For those of you who don’t know me, let me introduce myself…
Transcript
What’s up, friend? Liz Wilcox here, that lady that keeps introducing herself as the fresh princess of email marketing and your host of this podcast, the email sound booth. Anyway, I was trying to come up with a topic because we’re on episode 10 and I realized something. I never properly introduced myself.
I just assumed that you listening were already one of my best, best, best friends and customers. But then I thought, maybe I’m reaching some new listeners, so maybe I should introduce myself. And you know, not assume that everybody has known me their whole life. Liz, get over yourself. All right. While I love to brag, I am going to keep this episode short and hopefully fun for you to listen to.
Instead of just rambling on and on, I’m going to go through a list of imaginary FAQs you could ask me about myself. Just go with me on this. Okay. I’m trying to have some fun. All right, let’s start with something, you know, like the silly stuff, the stuff that doesn’t matter, the stuff that’s not email marketing promise to make it quick.
All right, Liz, where are you from? Oh, thanks for asking. I am originally. Born in Detroit, Michigan. I spent the first 15 years of my life, uh, in various parts of Michigan until my mom said, you know what? If we’re going to be poor, we’re going to be warm. And we got on the highway not three weeks later and moved to Florida.
So I do consider Florida my home. That’s where I went to high school. It’s where I fell in love for the first time, where I went to college, where I got my master’s degree, um, and where I’ve settled. So I’m a Michigan girly, but I am a Florida girly too. Uh, what is your favorite beverage, Liz? Now, it used to be a big part of my brand that I was obsessed and addicted to Mountain Dew, but at the time of this recording, which is, uh, late, September 2024.
I am almost a year off the dew. Uh, so lately I’ve been drinking water, lots and lots of water. I try to drink about 100, 120 ounces a day. Yes, I pee all the time. Um, and I also am doing a Right now I’m kind of obsessed with matcha, like a matcha latte with just a little bit of milk and a little bit of vanilla.
I don’t want too much sugar. That’s why I quit soda in the first place. Okay. Liz. Yes. Do you prefer the beach or mountains? Oh my gosh. I love, love, love the beach. I live in the Destin, Florida area, and I just freaking love the beach. I love the mountains. I’m also a runner. I’ve been running since I was 12 years old, albeit inconsistently.
Um, and I love hiking. I love being in the mountains, but. Give me a body of water any day of the week. All right, now let’s switch gears into business and email.
Liz, why did you start this podcast? Well, I started this podcast for a lot of reasons, but the number one reason was my audience kept asking me, Liz, when are you going to start your own podcast? I’ve guested on close to 300 shows since I started my business and people are always asking me, you know, well, when are you going to have your own?
Why don’t you have your own? Do you have your own? So that’s the number one reason why I started the podcast. The number two reason is I realized. These people that were asking me were right. I totally had more to say in those 300 interviews. I’ve basically been saying the same surface level stuff and I wanted to go deeper with you.
I wanted a platform where I could talk a lot more about email. My theories on email, the way I apply email, and just those little things, like when you’re in my membership, it’s 9 by the way. Um, and you come to a live Q and A, just those little quips, so to speak, those little bits of wisdom that I’ve picked up simply by so many years of experience with email marketing.
I wanted everyone to have that. Uh, so, really, uh, that was the number two reason, and the number three reason is I just love the sound of my own voice. Don’t you? That one is a joke. Uh, that was probably the thing that stopped me the most was, um, I have a lot of food allergies. And you can kind of hear my throat is raspy.
And if you binge listen or watch on YouTube, uh, this podcast, you’ll probably note that every day my voice sounds a little different than the day before, it really depends on how severe my allergies are. If I’ve got seasonal allergies going on at the same time as I’m, you know, being exposed to food allergies.
Uh, and I’ve always been a little nasally anyway. Um, but yeah. Okay, enough about me and my voice insecurities. Liz, how the heck did you end up teaching email marketing? This is the thing you’re probably actually wondering about if you’re new to me. So I actually started as an RV travel blogger. I know, totally, totally different, but I started the travel blog not as, you know, like, oh, this is my passion.
It was a money project. Give me a second. I got to drink some water. My throat is like super dry today. Shout out pollen, shout out ragweed. Am I right? Okay. Okay. So. I started that travel blog, but I started it as a business. I didn’t start it like, Oh, I just want to document my travels. It was, I want to one day travel full time in my RV and I need a full time income to do that, I’m going to start a blog.
Well, as I started researching, everything I was learning led back to email marketing. So the day I launched my blog was the day that I launched my email list. And I took it very seriously from day one because I grew up very poor. I am also Incredibly ambitious. I am like if I was in at Hogwarts, I would be a Slytherin.
I’m ambitious. I’m cunning You know, I want what I want and I want it right now type of person And so I just started the email list from day one. I got really good at it Um about six seven months later My email list, I asked them what kind of product I should create. They said, Liz, you’re really good at storytelling.
You’re pretty funny. So I created a funny book of stories. I sold that to my email list and made something like 7, 000 in the first, um, A few months it got picked up by an international sponsor that used it as a lead magnet like a lead generation tool And for every lead they got they give me seven freaking dollars That’s when I knew all these gurus all these podcasts I was listening to they were right.
They were telling the truth email marketing did work. That’s when I took it very seriously. I ended up starting a second business with some partners with a digital summit approach to grow, uh, my email list even faster to sell products to them even faster. Uh, then I created, you know, what they all tell you to do, a digital course, right?
This was back, I think I created it in 2019, uh, with my then husband and I opened up a wait list. I had 141 people on the wait list. This is my claim to fame, 141 people purchased by cart close day. So that is when to the original question of how I ended up teaching email When people heard about that like wait, you had a hundred percent like what what?
And granted that was only about 15, 000. It was, um, it was a 99 beta that I launched, but people got word of that. And they were like, how did you do that? And I’m like, isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with the email marketing? If you get a wait list, you’re supposed to convert them. And people were like, yeah, but you kind of, that’s kind of crazy.
So that’s when I knew I needed to go all in on email. That’s when I knew. Okay, Liz, you’re doing something other people aren’t doing. You have a gift that needs to be shared. Especially, I’ve mentioned it a couple times, I grew up poor, right? So when I figured out, oh my gosh, I could type up some emails and make some money, what about the other people that, like me, that thought that was impossible?
I need to teach them this. So, yada, yada, yada. I sold the blog, went all in on email marketing, and now you and I are hanging out on the email sound booth podcast together. Okay. Another question. Who did you learn email marketing from? I want to say everyone and no one all at once. When I started my business, I didn’t have any money to invest.
Um, I didn’t have a job at the time. I was being supported by my then husband. We’re not, uh, married anymore. He’s now my was been, he was my husband. Now he’s not. Um, and he really didn’t see the vision. He was like, you know, Liz, you’ve got us on this budget. Because we were trying to pay off the RV as much as possible.
I was, I’m very much like a, I try to be debt free. Um, and so he’s like, but now you’re spending this money over here, but you’re not letting me spend money. It was just this, we’ll just say it was a point of contention. So I didn’t really have any money to like buy courses and join stuff, right? Um, so I just started joining email lists.
Yeah. And I would join email lists of not just, you know, people like Amy Porterfield. I don’t think I ever even joined her email list. It was, uh, Jeff Goins I learned a lot from, um, which he’s a writer. Uh, I joined email lists of friends, like people I was in back in the day we used to do like Instagram pods, which I think now are like technically like Instagram legal or whatever, but I would join their email list and see what they were doing.
I would, uh, go do. That was one thing that, uh, I really put my foot down with my then husband. I was like, I need to go meet people. And so when I would meet them, I would join their email list. If I saw somebody speaking at an event that I couldn’t go to, I would join their email list. And so I just informally learned, um, you know, I’m, It wasn’t until after I had that 100 percent conversion rate that I bought my first email course.
And that is another reason that I realized, Oh, I should teach this. Because I spent 5, 000 on an email course and mastermind or whatever it’s called group program. And I realized, Oh, I kind of already knew all this. And I kind of already learned all this. Just by watching and doing because I had already been in business for three and a half years at that point and What this teacher was teaching I was like, I’m I mean my list is smaller than you and my products are much cheaper But like my conversion rates are much better.
So I think that I’m on to something a little differently anyway next question What was your biggest aha moment when you had your travel blog? I think my biggest aha, I might have already mentioned was about Selling that digital product selling that Silly little book it was called tales from the black tank If you don’t know the black tank is where your sewage goes and it actually sold and that was when it was like Oh They aren’t lying.
You know, I’ve been watching these YouTube videos and such, and it’s true. If you just grow your email list and you get to know them, you’re consistent with your email marketing. Cause I had been consistent. I’ve been emailing once a week, every week for six months, you know, people will tell you what they want and you can go out and create it and they’ll pay you.
I think that was my biggest aha moment. Okay. Next question. Moving on. Was it easy to switch from RV travel to teaching digital product makers and creators about email? No. Um, I, I had known about a year into my RV travel blog that I didn’t want to talk about RV travel for the rest of my life. My ideal avatar was a man in his 60s, um, you know, his kids were off to college and he was just looking to relax in this for, you know, his later years.
And while I think that’s awesome, I didn’t really have a passion for helping him, right? When I had a passion, and I love helping people, I’m a teacher, I mentioned I have a master’s degree, that master’s degree is in leadership, I love helping people. But the topic was just off. The thing I wanted to help people with was off.
So when I realized that I knew a lot and I was doing a lot with email marketing that others wasn’t, weren’t, it was very easy for me to sell that blog and move on to, you know, teaching email marketers or teaching email marketing to, you know, folks who are trying to make a living online through digital products.
Okay. What do you love most about your business right now? Well, right now I’m super excited about the podcast, of course, but what I love about my business the most is being able to serve people for a low price. I serve at this point, I think close to 30 countries and 9 USD in the U S. That’s pretty darn cheap, right?
I’ll say it. It’s cheap, but someplace in like the Philippines or Africa or you know even Certain countries in Asia, right? That could be a lot more and I love being able to have this price tag that makes it accessible to Not even just a lot of people, but a lot of different types of people. I grew up again, pretty darn poor.
And I mentioned that over and over again, because when you grow up a certain way. You believe certain things. I believed it. The only way I was going to get out of poverty, the only way I was going to elevate my family was by basically working myself to death. It’s the reason I have a master’s degree because I knew my elementary education bachelor’s degree wasn’t going to be enough money.
I needed an upper level education. I needed something that was going to demand a higher salary. Or give me a higher salary, right? And And when I realized, Oh my gosh, I could click a button and make money again, I knew I needed to spread the word. So that’s still my favorite thing. And being able to have email marketing membership, my 9 a month membership, where you get those weekly templates, I do the marketing for you, I lay it all out nice and pretty type of thing.
That’s my favorite freaking thing. If you’re not watching the YouTube video, like you can’t see me smiling, but oh my gosh, it just feels so good. Especially in an industry where, when I was starting in this industry in particular, It was around COVID and everyone was screaming high ticket, high ticket, and everyone was getting high ticket, high ticket because people were, you know, laid off from their jobs or they had extra time and they had the money to invest.
Right. But during COVID, I went, I went low ticket. I was like, you know what? I actually want to help the people. Right? Um, and not that high ticket people don’t want to help people, but I wanted to help different people. I wanted to help beginners. I wanted to help the stingy even, right? It’s like, I don’t want to spend thousands of dollars.
I just want to know enough to get going and I, that’s my favorite thing is to help people like that. I love, love, love that about my business. And, uh, to be honest, like, I’m really proud of myself for creating something like that. Okay, uh, now a little more technical stuff. I think this might be the longest podcast I’ve done.
I said I would keep it short, so I’ll wrap this up, but what are the biggest ways you’ve grown your business? Uh, the biggest way that I grew my RV travel blog was doing digital summits, online events and collaborations. A great way to make a mark for myself in the industry. Um, Meet collaborators And you know peers And grow my email list and authority.
It really helped me grow my business The biggest way that i’ve grown lizwillcox. com and my email marketing membership is doing podcast interviews And having affiliates. So if you’re an affiliate for email marketing membership, you get 50 percent Of every sale every single month. So let’s say john. Um, you know, he joins with your affiliate link john You You know stays in the membership for two years you get that four dollars and fifty cents for two years And that’s been a great incentive, especially When I just said I I’d like to work with beginners people that most, you know high ticket entrepreneurs You know kind of leave behind and say oh you’re not ready for me yet And so you can tell your biz bestie like i’m not looking for you to sell a hundred of these But you tell a friend they tell a friend they tell a friend etc.
And it’s really really grown my business All right, and the last question. What is your main focus right now liz? Well, of course my main focus is to grow this podcast. I would love to reach more listeners who are Are all these things I just described who are, you know, trying to make it in this digital product world or whether they’ve got a membership, a course, PDFs, templates, whatever they’re selling, um, whether they’re selling it to business, to consumer business, to business, I don’t care.
I just love working with those people. Also, of course, service providers, anyone that, you know, thinks they. Or knows they need email marketing, but think that they hate it. Those are the people I want to work with. Um, so that’s my main focus right now. And of course, growing the, growing the podcast is all for a goal that I’ve had for over two years now.
I would love for my. email marketing membership to hit 10, 000 members. I don’t have a timeline on it anymore. That was too stressful. Um, right now, but I know one day I’m going to hit 10, 000 members and I really want to do it organically. It’s so important to me to prove to you that you can grow a million dollar business.
Without ads. So I’ve built everything that I’ve built all three businesses I talked about today without advertising. And I think that’s just super dope. I love that about myself and I want to prove cause that 10, 000 members, that’s a 1. 2 million a year. Membership, of course, I sell other products. You can go to lizwillcox.
com slash products to see them But I want just the membership itself to be making Uh over a million dollars a year. I want to prove to you That it is freaking possible that you can have a low ticket business You can be profitable and you don’t need ads. So If you’re listening, you like the podcast so far, I’d love for you to share it with a friend, leave a review.
I hear that, you know, helps with credibility, right? Um, and if you’re not inside the membership yet, let me invite you to join right now. It’s 9 a month. I’ll leave a link in the show notes. I would love for you to just try it out for 9 a month. You get a live Q and A, Facebook group. Um, Guest experts and of course the weekly newsletter templates with the built in marketing for you All right.
I’m liz willcox. And now, you know, uh, I cannot wait to see what we do together with your email marketing Thanks for letting me introduce myself I will see you soon. Hopefully in the membership
