Lesson 1: The very first step to building your list

This is the first lesson of the Jump-Start Your Email List training series.

A few things before we jump in…

For the next few days you’ll be getting a series of lessons from me. The goal of this training is to show you why you need an email list and to give you a few key strategies to quickly build your list. Throughout this course I’m going to share with you the exact framework that all of my clients go through when they hire me.

These are people like Michael Hyatt, Jon Acuff and Jeff Goins.

But a few housekeeping things first…

You can expect a lesson from me a few times per week.
Each lesson will end with handful of action items.
You are encouraged work along with each lesson and complete the worksheets.
You’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at the lists of some of the biggest names in online marketing.
You’ll see their private list numbers (and launch revenues).
But, most importantly, YOU will learn how to build your own profitable email list.

Ready to get going?

Let’s jump in!

In this first lesson I’m going to help you get INCREDIBLY clear on the exact reason you want to grow your email list, and then I’ll challenge you with a few actions items at the end.

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Happy [day of the week]!

Most people start trying to build an email list by installing a bunch of tools and strategies.

This is dumb.

There is something more important than any tool or strategy you use.

You HAVE to be 100% clear on this before starting your list (or you’ll just waste a massive amount of time).

The thing you have to be clear on… “Why?”

Why do you want an email list?

What would be measurably different in your life if tomorrow morning you woke up and you had a list of 10,000 email subscribers?

So many people want to grow an email list.

We read blog posts. Listen to podcasts. Take courses. And buy books.

We hear things like “The money is in the list” and get all gung ho about getting our own list.

Yet no matter how much information we consume, it still seems impossible to grow a list big enough to do any good.

1 subscriber here.
3 subscribers there.

6 months later we have 30 people on our list.

= fail.

But despite that massive frustration, there are some people who do it. There are some who break through and build large and profitable email lists.

Those people don’t start with strategies though.

They start by answering the question “Why?” first.

Take me, for example. I’m 32 years old. Grew up in Nowhereville, Alabama. And up until 18 months ago I had NO CLUE what an email list even was.

I spent years struggling.

The number of businesses I started and closed is loooong.

Lawn care business
Web design business
Computer repair business
Baseball card shop
Used car lot
eBay buy-and-sell business
iPhone app business

On and on and on…

Until one day I got so freaking mad that I started digging into what successful people were doing that I wasn’t.

People like Gary Vaynerchuk, Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki.

These were all people who, no matter what they did, it WORKED!

Write a book: Sold 1,000s of copies.
Create a course: Sold 1,000s of copies.
Created a new app: 100,000s of downloads.

What were they doing that I wasn’t!?

That’s when I discovered the POWER of an email list.

The reason they were able to consistently do so well was that they had the ability to tell 10s of thousands of people about their new product.

They were able to send an email with a link to buy their product. And since their email lists were so big, they were able to sell $10,000+ in a matter of hours.

…

So..

I decided to do the same thing.

My single goal in life became to build an email list of 10,000 subscribers so that I could create and launch my first product. I had no idea what the product would be, but I was confident I could figure it out once I got there.

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The framework I implemented can be applied to anyone who wants to start their own business, take care of their family and live a life that doesn’t involve long commutes and frustrating bosses.

In fact, last year I coached 40 other people from all different backgrounds to do the same thing I have.

People in industries like…

Tarot card reading
MMA fighting
Jewish rabbis
Online marketers
Accountants
Real estate brokers
Real estate agents
Stay-at-home moms
Autoresponder copywriters
Logo designers

Soon, you’ll be able to do exactly what my students have done: build a powerful and profitable email list.

But first…

Your homework for today is to identify your “What?” and your “Why?”

#1 What is your goal?

Is it to quit your job and make $10,000 per month?

Is it to publish your first book and sell 5,000 copies?

Is it to launch your first iPhone app by the end of the year?

#2 Why do you want that?

Do you want to quit your job and make $10k per month so you can be happier, focus on clients you enjoy and have the freedom to travel with your family?

Do you want to publish your book because you mom told you that you never would and you want to prove her wrong?

Do you want to launch your first app because you love programming and want to finally ship an actual product?

Your assignment for today is….

Identify your what and why
Complete the worksheet for this lesson

…

In the next lesson, you’ll learn how to sell your first tiny product to your list without having to guess what people want. I’ll also show you several pitfalls to avoid. (These are things that really tripped me up.)

If you’ve already joined the Rapid List Building System, you’ll want to revisit the course sections “Why do you want 500 subscribers” (Module 1 Lesson 2) and “How do you build an email list” (Module 1 Lesson 3). These will help you with this lesson.

If you haven’t joined RLB yet, here is the link.

Here’s a recap of our training so far:

Lesson 1 – The very first step to building your list
Lesson 2 – How to know the exact product to build for your list
Lesson 3 – Behind the scenes of a $32,000 per month email list
Lesson 4 – How to get featured to 750,000 readers
Lesson 5 – Two examples of how to use the Testimonial Hack strategy
Lesson 6 – The exact technology stack you need to use to jump-start your list growth