambling with their future—and gamblers always lose (and they lose hard).

Don’t be a gambler.

If you’d like more information on how to best take matters into your own hand by building yourself something you control and can guarantee a positive outcome, then check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla