Marketing

A popular piece of content-creation/email writing advice is to “Write to your past self”.

What people mean when they say it is to think about where you were 2 months ago, 2 years ago, or even 10 years ago. Then think about all the problems you faced, obstacles you had to overcome, and wrong beliefs you held. And address those. This way you write as if you were writing a note that was about to be put in a time capsule and sent to your past self.

It sounds great in theory. It really does.

I used to follow the same advice myself.

But I stopped.

The first reason for this is simple:

I can’t remember what my past self used to struggle with. And even if I could, I don’t understand the feelings that accompanied them. My whole perspective is different now than it was even 5 months ago.

It’d be foolish of me if I tried talking to that specific person.

And that’s exactly why the creator economy is so great. You learn from the people 1–2 steps ahead of you, not someone 5 whole years ahead of you—another popular piece of advice.

So if you learn from someone right in front of you, why would I write to someone way behind me? It doesn’t make sense.

Another reason is that I simply can’t be bothered anymore.

The advice my past self from 5 years previous would need doesn’t interest me anymore. I’m at a different level right now. I’m interested in other topics.

If I were to talk about topics that didn’t inspire me, then my content would be bland and uninspiring, which directly hurts you, the reader. The energy wouldn’t be the same anymore.

So I simply don’t speak to my past self.

I write about what I currently find interesting. What I’m discovering in real-time.

This makes my content interesting and engaging. And I can take you with me on an adventure. A real-time adventure you can see unfold right in front of you.

Neither you nor I know the ending. Nobody knows where we’ll end up. That’s what makes it all so exciting.

So let this be a reminder not to blindly follow every single piece of advice you get. Think for yourself, carefully judge everything you hear, see, and experience.

Then decide what’s best for you and your goals.

And if you decide building an audience that loves to listen to you, longs to follow you on your adventure, and wants to buy your products is what’s best for you and your goals. Then you might want to check out Email Valhalla: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

It’s really ironic how I’m the person saying this.

See, I used to hate reading books. School forced me to write book assignments on stuff I didn't even care about, sucking all the joy out of it and making it feel like a job instead of enjoyment.

But I gave reading another go in late 2022.

And boy how everything changed. First of all, I got recommended to read the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson and immediately fell in love. I then bought myself the Stormlight archive and I'm already through the first two books.

In fact, I loved it so much that I bought a whole load of other fantasy novels and even started writing my own.

(I’m currently reading LOTR and ASOIAF)

But enough about that.

Why should YOU start to read?

Well, for one, marketing essentially boils down to telling a great story.

And if you want to be good at telling stories, then you'll first need to learn what makes up a great story and truly surround yourself with them.

You'll also learn what makes people emotional, how to use your writing to not just make people know what happened but to make them FEEL what happened.

To make them part of the story, almost as if it's happening all around them.

You want to grab their attention and suck them into your world so hard they'll never want to leave again and won't even think about buying from someone else.

That's what true writing is capable of.

And that's why, if you look it up, many of the top marketers and copywriters would spend hours reading, listening, and watching stories—many of them even write their own fiction.

So go get yourself a book (preferably one you truly enjoy) and start reading.

And if you want a place where you can apply what you’ve learned and share it with others, while getting paid for it. Then check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

Back in May last year, I “launched” my first paid product.

I say “launch” because it wasn’t as much of a launch as it was me saying “Hey guys, come and give me your money for this thing now”.

Seriously.

I’d been having a lot of success at the time with my Content Creator’s Toolkit, as I called it. Which was a free Notion product I made where I gathered up all the books, courses, articles, threads, tools, and other resources I used to educate myself on a wide array of topics over the past few months.

All topics relating to building my own creator business of course.

I did the occasional giveaway with the product and it would get a crazy amount of responses time and time again.

It got to a point where so many people were telling me how this toolkit should have been a paid resource, some of whom even donated me $20 to show their support.

After a while some friends of mine convinced me to actually turn it into a paid product.

But it didn’t feel right to suddenly slap a price on it.

So I reworked it, updated it, and tried to make it as good as possible—adding even more stuff, refining the look and feel of it, and generally building something I was proud of at the time.

I also whipped up a quick and dirty sales page to make it even more enticing.

All seemed good so far.

But that’s where I messed up.

I simply slapped a price on it ($22) and told people “hey btw, this thing is now available for purchase. It’s new and exciting, check it out”…which I told them once.

Just once.

The result?

Zero sales.

None. Nada. Not even a banana’s worth.

I didn’t promote it. I didn’t validate it. I wasn’t even that excited about it anymore just a few days later.

Even more.

I completely stopped paying attention to it and it got maybe 1 sale since then because of someone who bought all of my stuff after having gotten a single product he liked so much.

Needless to say.

My first “launch” didn’t go well.

Luckily I didn’t stop there. I kept trying out new methods and new strategies to create better products, faster, and actually getting paid—even as fast as just under 14 days.

Don’t give up just because things don’t start out as well as you hoped.

It’ll get better.

Trust me.

WIth that said. If you want to speed up your progress and discover how to actually ideate, create, and launch a profitable digital product (all in 21 days or less) then check out Product Creation Made Easy.

Click the link here to learn more: https://alexvandromme.com/pcme

Stubborn people love to mention the whole “coaches coaching coaches on how to coach coaches” thing all the time.

Most of them also like to use the argument of “the fat personal trainer”.

But when you think about it, those two arguments mostly contradict one another.

See, the first is used to make fun of everyone and everything being a pyramid scheme. “Oh you teach other people how to do X so they can do X and teach other people how to do X as well? That’s a scam,” they say.

It’s a convincing argument if you’re only using 2 brain cells.

Not to mention the fact that this implies that every single teacher, university professor, coach, consultant, and even your local kindergarten teacher is running a pyramid scheme (yes, people teaching in kindergarten once used to be in kindergarten themselves).

On the other hand.

Those same people will use the argument that “nobody buys from a fat personal trainer” (which is true) but then again, implies that every person teaching you how to coach (can be replaced with anything) has to be a coach (again, replace with anything) themselves.

So clearly they can’t make up their minds.

Which is great, because that leaves the playing field open for the big guys and gals like us to profit from.

But why am I talking about this?

You see, if you’re anything like me, you might have wondered whether what these short-sighted and stubborn trolls are saying might actually have some truth to it.

I have actually worried about “doing the right thing” in the past myself.

And here’s the thing.

This is how the world works. This is how information and education gets passed on from generation to generation.

You learn something from someone who has a lot of experience in said thing. And then you can do that same thing yourself. But with the added bonus of being able to choose how you apply it.

Let’s say I want to learn how to play the guitar.

I might want to go to a master at playing the guitar and ask me to teach him. This guy in question could be a true master at playing the blues. And he’ll distill his wisdom of playing the blues onto me.

During the process, I’ll learn how to play the blues really well, as well as get an almost complete overview of how to play the guitar in general.

Now, I can choose to specialize in blues as well (maybe even teach it myself if I wanted to), or I can venture forth and experiment with other styles.

In my case, I’ll probably dabble more into classical guitar or flamenco.

I’ll learn the basics, and then, if I’m really passionate about it, I might even add to the body of knowledge of flamenco guitar by adding slight flavors, textures, and improvements to it that I picked up from having a teacher who played the blues.

Thus creating and adding value to society and the world.

Then the next generation comes around and will build upon my contributions.

This is how knowledge is passed on. This is what people mean when they say “standing on the shoulders of giants”.

Sometimes it’s a few people who made a lot of contributions.

Most of the time it’s many thousands of people who each made small contributions generation after generation.

Speaking of contributions.

I didn’t invent the entire market of creating and selling digital products. But I learned what I could from people who came before me, from all types of different fields, and then went into the industry myself, added my own flavors from experiences I’d gained in different fields, and added to the body of knowledge by creating (and sharing) my own unique frameworks.

More specifically, a framework that’ll help you ideate, create, and launch profitable digital products in 21 days or less.

Which you can check out here if you’d like to earn more: https://alexvandromme.com/pcme