Dan Kennedy

People are naturally anti-cheap, despite what everyone claims

by

I remember when I last went shopping for some new climbing shoes.

As most people do when buying something, especially when it’s your first time and you have no idea what to look for, I did some research on the different types of climbing shoes, what makes each shoe different, what a good shoe should have (and what it shouldn’t), and some other tips and tricks to know whether a shoe fits me and my climbing style.

So, armed with my newfound knowledge, I went to my local sports equipment store to find myself a new pair of shoes.

There were so, so many different shoes, but eventually I narrowed it down to three pairs of shoes that had all the qualities I was looking for (and which I found visually appealing, an importance that can’t be understated, of course)

Out of those three, one had a price way above what I was willing to spend at that time.

So only two remained…

As far as I could tell, the features were the same. They both looked equally nice. They both fit my feet (and my climbing style) equally well. And they were almost identical when it came to the specific attributes that mattered.

The only difference was the price…

One of them was about $50 and the other was $80. (this happened quite a while ago, so the real figures could differ, but the relative difference was more or less the same)

Now, seeing as both shoes were more or less the same, you would think I, or any other rational, thinking human being, would have chosen the $50 pair of shoes and continued with their day, right? Right??

Well, that’s not what happened.

Instead my mind, even though I wasn’t aware of it at the time, went “Huh, why is this one almost half the price of the other one? There must be something wrong with it.”Of course, I had no idea what that something was. And I’m not even sure if there actually was something wrong with it in the first place. But this, seemingly odd, behavior isn’t all that weird when you look at how people make buying decisions.

In fact, that’s how most, if not all, people think—or at least in circumstances where money isn’t a major issue and people actually have a choice to make instead of being forced into one.

This is why merely “competing on price” isn’t a viable strategy.

There are, of course, many reasons for that. One of them is that, as Dan Kennedy said, “There’s no strategic advantage to being the second cheapest…”, and I can guarantee you there are always dozens of others who will compete with you to be the cheapest of all, resulting in an arms race to going out out business.

Another, which neatly ties up my shopping adventure, is that, to the consumer, price is an indicator of quality and people simply won’t trust something that’s cheap… unless there’s a narrative around it as to where the cost savings are made.

That’s why Ikea can afford to be “cheap”, you have to build the damn thing yourself, after all.

Funnily enough, that’s why Ryanair not only has to be cheap, it has to look and sound cheap as well. If they acted like any other normal airline, people wouldn’t trust their prices and decide not to fly with them. Instead, Ryanair does everything it can to uphold its reputation of “cheapness” so there’s a surrounding narrative as to why tickets are so cheap compared to other airlines.

Moral of the story: if you want to compete on price, you better create a narrative as to why that’s the case. Otherwise, just increase your prices, increase the perceived quality, and call it a day.

Speaking of quality.

It might not be cheap, but one of my best-selling courses, Product Creation Made Easy will teach you how to easily ideate, create, and launch profitable digital products in 21 days or less.

There’s even an entire module on pricing strategies!

Seriously, check it out here: https://alexvandromme.com/pcme/


A letter from your future self

by

Dear past me,

Let me tell you something about achieving your dreams. Because god knows you have them. So many, that you’re barely able to sit down, focus, and work toward any of them. Some of those dreams are so big, so scary, and look so ridiculous you barely even talk about them to others, let alone yourself.

Oh, what big mistakes you’re making.

Believe me when I say that one day, you’ll look back at this moment and laugh. All those fears you thought you had? All those obstacles you thought were standing in your way? Those doubts and uncertainties? All of them, one by one, are not even worth worrying about.

You’ll figure things out. You always do.

But that’s only under a specific condition. The condition is that you dare to visualize those dreams, create a plan to reach them, and commit to sticking to the plan, no matter what happens.

And before you lose focus of the bigger picture…

The ‘plan’ isn’t the important part here. Yes it’s necessary. But your plan will fail. It will crumble. And it will change.

What matters is that you have one, no matter how badly it reflects reality or how differently things will pan out. What matters is that you tell yourself what to do and actually commit to doing them.

Not thinking about them. Not writing them out. Not telling other people about it.

Do all of those things if it eases you.

But make sure, above all else, you commit to actually doing the things you tell yourself you’re going to do.

As Dan Kennedy wrote in his book, “No B.S. Time Management For Entrepreneurs”:

===

“In the end, your success depends on how much of what you need to get done gets done when you want it done, the way you want it done.”

===

Don’t be an “idea guy”.

Be the guy who implements a lot of ideas.

And on that note, a major part of implementing those ideas will involve lots and lots of persuasive writing. Email writing more specifically. I can’t tell you how much developing this incredibly valuable skill has benefited me (your future self) in my (your future) life already.

So you might want to check out this amazing course called Email Valhalla.

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


Don’t make this same mistake I made

by

Here’s an embarrassing fact about me:

I’ve always thought myself well-versed in everything technology-related. After all, I’ve gone through 6 years of a digitally focused university program (lots of information systems, systems architecture, and even AI stuff before it was cool).

And yet, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to get my WordPress post tags and categories to look the way I wanted them to when I tried some months ago.

So I gave up on tagging and categorizing my emails (which I post to my blog whenever I send them out). Something that I was ok with back then, but recently got reminded of just how much of a waste that was. All those posts, ideas, and valuable pieces of content, just sitting there, not categorized, no reasonable way for anyone to look them up, and least of all no efficient way to repackage them or reuse them in any way, shape, or form.

Very much an enormous case of what Dan Kennedy called “unused capacity”.

I simply couldn’t keep on wasting all that content like it was nothing. And so, yesterday, gave it another go. And what do you know? I finally figured it out. I almost did so by accident and it was so unbelievably easy I can’t help but feel like my whole life and everything I thought of my ability was a lie.

Anyway.

Long story short, to make use of this I now have to tag and categorize every single email I’ve ever written—manually that is. I’ve looked for a way to automate this somehow. And while there are a few solutions to doing this, none of those do it in a way I like and would want to keep doing in the future.

(Yes I can be extremely stubborn in those situations)

So what am I left with?

A long list—604 to be precise—of emails and valuable pieces of content I have to re-read and manually sort into categories and tag them with keywords I find valuable.

Moral of the story?

If you have an idea you know is important, valuable, and will pay off in the future, don’t procrastinate (or give up altogether) on implementing it. You’re only giving yourself more work in the future when you finally get to it.

Now, this example might not mean much to you.

But another application for this lesson, which I have been doing from the very beginning, is to note down, categorize, and link important topics, people, places, animals, plants, or historic events in my world-building when it comes to fiction writing.

I’ve been doing so with a neat little tool called Obsidian.

It’s like creating your personal Wikipedia inside of a text editor, allowing you to highlight keywords, create separate notes for them, and go from note to note just by clicking on them (among many other extremely useful options I almost can’t live without when it comes to creative writing).

I don’t get paid a single cent to promote Obsidian.

This is a pure and honest recommendation for anyone still looking around for a place to call their home when it comes to writing software.

And while it might be a bit confusing to get it running and set up how you like, there are many great guides and tutorials—including from fellow published authors—about how to easily and efficiently use Obsidian.

Enough yapping.

Here’s the link: https://obsidian.md/


The dangers of being a contrarian

by

Earl Nightingale once said, “Watch what everyone else does—do the opposite. The majority is always wrong.”

Dan Kennedy once said, "Everybody who makes a lot of money defies industry norms. Everybody who makes average money conforms to them."

Someone, somewhere, once said, “In a world of beauty, the ugly stands out”.

At least two out of three quotes are made by highly successful people. Many of the most successful people I’ve come across frequently repeat all three.

More.

They’ve all personally made me a lot of money as well.

And above all, they share an important theme—that of doing things differently.

There’s a lot of value in being a contrarian.

All of this, however, needs an important disclaimer—there’s a lot of danger involved in blindly being a contrarian.

See, becoming a contrarian just for the sake of it won’t bring you much success. In fact, it’ll make you look stupid, and dumb, and quite ironically, you’ll become no more than a conformist chasing whatever is popular at the current time.

No, you’ve got to have some reasoning behind the madness.

You have to be deliberate about how and why you’re doing things differently. You first have to understand the basics. You’ve got to learn and master the foundations and principles some of the brightest minds who came before you bled for to discover and share with future generations.

Regardless of what industry you’re in, you need to know the rules before you can break them.

Everything has an order, everything has a reason.

Yet not every reason is as sound as they often appear to be.

That’s where the contrarian approach comes in—to put everything you’ve been taught so far to the test, and see how far you can push the boundaries established in your industry.

The difference between a true contrarian successfully thriving where no man has gone before and a dunce nobody even pays attention to is that of experience and mastery of the foundational principles his domain is built upon.

Rules are made to be broken, but only after you understand why they existed in the first place.

Don’t rush to the finish goal, skipping your fundamentals in the process.

Speaking of fundamentals.

Check out Email Valhalla today to improve your email writing fundamentals so you can write entertaining emails your readers love to read and buy from.

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


Not to be a Dan Kennedy fanboy but…

by

Here’s a golden piece of advice from the great Dan Kennedy that everyone in business, no exceptions, should read, print out, tape to their wall, remind themselves of every day, and seek to apply to their business as much as possible:

===

"Everybody who makes a lot of money defies industry norms. Everybody who makes average money conforms to them."

===

Now think about this:

What do most people do?

They all follow in some random gurus’ footsteps, almost blindly copying whatever he and the rest of the market do. Always doing the thing that seems right and playing the game as most would expect. They follow the rules without knowing why the rules are there in the first place, let alone questioning whether those rules are actual rules you should be following.

They’ll say stuff such as:

"Oh everyone attaches a random picture of themself to their LinkedIn post (one that has nothing to do with the post whatsoever). Let's do the same!"

"Oh everyone is praising "value" (even though most don't know what it means) and giving everything away for free (i.e. not getting paid). Let's do the same!"

"Oh everyone is using ChatGPT to come up with topics to talk about and writing awful hooks that ooze 'emotionless and templates writing'. Let's do the same!"

I hope you can see how that’s a problem.

It’s a problem that’s easily solved if you simply think for yourself one second.

Think about what (and why) you’re doing something. Then stop merely copying other people just because they're doing it. They might be successful with it, even because of it, but that still doesn't mean anything. You won't become successful merely by being a copycat of someone else.

And yes this includes the above piece of advice by Dan Kennedy himself as well as every other thing he said or wrote.

Do your due diligence. Defy the norms (or don’t if defying the norm is the norm—there’s a paradox for you). And see what happens.

To give you something more practical to work with.

Here's the exercise Dan Kennedy recommended:

Take out a piece of paper (or whatever you use to write on) and make a list of everything that's an industry norm in your business — how things are prices, how things are sold, how they are deliverd, how they are advertised, how they are marketed, what kind of content gets created, how contracts are made up.

Idenfity and isolate every single thing you can think about that's an industry norm people in your business conform to. (This should be a list of over 100 different items).

Then try and figure out how you can defy as many of them as humanly possible.

"You will transform your income in direct proportion to the number you manage to violate," Dan Kennedy adds.

I've been doing this slowly but surely from the start with how I approach social media, how I write my emails, and how I create and sell my courses. And I call tell you that my income increased in direct proportion with the norms I defied.

I urge you to try it yourself.

Don't delay.

Pick up a piece of paper today and do the exercise.

Then send me a message in a few days sharing how much results you're already seeing that quickly.

On another note.

The best and easiest way to define the norms is to build an email list of your own so you can define the rules of what you do, how you work, who gets to join, and everything else within your very own corner of the internet.

This truly allows you to defy the norms—and even define your own.

To learn more about how to grow and monetize your email list, check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


Star Wars is racist

by

Not everyone seemed to enjoy Star Wars when it was first released back in 1977.

Even though it was an immediate success and raked in insane amounts of money, the likes of which had almost never been seen before.

More specifically.

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

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

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

===

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

===

Seriously, I wish I was making this stuff up.

This proves to me one thing and one thing only.

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

There’s just no pleasing everyone.

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

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

Don’t believe me?

Try it out yourself. The next email you write, the next post you share, or the next podcast you’re on, try sharing your opinion about something controversial without holding back. Truly express your opinion. Don’t sugarcoat it one bit.

Yes, you’ll get backlash, yes people will take offense.

But those people weren’t your audience anyway.

What’s more important is how much more trustworthy you’ll be to the people that matter.

And if you’d like more email tips like this, then check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


My predictions for the upcoming American presidential elections

by

You may or may not be following the absolute crapload of articles, interviews, debates, social media posts, social discussions, commentaries, and pretty much everything else related to the upcoming American presidential elections.

But, regardless you’re likely to know it’s Biden vs Trump fighting one another for a second shot at being able to sit their sweet buttocks down in the White House.

And if you didn’t even know that, then now you do.

But you might be wondering. Who are both these people?

Well, people often refer to Biden as a senile old pile of crap who’s drugged up all the time and only awake for two hours a day (if that many) while merely existing the other 16 hours or so he’s awake.

On the other hand, Trump is a tiny, yet very angry, orange oompa loompa with a wet raccoon on his head. He calls himself a true businessman, but we all know the only reason people know him is because of his role in Home Alone. Did I mention that he gets extremely pissed off if you were to mention his mediocre golf skills?

Anyway.

My prediction isn’t nearly as exciting as keeping up with whatever new ploy or scheme the media is cooking up to manipulate, twist, and turn the public’s perception—there’s a lot of shady stuff going on everywhere you look and not a lot of honesty—every single day.

But as for a prediction.

As the elections will happen in November, I reckon people will already be in the Christmas spirit—since, you know, the selling and advertising of everything Christmas related is starting earlier and earlier every year to milk as much money out of the public’s pockets—so they’ll rewatch Home Alone (as people do). This will subconsciously alter the perception of Trump in people’s mind to that of the helpful guide (after all, he does guide the way), making it so Trump will win the elections by a landslide.

Now, whether any of this will actually happen, much less if it’s relevant at all, doesn’t actually matter.

You see.. in his book The Ultimate Sales Letter, Dan Kennedy wrote the following:

===

“The two keys to unlimited media attention and publicity are being predictive and being provocative.”

===

So I’ll leave this be for what it is and gently enjoy all of my newfound media attention, thank you very much.

But before I do.

Maybe you’d like to get some media attention as well?

In that case, do check out Email Valhalla where I’ll show you just how to write emails so you can get drive more traffic and attention to whatever you are selling (and make a profit while you’re at it).

My prediction is that you’ll become extremely successful after implementing everything you read inside of Email Valhalla.

But enough talking.

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


Dan Kennedy once said:

by

"Everybody who makes a lot of money defies industry norms. Everybody who makes average money conforms to them."

Now think about this:

What do most people do?

They all follow in some random gurus footsteps, almost blindly copying whatever he and the rest of the market does. Always doing the thing that seems right and playing the game as most would expect. They follow the rules without knowing why the rules are there in the first place, let alone questioning whether those rules are actual rules you should be following.

They’ll say stuff such as:

"Oh everyone attaches a random picture of themself to their LinkedIn post (one that has nothing to do with the post whatsoever). Let's do the same!"

"Oh everyone is praising "value" (even though most don't know what it means) and giving everything away for free (i.e. not getting paid). Let's do the same!"

"Oh everyone is using ChatGPT to come up with topics to talk about and writing awful hooks that ooze 'emotionless and templates writing'. Let's do the same!"

I hope you can see how that’s a problem.

A problem that’s easily solved if you simply think for yourself one second.

Think about what (and why) you’re doing something. Then stop merely copying other people just because they're doing it. They might be successful with it, even because of it, but that still doesn't mean anything. You won't become successful merely by being a copycat of someone else.

How often has that worked out for someone in history?

So what do you do instead?

You defy the norms.

Here's the exercise Dan Kennedy recommended:

Take out a piece of paper (or whatever you use to write on) and make a list of everything that's an industry norm in your business — how things are prices, how things are sold, how they are deliverd, how they are advertised, how they are marketed, what kind of content gets created, how contracts are made up.

Idenfity and isolate every single thing you can think about that's an industry norm people in your business conform to. (This should be a list of over 100 different items).

Then try and figure out how you can defy as many of them as humanly possible.

"You will transform your income in direct proportion to the number you manage to violate," Dan Kennedy adds.

I've been doing this slowly but surely from the start with how I approach social media, how I write my emails, and how I create and sell my courses. And I call tell you that my income increased in direct proportion with the norms I defied.

I urge you to try it yourself.

Don't delay.

Pick up a piece of paper today and do the exercise.

Then send me a message in a few days sharing how much results you're already seeing that quickly.

On another note.

The best and easiest way to define the norms is to build an email list of your own so you can define the rules of how you work and what happens in your domain.

There where where nobody has any power but you.

This allows you to defy—even define—your own norms.

To learn more about how to grow and monetize your email list, check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


3 reason you might want to consider running classified ads

by

I’ve run 2 ads in the past few weeks in my daily emails.

The thing is, I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me that last year.

Not because I didn’t think I could do so (everyone can) but simply because, at least back then, I told myself I’d do any ads because why would I advertise for someone else’s stuff if I could just sell my own and earn more?

I still believe that, at least to a certain extent, but, as with anything, there are exceptions.

First, sometimes you just don’t care, don’t want to offer, or simply can’t offer (either because of a lack of expertise, time, or other resources) a certain solution that would help your readers out.

Would it then be fair to withhold such an opportunity from your readers?

No, of course not.

My main goal, first and foremost, will always be to keep the customer and the market in mind, think about what they want (read: need—the customer doesn’t even know what they want, let alone what they truly need) and how I can offer it to them.

So in that case, I’ll gladly refer people to someone else to buy from or do business with—and if I can get paid for it in the meantime, then even better.

Another one.

There’s always unused capacity in everything you do—daily emails are no exception.

Yeah, I can write daily emails selling my own stuff all the time (and I mostly do), but I can’t be running promotions 24/7, and even when I’m not running promotions, there’s always a diminishing return from sending more emails (most people don’t send enough emails to notice it though, me including). So withholding one email here and there to write an affiliate email or do a sponsored post is making use of the unused capacity and filling the gap or “less optimized” email you would otherwise have sent.

Last but not least.

It’s simple to do and doesn’t require much (if any at all) investment on your part (not every reason has to be profound, right?).

Anyway.

This has been an important lesson for me (and one I found valuable enough to share with you) and marks another clear sign of personal growth in my entrepreneurial journey of email marketing.

That said.

If you’d like to pick up pace in your own journey and learn more about email marketing and building, growing, and selling to your list then check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


This simple Dan Kennedy lesson could earn you millions

by

Today, I was (re-)reading The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy (a must-read)

One of the most vital things I read today was the importance of having a PS at the bottom of your sales letter.

Here’s what he wrote:

===

“Every sales letter needs a PS—do not consider your efforts complete until you have composed one. The PS can make or break your letter.”

===

So a PS is important. But why?

See, many people simply skip to the end of your letter. Whether that be a sales page, an email, physical mail, or even a Twitter thread or a LinkedIn post.

Why do people do this? Well, they all have different reasons.

Some know there’s often a recap at the end and want to know whether the whole thing is worth reading. Others are simply lunatics and want to know how it ends before they start—believe me, they exist.

Hell, some people look up the ending of movies before they watch them.

Lunatics.

Anyway.

People do weird stuff. But that’s a tremendous opportunity for you.

By summarizing your offer/promise/most important takeaways in your PS, you can inspire the reader to read the whole thing.

And even if you’re dealing with someone who reads your stuff in the order you intended it to. Even then, it can serve as a great incentive to make people respond or commit to your offer.

You can compare it with having a second headline in your sales letter. One of the best high-impact tools any marketer has access to.

PS: if you’d like to learn more evergreen principles to help you write better emails, make more money, and build a thriving business with email as its foundation, check out Email Valhalla today: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla