In this lively and celebratory 100th episode of the ‘Email Soundbooth’ podcast, host Liz Wilcox is joined by her sister Patricia to answer a plethora of questions from their dedicated audience. Topics range from effective email marketing strategies and list building tactics to personal anecdotes and advice on maintaining a work-life balance. Liz shares insights on working with collaborators, creating engaging content, and dealing with the sacrifices required to grow a successful business. With humor, authenticity, and enthusiasm, this milestone episode offers valuable tips and inspiration for email marketers and entrepreneurs.
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Transcript
What’s up, what’s up? Liz Wilcox here. Welcome to episode 100. Holy. Mackerel on a stick. I’m so excited. 100 episodes of the Email Soundbooth podcast. If you are watching the replay, put hashtag replay. If you are here with us live and I see there’s a few, a couple dozen of us, uh, say what’s up in the comments.
I’m so, so excited. Uh, big fan and love sharing Email Soundbooth with, oh, thank you so much for sharing Email Soundbooth. podcast. Uh, that means so freaking much to me. Okay, so we are going to bring out a special guest. So excited. The one, the only Patricia. Hey, Patricia, how you doing? Hey, hey, we So excited to be here.
So I have roped Patricia in to help me today because we have a lot of questions. Yes. Patricia has to listen to me ramble on and on for a hundred minutes. Uh, so Melquia is in the house. What is going on, Melanie? Shout out, Chris. Uh, he has been a member since like the very beginning or very close to, um, anytime I need feedback, I ask Christopher Maselli.
So, I’m also in his membership, so if you guys are authors or, you know, want to be writers. He has an amazing, uh, membership, so shout out to him. Say what’s up in the comments, and tell me, have you ever listened to the email sound booth? Or did you just get my email, and you were like, oh, she’s live, let’s see what she’s ranting about.
Farida is in the house. Farida, I wrote a template, and you are the example in one of the swipes, and I ranted about your membership in the video walkthrough as well. So, if you are a parent You need Farida. She helps keep kids safe online. So, awesome, Kate! Matching glasses! Yeah, uh, Patricia and I, Patricia is the queen of frames.
She has so many of them. Um, I’m blind as a bat, so I can’t always fit the ones that I want. So that’s why I’ve had these. These are like my fifth pair. Uh, fun fact, these are the spare pair that I bought for Survivor that I never had to use. So, Patricia’s going to be moderating the comments, and she’s going to be asking me the questions.
So, if you, do you see her face? You know, working for me must be rough. I Let’s give Patricia a round of applause. Can you guys have some fun emojis for Patricia? Because this podcast, number one was her idea. She was like, you have to have a podcast. There are so many questions that I don’t know the answer to.
If you could just record them, that’d be great. And your people are asking. Number two, uh, we wouldn’t have YouTube without her. I’m pretty sure that was her idea, or she was like, why don’t we put these on YouTube? Why don’t we put them on TikTok? Why don’t we put them, you know, she is the best. So as you’re asking a question, and I’m going to put an example in the comments, just put Q and then type your question, okay?
That way, make sure We know it’s a question instead of just, you know, because I assume as we get going, the chat is going to get going. So we want to, um, you know, make sure that that’s really easy, right? Q, type your question. Okay? Oh, we’re showing Patricia some love. Uh, Patricia, I have a question for you.
What’s up?
What, what would you say Has been like the most popular podcast episode so far, or one that you’ve referenced a lot.
Um,
Gosh, I would have to, I’ve just been going through the podcasts all day. So I have been looking at all the titles, so they’re all just I can’t. I can’t.
All right. Next question. Yes. Uh,
I’m sorry that I had to put Patricia on the spot. Um, sometimes I forget that Patricia and I are not the same person and we have entirely like opposite ends of the spectrum types of personalities.
Uh, and now you’re, you’re seeing it in action, but I’ve roped her in Uh, the future of this podcast, we really do want to do it on YouTube. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please like and subscribe. All that jazz, um, we would absolutely love that. We’re really trying to get YouTube going. And did you know you need 4, 000 watch hours to be monetized on YouTube?
We have about 200, maybe 300 right now, so we’ve got a long way to go. Um, okay. So, my favorite episodes for the podcast, and then I’m gonna let Patricia start looking at the comments and, uh, you know, ask me questions. And we also have, um, we’ve got it pulled up in Notion as well. Um, I love the episodes where I get to talk about like what the best performing email of the month was because I feel like, you know, transparency is key, especially when you’re like teaching about like when you’re doing something very meta, which I am doing.
And so I hope you guys are listening to those episodes because I go in depth on like, hey, this was the best performing email. These were the metrics on it. This is why I think it worked. This is how I would tweak it. This is how I’m going to use it moving forward. Yada, yada, yada. Excuse me. And I just, I just had lunch.
So no question is off base here. You can ask anything about email, business, my membership, me personally. I’m happy to answer. So, Patricia, let’s get this thing rolling. What should be our first question?
The first question that came in is from Kate, and they ask, if you’re starting a list from scratch, what are the best practices for getting folks in your Gmail email and onto your email list?
Yeah, so if I’m starting my list from scratch, uh, I would say if you’ve got, like, I’m assuming Kate has a list of people, like, in her personal email. That’s what you’re asking, right, Kate? I would email them and say, you know, hey, I’m doing this thing over here and you have to get them to opt in. You know, there’s not.
Especially in the United States, there’s not a whole lot of laws around email marketing, but you’ve got to get them to opt in. They have to consent. You can’t just take people from your Gmail and add them to your email list. So I would, if this is worth your while, personally, I’ve never done this because I feel like my personal contacts aren’t really Interested in what I’m doing, but if you feel the opposite, then I would just email them.
You could send like a BCC email. Hey, I’m doing this thing over here. It’s going to be about ABC. It’s going to have DEF. You know, if you’re interested, I’d love for you to get signed up and then link out to a landing page. That’s what I would do.
Great question. Um, another question from Jenny is I have been doing email marketing for a while. I want to know, can I include Amazon affiliate links in my blast?
Yeah. So it used to be against Amazon’s rules and regulations. Um, so the answer used to be no, but I believe that has changed. I would double check with Google or AI or whatever’s answering questions nowadays.
But I believe you can, according to Amazon, put Amazon affiliate links in your email marketing. Now. It might vary depending on your email service provider. So whether you’re using MailerLite, ConvertKit, uh, you know, ActiveCampaign, Flowdesk, etc. I would triple check with them as well. I know there are some email service providers that don’t like affiliate links, and an Amazon link might, you know, throw up a red flag on the field, so to speak.
So, um, I believe that Amazon changed its policy. That’s when you know, you know, people are, people are struggling when Amazon opens the doors to something new. That’s when you know, they need money. So they are allowing it. I do believe as of like 18 months ago, that was true. I believe it’s still true, but check with your email service provider as well.
Great question, Jenny.
And then best business books. Will you write your own email marketing book as well?
Yeah, so I’m really, honestly, I’m trying to work on writing a really ridiculous, uh, book. I want to call it the, uh, crappy, crappy poems about email marketing. I’ve written about ten of them. But actually I have this new idea, guys.
Um, I want you to write the poems. I want all of us to write it. Actually, my first product was a compilation book. It was like, you know, you, Lammy put in a chapter, Farida puts in a chapter, Jenny puts in a chapter, Chris puts in a chapter, right? And then it’s this compilation of stories. I want to do the same thing, uh, with crappy poems about email because I just think it would be funny.
Um, and then at the end, you know, hopefully, you know. Is this you? Join my membership. I’ll, you know, I’ll, you know, I’ll, I’ll polish the turd for you, so to speak. I just think that would be hysterical. But as far as books that I’ve read go, um, not specifically email marketing, uh, but the best business book I ever read, the most inspirational one, the one that really, uh, stuck to me, honestly, was a book called Real Artists Don’t Starve by Jeff Goines.
It’s probably one of like 10 books that I’ve ever read about business or about making money and The whole thread of that book is I think it’s da Vinci Like da Vinci was hella rich you guys like the starving artist is a myth like meant to you know, keep you down and actually like real artists are insanely wealthy Okay, like filthy rich, you know, uh, and so he, he unpacks that and how you can make money in the digital age.
And it’s honestly, it’s just such a good book, you know, um, I gotta, I gotta give it to Goins who Patricia and I both have worked for in the past, but you gotta get, he’s a great writer. The second business book that I know, I really want to reread this. Am I echoing? Okay, I’m better now. Um, is Perennial Seller by Ryan Holiday.
So, you might have heard of Ryan Holiday because of stoicism. He wrote Ego is the Enemy, Obstacle is the Way, and it’s all personal development. But he wrote one book, and this is the only one I’ve ever read of his, that was about business. It’s called Perennial Seller. And it’s about what makes a perennial seller.
What makes something that transcends time? Coca Cola, certain, the Beatles. Right, um, he mentions other, you know, hip hop artists like Jay Z and the now very problematic Kanye West. Uh, this book is old, okay, but, but it is a recurring theme, talking about how his music really transcends different things. But it’s so good, if you want to learn about like business and what makes something sell over and over and over and over again, Perennial Seller.
By Ryan Holiday is so freaking good. It’s probably the best book I’ve ever read in my entire life. Um. And I remember, y’all, I read it, let this be inspiration. So I used to live in an RV, right? Probably the size of this room. And my then husband at the time, he was so not about this life. He thought I was being scammed.
He thought, um, you know, I was just wasting my time, spending money I didn’t have. I was never gonna go anywhere. Um, and that’s no shame to him. A lot of people think that, right? Um, but I, I remember bringing this book home and because I had so many responsibilities as a wife and a mother on top of blogging, I had to read this book in the bathroom of my RV in the middle of the night when everyone else was sleeping.
Because I remember wanting to read it in my room, but I live in an RV, and my then husband was like, Liz, can you turn the light off? I have to, I have to go to work in the morning. Or what, I think he was in school or something. And I was like, I have to read this book. And I really, I should reread it. And see what I’m missing as far as email marketing membership goes.
Um, because I think EMM, my 9 membership, if you’re not in it, Patricia will put it in the comments, or y’all drop your affiliate links in the comments. Um, I, I feel like it’s a perennial seller. It’s something that sells over and over and over again, and I don’t see it as something that, you know, is just trendy, right?
It’s something that can sell, Netflix is a perennial seller, right? It’s something that’s going to sell over and over again. Okay. And then a third book. I don’t, I think those two books are good enough. Y’all, you don’t need three. You barely need two. And those
books, y’all, I read those like almost 10 years ago.
Like,
I should reread them. Okay. What’s next, my boo boo?
It’s a fun one. Uh, Have you deleted Hinge yet?
Have I tried
Hinge?
Deleted Hinge.
I don’t have no Hinge account.
No?
Isn’t that a dating app?
Yeah, Farida asked.
Oh, I don’t have no dating apps. So, yes, I am hella single. And probably because I don’t have no dating apps.
Um, Hillary asked How do you know what to give for free versus paid?
Hilary, I don’t know. Go with your gut, babe. And you, you just gotta try stuff. Like, I remember when I started my RV travel blog, everything was free because I had no idea what people actually wanted. And then, um, you know, when I, when I had this idea for that book I was talking about a few minutes ago, I was like, oh, that’s gonna be paid?
That’s taking a lot of effort. It’s a lot, you know, to get your story, Kate’s story, Diana’s story, Patricia’s story, that took a lot of time. And also, it was something people asked for. I asked people, hey, why do you follow me? Like, sometimes I talk about running, sometimes I talk about motherhood, but this is an RV blog.
They said, well, Liz, you know, you’re a good storyteller and you’re pretty funny. So I collected stor like, funny. RV stories and put them in a book and I knew people would pay for it because that’s what they told me They liked about me, right? They basically told me the product Um, so really it’s just trial and error If you charge for something and nobody buys it Then you know, nobody really wants it right or you’re talking to the wrong people It’s just really all about experimenting I hate that answer for you.
I’m sorry, but it’s true.
Rich asks, what mic boom arm is that?
Okay, so this is the Shure boom mic thing. I wish, I should have plugged in my external camera so I could move around more, but I’m just using my webcam on my computer. But it is just a Shure boom arm thing. S H U R E. The same as this. Great question.
Y’all, I am the worst at knowing what tech I’m using.
Um, Hillary asks, I’m a teacher. How would you make the switch from being a teacher to a full on business?
Okay, Hillary. I’m so excited for you. First of all, I want to say teachers have an unfair advantage because teachers know how to teach. They know how to talk to people.
They know how to connect. Something that I teach in the email staircase is follower, friend, customer, right? When I talk about friendship, I talk about investing in people. I talk about relating to them. I talk about staying top of mind. Teachers already know how to do that. It’s like so unfair for everyone else.
So let that be a boost of confidence for you. You know, you can’t reach a student if you, if they don’t think you’re invested in them, if they aren’t able to relate to you in some way, right. And if you’re never there, so making the switch from being a teacher to a full on business, you can do it. Number one, because you have that unfair advantage.
You’ve literally been trained to do this your whole life. Um, number two, honestly, I would look at the numbers. You gotta be, you know, maybe you’re not a math teacher, but you gotta be really into math here. Um, for me, I was blessed at the time of starting my business that I was married and, uh, my husband had a paycheck, right?
It wasn’t a large paycheck, but he did, and so all the money that I made was going, like, back into the business. So I will say that was a privilege of mine. So, Looking at your numbers, like how much money do I need for me? That was something I did even with, you know, somebody else who was earning. I was like, okay, I need this much money a month to make it worth it for me.
And then, um, different than you. But when I, when I split from my husband, hashtag pandemic divorce, who was with me, I had to run the numbers again and say, okay. This is how much money I really, really need and I had to get going right away. So I would just really look at your numbers, spend a lot of personal time with yourself on getting ready for that switch because it’s a huge deal having a paycheck versus not having a paycheck.
I didn’t realize I’ve been working for myself forever. Like I graduated with my bachelors. I went on to my master’s and I, I, I did Craigslist gigs before like apps were a thing, right? And so for me, I’ve just always had to run the numbers. I need to make this much money. That means I need to clean this many houses, do this many caterings, you know, get this many tips.
Um. But I noticed when my then husband got out of the military, it was very different for him. He had no idea how to spend his time. And it was all very stressful. So if you’re feeling like maybe you’re gonna be somewhere in the middle of us, really just run the numbers and work a lot on the internal stuff, um, to know that you’re okay and this is you stepping in the right direction.
So I hope that makes sense. Oh, you said, how do I make the switch? I got married. Okay, my bad. I can read.
Well, I think I read it, so maybe I misread it. I will be going back and checking to see who’s right. Um, Chris asks, I know you’ve had a lot of success getting people to your lead magnet through appearing on podcasts.
Do you still think that’s one of the best ways to get leads?
Yes, and forgive me for eating, y’all. Um, I’m on a lot of pills and they make me kind of nauseous. So I have to eat all the time. Um, so yes, I get a lot of leads from podcast. Guesting is what he’s talking about. I guess on other people’s podcast.
I still think it’s one of the best ways to get leads because if I’m in your ear for 30 minutes. You’re not sitting at the computer the same way Patricia and I are sitting at the computer. You’re, you might even be doing it right now. You might be on a walk. You might be cooking lunch. You might be doing the dishes.
You might be going for a carpool with your kids, right? You’re doing something else when you’re listening to a podcast normally, right? And so if you take the time when I do my spiel and say, yeah, go to lizwillcox. com, hit the hot pink button. I’ve convinced you, right? You’re already that follower to friend.
Like, we’re already pretty much in the friend zone, right? And so that’s why it’s one of the best ways to get leads. It’s not the fastest way to get leads. Not everyone is going to stop what they’re doing, go to lizwilcox. com and hit that hot pink button. But the people that do are super, super invested in it.
They want to know more and they’re sold on Liz Wilcox. And a lead that’s sold on me is a lead I can work with. So yeah, to Chris’s question, I still think that’s one of the best ways to get leads.
Um, how do I begin emailing my list again? I’ve stopped two months ago. Just didn’t feel, just didn’t feel like it.
Yeah. So I would say just email them. It’s really not that big of a deal. It’s really not that long of a time. They probably didn’t even notice you were gone, but they’ll notice that you were back, but not in a, where did she go kind of way.
So I would just, if you’re inside email marketing membership, just what’s the latest one that resonates, you know, you can do the latest one or you can look through the last, you know, two, three pages. Yep. That one looks good. Go for it is my answer.
Um, I have subscribers for my newsletter from my site. I now have a digital magazine.
Any good ideas to convert my newsletter subscribers to my new magazine? I don’t sell product, I sell ads.
Are they the same thing? Like, are they all about, you know, your KidZone thing? I would just send, I would just send the magazine to your email subscribers. Like, hey, here’s my magazine. Does that make sense?
Now, if the magazine is paid, then I would do the same thing I do with email marketing membership, and I’m just constantly selling it. You know, I’m talking about it on the podcast. I’m, you know, sending emails about The membership, you know, PS, did you join the membership yet? I’m running sales a few times a year, um, et cetera.
So if it is a paid magazine, uh, then I suggest just constantly selling it. Um, but if it’s free, then I would just send the magazine to your email subscribers.
Um, does using the word free in a subject line affect deliverability?
Uh, I mean, yes and no. Technically, yes, but y’all, there are so many freaking trigger words out there that there might as well be no trigger words. Let me say that again. There are so many trigger words out there that there might as well be no trigger words, right?
It’s like, if everything was a cuss word, then no. Words would be cuss, right? Um, so free technically is, but when you follow the email staircase, follower, friend, customer, when you work on getting replies, when you are growing your email list every single freaking day, week, month, year, when you are emailing consistently at least once a week, then the internet gods give you a pass, right?
You’re throwing up so many green flags. that the word free is such a tiny little red flag. Please, I beg of you, don’t worry about it. That’s a great question. Can we timestamp that? Because that needs to be its own episode of the podcast.
Trigger words. I actually are you timestamped it? Or
somebody?
Somebody email me. Podcast episode trigger words. Thank you.
Um, what is one thing I should do today and one thing I should do next week to help to get me up and running from someone who’s procrastination, procrastinating, like hell, getting started?
Well, if you’re in the membership, I would love for you to watch and you can take your pick, watch the email staircase training or the list building training.
Whichever one resonates with you, that’s something that you can do today. So you can understand, I don’t want to use the word severity, but you can understand the seriousness of email marketing. Let me tell ya, uh, y’all know AppSumo? Put it in the chat. I know we have AppSumo, I can’t see you raising your hand, right?
Homeboy, Noah Kagan or whatever his name is, I recently read this and I’m obsessed with it. He said 90 freaking percent. A lot of their sales come from email marketing. That’s a lot of sales. So if a guy like him gets that email, you know, is the way to go, why aren’t we using it too? Right? Y’all, I subscribe to, I subscribe to Eminem.
I’m on his email list. I’m on Will Smith’s email list. There’s a couple of different artists I’m on. Eminem emails me almost every single day. Do you think Eminem has to email? No! But y’all, every time I click the dang link to buy some of his merch or limited edition albums or vinyls It’s sold out. Why?
Because he sent an email out and if I don’t open that email in the first 15 minutes, I’m not, I’m not getting the deal. Right? So, Patricia, can you read me the question again?
Yes. What is one thing I should do today and one thing I should do next week to get me up and running?
Okay. So, the one thing you should do today.
is just tell yourself this is worth it, right? If you don’t think it’s worth it, and I say it with love and I say it to everyone, if you don’t think it’s worth it, you’re not going to do it. It doesn’t matter what I tell you and it doesn’t matter how simple I make it. If you don’t think it’s worth it, you’re not going to do it.
So sit with yourself for 20 minutes. Mute my loud ass and sit with yourself. Is this worth it? Right? And then, you know, watch one of those trainings inside the Email Marketing Membership. And then next week, I want you to email me and tell me why you think it’s worth it or not. That’s your action step. Oh, I’m so excited to get that email!
Okay, let’s go. What’s the next question?
Gloria asks How do you structure your life and business to accommodate more? I mean, I can imagine running this group, plus the EMM makes a large chunk of your time, plus being a mom, then adding podcasting. How do you create this harmony where none of the balls are dropped?
I’m gonna show y’all. You ready? Right here. Patricia Prack in the house. Like, Benny, I’m not even joking. Patricia is a godsend to me.
And even just being willing. To say, I can’t actually add. I can’t. Like, it’s going to hurt me. It’s gonna hurt my child. It’s gonna hurt the business because then I’m gonna become a bottleneck, right?
Like, I’m not gonna be able to do anything. And so really Adding Patricia to the mix has allowed me to subtract. I love this question. I wish I had it up. I wanted to type it out. I just ran out of time. Because I loved this question so much. Y’all, it’s never about adding. It’s about subtracting. When you’re struggling, when you’re trying to grow, what I ask myself is what can I subtract to make room for this new thing?
Right? And I, I get it. I have the privilege of being able to afford someone like Patricia. Right? But that, and that took me years. Okay? So if you’re not there yet, ask yourself, If I, if I want to add in this new podcast, shout out Diana Ault in the chat. She said she started her podcast today. If she is adding that, what is she subtracting?
Right? And maybe it’s she’s subtracting something from her personal life to give her more space in her business. For me, y’all, I’ve got this huge goal, right? Let me move, let me go off script here. You know, email marketing membership, road to 10k, right? I’m never gonna get there if I don’t get my health right.
Like, I have so many allergies. My throat is swollen today and yesterday, I have no idea why. I spent three hours today just doing yoga and physical therapy. Had nothing to do with work, but because I am making those things a priority I can come on and I’m actually excited, you know somebody in the chat I’m sure you know Christopher’s been with me forever.
Diana has been with me, Farida They will attest to this like there have been times probably in the last two years Where they get on a call with me and they’re like, oh, yeah Liz is kind of off today Right? And there’s been times even when Patricia, after a Q& A, she’s like, Hey, these Q& As are going too long.
Like, you’re, you’re not able to do that anymore. And so, it’s been like, okay, well, what do I have to do? Or what do I have to subtract so that I can get my head back in the game? So ask me the question again, because I, I don’t want to get too off topic.
Um, I deleted it. Sorry. It’s in
Notion.
Oh. Girl, don’t be deleting this, because we need the show notes, sis.
Oh, how do you structure your life and your business to accommodate more?
Okay. Yeah, I just, I love this question, because I’m also, y’all, very much a minimalist. Like, don’t let the background fool you. Like, if you walked through the rest of my house, like, it might be loud, but there’s not a lot of stuff. And so that’s another thing is, you know, what is worth it?
Going back to that other question, like what is worth it to me, right? Is it worth it to have this podcast? Yeah. Yeah. And, but then it was like, okay, well, what are we going to do? Oh, we’re just, we’re going to do daily. Oh, Patricia was, her head exploded when I said that. She was like, girl, are you insane? Like, you can barely get out of bed some days.
I said, oh, it’s just going to be five, ten minutes episodes. We’re going to go to a hundred episodes and see if we like it. Spoiler alert, we love it. I’m keeping daily. I actually, I love this podcast. Um, but it’s really like, what support can I get? A. K. A. Patricia, and then even last month we had an in person meeting and it was very clear that to this person’s question I had added too much.
And so we brought in Amy, right? So I think Amy might be in the chat. She’s watching her four year old niece, so maybe not. Um, and that was a way of doing it. So really knowing when you’re at your max, when enough is enough, right? And then if and when you have the money. Hiring help versus trying to buy another course.
I don’t learn anything new anymore, y’all. Like, I don’t, I barely know how to upload this podcast to Libsyn. That’s something Patricia does that, I don’t know, maybe she’s offloaded to Amy. Yet, see, I don’t even know what Amy and Patricia do. Because I don’t have the capacity for that right now. So, structuring my life.
Is really, you know, how can I subtract? How can I get support from family and friends? And even we made a joke about Liz being single 20 minutes ago. Part of that, especially the last two years, is I don’t have capacity to give a crap about someone else right now. All I care about is, is my, does my daughter love me and feel safe?
Am I paying my bills? I hope I wasn’t a monster to Patricia today. And did we make money today? That doesn’t leave a lot of room for love. And that’s just being honest. And also, I’ve had major health issues. Y’all, I added Survivor and I swear, and I’ll be honest, like, I, it almost broke me. Like, it was not good.
That, like, if we were to, like, following my own advice, I did not. Right? Like, that was so much. That I had to subtract almost my whole self from the business last year. And that’s one thing that, you know, I look at the numbers and I look at this 4, 000 over here. Y’all, we had 4, 000 people 12 months ago. That doesn’t mean we haven’t made sales.
It’s just I couldn’t be there to do anything. My health was so bad last year. Um, and so it’s just really sitting with yourself, being honest. Would you say that’s true, Patricia, like having to be really honest with myself about stuff? Yes,
for sure.
Um, and also being, luckily Patricia is my biological sister.
She’s someone I’ve known literally just about every second of my life. And so I’ve been able to be vulnerable with her and be like I can’t think straight today, or I’m just in a really bad mood, so maybe we shouldn’t have that meeting today because I or and she’s also been able to say like, Hey, Liz, you’re being a you know what?
Uh, maybe we should table this. Um, so I don’t know. That’s kind of all over the place, but I think that’s my favorite question that’s been asked because it is a lot, but really figuring out where you can subtract. Oh, the last thing. Y’all social media.
Hang on. Okay. These are all the apps I have on my phone. Like that’s it Okay, and I just added a few down here, but there’s like no games on the phone There’s no social media on the phone, especially after Survivor. I learned like it’s not safe for me to be online Um, and so I still don’t have those apps on my phone and not something that really helps me add in The podcast the YouTube because I’m not wasting time Right here.
So anyway, thank you for that question. That’s so good.
You need to delete reddit
I just I was bored yesterday
Delete reddit
reddit is very unsafe for me. It’s very on there. Someone’s talking crap about me
I’m working on a mini collab with another person within my niche But she has no list yet, but I have a small one about 280.
Uh, this will be my first collab ever. Can you give me some tips or guidance?
Is that person in the chat right now? Yes. Um, i’d love to hear more about what kind of collab it is. Um, but really I would just go in thinking more long term than short term. Okay, that’s the best advice I can give. Like, you’ve mentioned, oh, this person doesn’t really have a list.
I’ve got almost 300 people. But thinking about it long term, like, this person might not be able to do much for you right now, but you never know. They could be the next Amy Porterfield or whatever in your industry, right? And they’re going to remember those times. Like I remember Diana Ault being one of my first customers for this workshop called Open Sesame that I did in November 2020, okay?
Like I remember that. And guess what? She’s going to be in List Building Live coming up March 11th through 13th because I love her. I’m endeared to her, you know. For many other reasons, but you know, that was the first one, right? So thinking long term, not saying like, oh, this is gonna, this, this thing has to make money or it has to get me a hundred subscribers.
It just has to get you through the motions, you know, because one thing is gonna lead to the other.
They mentioned that they’re teachers and they’re on teachers pay teachers.
Okay.
In case you want to go back. I would
just say, okay, teaching resources, um, she’s established more there than I am. Yeah. So just how can you, uh, how can you make it a win?
Um, and how can you just think long term about it? How can you make her feel great about this collab? Because even just the energy exchange there is going to lead to more collaborations, I think.
Um, Jessica asks, should I spend the majority of my time focusing on building my digital product suite over creating marketing content like blogs?
You should absolutely spend your time marketing. You can have one product, my friend. I really, I mean, I’ve got several products, but really everything I do is marketing. If you, you could have the most amazing products, you could have the coca cola of your industry. But what the heck is coca cola doing? And coke is like what, like 140 years old or something?
Everywhere I, every gas station I go to, every billboard within two miles of my house. Every commercial at the Super Bowl, uh, you know, every stadium that I go to, to watch an athletic game. Coca Cola is there. They’re omni I was thinking about this this morning. Omnipresent. Right? They’re everywhere. It’s like Drake in 2018.
He was on every single song. Right? He was marketing himself. He was not creating new albums. He was doing collabs. Like, like, uh, you know, teach to serve tea, right? He was doing collabs, and that was a marketing strategy, so that when he dropped his album a year later, boom, number one, right? Because he had been everywhere.
So I really suggest, you know, sure, map out your product suite. As you have time, create those products. Create maybe one really good one. Though and then market the crap out of not just your products. You got to market yourself. You got to market your brand, right? That’s the thing about online business. The more visible you can become the more you’re gonna grow.
I always say like list building and visibility. They’re like Mary Kay and Ashley Olsen. Yeah, I know they’re different people, but I cannot tell them apart. So really, and I say this to everyone, this is such a good question. Thanks for sending it in. You gotta market. That’s your number one job. Everything else, in my opinion, is secondary.
That’s why I started this podcast. Y’all, Patricia will tell you, we promised each other in 2024 we weren’t gonna create anything new. Liz is on Survivor, her allergies are crazy, uh, you know, she’s, she’s like totally out of touch with her kid. We’re not creating anything new this year. Liz is just gonna, we’re just gonna let Liz have her head up her butt, okay?
And we did, but we did one sale during Black Friday for the annual pass, right? And I remember telling Patricia, I think we should start that podcast now. I haven’t done enough marketing this year and I need to get in front of people and remind them that I know what the F I’m talking about. And that’s why it was daily.
And that’s what Patricia was like, well, you haven’t done anything in nine months. Suddenly you’re going to come back. But it was a way of ensuring that number one, the people that were in the membership stayed there. And then number two, the people that had found me, despite my head up my own butt, knew, oh, Liz is more than Survivor.
She’s actually really good at this email thing. And so that’s, that’s what it was. And so, despite me being pretty darn sick at that time, uh, I don’t want to say I was depressed, but I was definitely in a lull. I was in a depression from the high of Survivor. Um, despite that, I still got my butt in the chair and I did that daily podcast and daily emails because that was marketing and that’s the job of the business owner.
All right. Oh, thank you so much, Chris. Yeah. It’s so fun. I love doing it daily. It takes me like two hours a week. I mean, I don’t know how long it takes Patricia, but maybe another couple hours. Actually, that’s a question for Patricia. How long? So it takes me, y’all, about two hours to come up with the ideas, to record them, and then upload them to the drive for Patricia.
Patricia, I’d love to see, like, what is your process and how long does it take you? Oh, and side note, y’all, my episodes, if you’re not listening to the email sound booth, they’re not usually this long. They are 5 to 20 minutes as of late. They’ve really, I recorded one yesterday that’s literally like 4 minutes long.
So how long does it take you?
Um, usually an hour or two. Just getting the transcripts, um, making the, uh, graphics. Getting them on Libsyn and YouTube. So, uh, yeah, it’s pretty quick. Uh, boring, but yeah,
for the record, Patricia has told me she likes boring tasks. I do. I just want that to be known. I have tried to get her into the more creative side of business and she’s like, you know, I could just
answer these emails.
It’s true. And um, it is all batched. It’s not individual every day. So yeah. Once a week. That’s a
good point. Yeah, we batch things. That’s the one thing in my life I’ve ever learned to batch because they’re short, you know, and it’s just like, okay, I’m trying to get it on Thursdays now, but usually it’s like Friday afternoon, usually around this time, it’s like, okay, I got to get something because Patricia is going to stop working very soon, so I should get it over.
That’s why I’m trying to move to Thursday, uh, you know, so she’s not in fight or flight. Um, and so I just sit down and I’m like, honestly, I usually go over to our Facebook group, the email sound booth. If you’re not in there, Patricia, can you put it in the chat for us? Um, and, and I look at what questions have people asked in the last seven days?
Or like, what was a really popular post? And then I just go over to
Notion. Patricia has this awesome dashboard for us. And it’s like episode 100.
You know, trigger words. Four subject lines, you know, episode 102, uh, you know, I haven’t emailed my list in two months, right? And it’s just the things that people have been talking about, and that’s what makes them, like, quick and batchable, right?
Cause they’re just quick answers, like this. This is just the podcast on steroids today, cause a hundred episodes! I’m so excited!
Um, I will say that I can’t comment. I’m not on YouTube. I’m on Ecamm. live. I, I only can read. I can’t type anything. Girl,
go to YouTube and mute the tab, sis.
I need to find the
video link.
See, now y’all are getting our dynamics. Like, if we weren’t on, that would have been like
Well,
I’ll ask,
uh, I’ll ask the next question and then I’ll go find the link. Um,
hang on, somebody, somebody put the email sound booth in the chat for everybody.
Lisa, are you there?
Um, Diana asked, I started my podcast this week.
Um, how do you get the synergy between email and pod without having the pod overtake all my emails?
Girl, I don’t know. That’s such a good question that I still, y’all, I barely promote the podcast on. The email, so Diana, I know you’re on my email list, so I would say, like, if you go back the last, like, eight weeks, I’ve barely mentioned the podcast.
So this is something that I’m personally really trying to figure out, and I think I’ll be doing a better job in April when I have less to promote. So y’all, this is my big ass calendar back here. Right. And so like, you can see the first few months, there’s just a lot going on. And so I’ve been kind of not promoting the podcast.
And that’s something that I’ve really, really, really want to start doing. It was something I did really well, Diana and everybody, when I was sending daily emails. So if you go back to the emails that I sent out in like October and November, I, I did it better. It was like. Oh, well, the podcast episode is about X, my newsletter can be about X, and then in the PS, I just say here’s the podcast, but right now I’m really focused on list building live, my summit coming March 11th through 13th, um, that I’m not really promoting the podcast as much, I just promoted this episode because I needed you guys to come live, otherwise I wouldn’t have any questions, right?
Um, so that is, Something, but I would say for, to answer your question, you could just do like a P. S. And actually, let me type it up. Hang on, y’all. Like, P. S., here are your, and Diana is an amazing, like, career coach. So I would say, like, you know, here are your resources for the week to help you find.
Uh, work you love and then, and then below the PS, you could put your podcast, right? You know, my podcast on X, Y, Z. And then you could put like, you know, join the wait list, dah, dah, dah, right? It’s like a super signature, but it always has a podcast episode in it. Does that make sense? I don’t know why I typed it.
It just felt right. Yeah, I also love this idea. Diana, she’s so smart. She doesn’t even need me. Uh, she’s doing live stream only. So smart. I love a live. Thinking maybe adding a super fast second email each week a day or two before. I love it. I love this idea too. Um, that’s something that I, I told Patricia, when was it?
In like January? I think I, we talked about once a week emails is not enough. Like there’s so much going on. That, you know, we, we got to send more. So right now I’m gonna, I’ve just amped it up this week to two a week. Um, and then we’ll see after the annual pass how I feel, how the list growth is going. Um, but I really like to do two or three times a week simply because the podcast is so short.
normally, that it would be like, hey, you know, here’s this week’s episode and there’s so much good. It’s five times a week. There’s so much good stuff. Like put in the chat if you’ve never even heard of my Friday affirmations, like those are gold. Y’all, I put my heart, I put my actual soul into those. I’m so excited for the one that comes out next Friday.
I was like, oh, this is good. Um, but yeah, if you’ve never even heard of them, what am, what am I doing it for? Right? Um, so, yeah. Anyway.
Uh, Lisa asks, Sometimes two promotions collide and I never know how to handle that in one email.
Literally same,
girl. Uh, yeah. I, you could even just say what you just said, Lisa.
Hey, I’ve got two things going on and so I don’t, I don’t know how to Make it sexy. You know, here’s the two things, right? When in doubt, I’m just as transparent as possible. I will say if we look at today’s email Can I pull it up? Give me a second guys. We got a hundred minutes, right? I can’t believe we’re at almost to an hour.
Holy crap your girl can talk Patricia’s
probably like tell me something. I don’t know Hang on I’m gonna share my screen in a second Uh,
okay Let me zoom in. Y’all, I should have been better prepared. So just bear with me. Nope, that did nothing. All right, let me just zoom in for you. Is that? Okay. So, I’m going to scroll down.
So, Lisa, I’m showing you this because I wanted to do two things with this email. Number one, get you to the live, right? But really, what I’m trying to do, and this isn’t a specific promotion, but I want to remind people about list building live, right? And tell people like for the next three weeks, my emails are all going to be about, Hey, you need list building.
You need to build your email list. It’s a huge problem that you’ve got to solve. I’m going to solve it with list building live. But at the same time, I wanted you to come to this live and I didn’t want to send three emails this week. And so I start off, and Lisa, you can swipe this if it makes sense for you, you know, over and over again, big name say, wish I would have taken my email list more seriously.
So this is me seeding List Building Live, right? All this paragraph. And then, you know, here’s the part where I could ask what you’re doing to grow your email list. And then I, I came up with this clever, I think it was clever, segue, but like, no, I want you to ask questions. And then I go into this, which has absolutely nothing to do with list building, right?
But I thought it was a clever segue and I mean, you know, 30 to 50 people have shown up. So it was clever enough, right? And then I go back to, or then in the bottom, this is something that I’m doing. Cause yeah, Lisa, I’ve got a lot going on. And so I’m just saying in the next 30 days, we’ve got this YouTube live, we’re going to be doing some coworking next week.
We’ve got list building live and we’ve got the annual pass sale because there is a lot going on. So this is kind of my way of Prepping people for that and then again, this isn’t like a perfect example for Lisa’s question, which again was this Two promotions colliding, but it was like hey, we’re gonna talk about list building.
Oh, yeah come to this thing I hope that’s helpful
Um,
in regard to the teacher collaboration, they’ll be doing a bundle together, and they want to know how they can get more eyes on it.
So when it comes to a bundle, so is it just you and the other person doing the bundle? If there are other people doing the bundle with you, here, let me move myself back down. If there are other people doing the bundle with you, um, how can you make them feel good about promoting? So I, even in List Building Live, that’s coming up March 11th through 13th, uh, I’m not requiring anyone to promote.
Cause I think that’s so ghetto. Like, I just hate it. It’s like, it’s like, girl, I gave you free content, why are you forcing my hand? You know, like, I just, it’s just so gross to me. Um, but how can you make them feel good about, and I see your answer, so, but I’m gonna keep going on this. Um, How can you make them feel good?
So something when I used to host a summit in the RV travel space, I would get on a call with each speaker and it would come up with their own marketing plan. And I would say, you know, Patricia, You know, what are your goals for this? Like, how many subscribers do you want? Are you looking to make money? Or you just want to grow your list?
Or are you just excited to be a part of this because it’s a big thing? You know, and I would get their goals, and then based on what they said, I would literally write up and send them, like, hey, you want to make three sales and your email list is only a hundred? Here’s the emails I would send out. Or whatever, right?
So, but she, she’s now saying, um, you know, it’s just the two of them. So, honestly, you gotta hustle your butt off. I would reach out to people, Hey, we’re doing this bundle, we’re doing this collab. Is there any way you can share it? And again, like, I’m not saying you have to get on the call with people, but like, hey, you know.
Tracy, we’re doing this thing. It’s totally a match for your audience. Is there any way we can get you to share it? I can come on and do an Instagram live. I can write a blog post for you. I can, you know, whatever their content is, right? So if, if I’m asking Patricia and I know Patricia is like the YouTube live queen, then I’m going to say, Hey, can I come on your YouTube live?
Right? Like it’s free content for them, right? So making it a win, uh, so that other people in your industry.
We’ll
promote it and then maybe even doing some sort of like Giveaway or what are those things called where it’s like I I can earn a point by signing up But I can earn five points if I share it on Facebook doing something like that.
Maybe two.
I
hope that helps I’m just gonna answer this question Tracy everyone gets the Friday affirmations. Yeah, girl you can actually just subscribe to this YouTube channel and You will see them there like every five videos is a Friday affirmation Or just wherever you get your podcasts, the Friday Affirmations are just the Friday episode, uh, of the podcast.
And it’s something I’ve been wanting to do forever. And I, y’all, I really gotta set this up because I wanna do the Friday Affirmations. Oh, I got a question for Patricia. Uh, did you order my, uh,
bean, bean bag chair that I sent you?
I forgot.
Do you see what I’m working with, y’all? She forgot. As if I don’t send her a thousand things a day.
It’s a thousand dollars. No,
I’m joking. Um, so I want to do the Friday Affirmations like near my fireplace, like in my beanbag chair. What?
Why? I think it would be so fun other than me just sitting there. You can do it. Usually y’all, if you watch the Friday Affirmations, they’re like blacked out. Cause I, I’m reading them, obviously, you know, and I’m like, I’m like breathing away from the mic and like, give
it up for affirmations y’all.
And also I have a really like nasally damaged vocal cord. So I’m like trying my best not to sound. Like a chipmunk, you know Anyway, now that i’ve fully embarrassed myself. What’s the next question?
Oh goodness, let me email patricia
and tell her to order that bean bag because I don’t know if it’s on sale anymore
Um, is there a setting from YouTube when I’m subscribed that will let me know when you’ve made a new video?
Yeah, you can hit the bell button. Uh, so like when you hit subscribe, I think you can hit that There’s like a bell, you know, like a ding ding ding That will that will notify you but let me tell y’all something.
Hang on. Let’s get Patricia off the screen
If you Y’all I’m having too much fun if you subscribe and you hit that notifications button, that bell, it will only send you YouTube by it. I mean, YouTube, YouTube will still only send you the, the most recent three. So let’s say I, I get, you know, I ring the bell for Farida, Chris and Lisa, right?
I’m getting theirs, but then. I ring the bell for Melquia. The First Persons is gone. I’m not gonna get Faridas anymore. So be careful with that bell, y’all. That’s just a little known fact about YouTube. I feel like the Target Lady. Why am I doing the Target Lady?
I don’t even know who that is.
Kristen Wiig.
Oh,
I
need a raise.
She needs a raise y’all. So y’all need to join email marketing membership. Come to list building live and get that annual pass because Patricia does not
get paid enough for this.
I really like this next question. Um, it says, can you discuss list quality over list quantity?
Yeah.
So something, uh, that I do to ensure list quality is how am I building my list, right? I’ve practiced discernment when it comes to how I’m building my list. And everyone is different. Some people swear by things like bundles. I’ve tried bundles, and I notice my list quantity goes up, right? Yeah, oh my gosh, 100 subscribers in 24 hours.
But the quality goes down. I have a hard, I Have a hard time converting those people into my membership, which is my number one goal. It’s legitimately Outside of Chelsea and Patricia all I care about right But some other people like there’s somebody that’s coming to speak at list building live that Does bundles and in just one bundle had 500 signups that led to a bunch of different private clients and So it’s really and Patricia.
Can you meet yourself? It’s really about You know what works for you and just practicing that discernment at the beginning of this call Christmas Ellie asked about like Liz podcast guesting is still a good? Way to get leads and I was like, yeah because there is You know, I’m in your ears for 30 minutes, you stop and pause to join my list, that’s a quality lead.
So I’m really, really excited, yes, like Diana, like hell yeah, quantity versus quality. I’m all about quality and one way I measure this is my percentage of customers. And y’all, I have an entire podcast episode about this, you could probably just Google it, I can’t remember the episode.
The number one metric I track is that percentage of customers. If my list starts going up, you know, 12, 000. But my percentage of customers starts getting lower, it goes from 50 percent to 48, 45, then I know I have a quality issue. So of course we want quality because we want sales, right? So that’s why I believe quality wins, even when you’re working with sponsors.
So You know, somebody like Jay Klaus, he’s a big YouTuber, right? And he’s got, I think, 60, 000 people on his email list, and he makes a lot of money with sponsorship deals. Honestly, our boy Jay, he’s got like 120, 000 subscribers on YouTube. He could probably have a lot more. People on his email list, but I’m assuming he’s got good quality leads, right?
And that’s why he gets those sponsorship dollars So if i’m trying to sponsor your newsletter and i’m like, oh, yeah, diana I want to you know, I want to sponsor your newsletter Can you you know so you can promote list building live for me and she goes? Oh, yeah, great You know, i’ve got 500 people on my list and then I ask about metrics.
I ask about percentage of customers That’s going to determine how much I want to pay her, right? So even if you don’t have your own products, if you’re looking to sell other people’s products or sell sponsorship slots to your newsletter, the quality is really, really important. I was even featured in a Camping World commercial and my email list was about 3, 000 which compared to In the travel industry, where people can have millions of followers, hundreds of thousands of email subscribers, Camping World chose me because they knew I was quickly converting people to customers.
They knew I had a list full of, you know, people who were on the cusp of buying an RV. Right. I knew that because I was talking to them because the quality of the list was really, really good.
Um, Substack versus, uh, Kit, do you recommend one over the other? Are they the same or would you recommend? Both for list building.
To be honest, I have no idea. I don’t know anything about Substack. Um, if somebody in the comments could chime in, that would be great. I don’t know, I don’t, I think on Substack, like if somebody subscribes, you can see the email and you can move it into something like Kit.
I prefer Kit because Kit is an email service provider. It’s meant for sending mass emails. Where Substack is a platform where you publish, right? And you can col I’m, I’m like 99 percent sure you collect the email addresses. But if Substack decided to do something else tomorrow, You know, or they wanted to add this or that, Um, yeah.
Substack is not an email service provider, right? And so with The email service provider with something like kit. I can create a funnel. I can create it as long of an automation if I wanted a one year welcome sequence, I could create that. I don’t think that’s true with substack. I can also tag subscribers, right?
I can say Diana bought this, that and the other. Farida clicked but did not buy, right? That’s what an email service provider does. Yeah, Diana, thank you for coming in hot over here. Uh, it’s, it’s a social media. You know, it’s like a blog, like an old school blog. Um, but it’s just newsletter focus. So I believe that yes, you can collect the emails.
Um, but you can’t do much more than that. Okay, Diana is coming in clutch here. Thank you, Boo. Uh, send me your tip jar. Uh, Substack feels more like a newsletter based Patreon. So Patreon is like, I pay you just to be you. Right? And I’ve been considering a Patreon, but maybe that’s just my ego. Um, but, um, maybe I should get on Substack instead.
Um, yeah, it’s like, I’m Like Amy, our third person, um, she has a sub stack and I pay her. And that is something I, so Amy is a friend of mine. And she’s an amazing writer, Amy Collins, um, and she, she came to my house and she was like, I don’t know what to do. And I was like, you are a writer. You should just have a sub stack and get people to pay you to write.
Like, that’s your thing, Amy. And I consider myself a writer. But I also want to teach. I want to do YouTube. I want a podcast. I love my membership. You know, I like creating that content. Amy, on the other hand, she just wants to write her stories. Substack is a perfect place to do that for her. And I pay her I think it was like 50 for the year.
Seemed like a deal. She’s an amazing writer. Gosh, I wish I had the link so you guys could check it out. Um, yeah, so. Um, you know, if you are a writer and all you want to do is write for a living, you want to be a commentator, and that’s all you want to do, then yeah, maybe Substack. If you want to have like a full fledged online business with courses and products, um, you know, you want a two way street with your email subscribers, you want to do more advanced things, you need an email service provider.
And yes, I know for Rita. But Trisha, literally, we were going, I won’t say we were arguing, but we were going back and forth on Substack. She’s like, Paris Hilton, Substack is so hot right now. You
need Substack.
I’m like, that’s what you said about TikTok two years ago. We’re fine, but I do, I am interested, I’m substant curious, um, because I do like to write and there are lots of things that have no business in my regular newsletter that I like to talk about, but I don’t know.
Well, I wanted to add, um, that you could, like, somebody mentioned that the product is the writing, um, and somebody emailed a few weeks ago or last week and said, you know, I want to go on to Substack and I want to offer on Friday, give them an itinerary for game night. Is this a good product sort of thing?
And I thought that was a brilliant idea. I would pay 5 a month to have. Um, somebody send me like a game night or a date night or even conversation tips, like I would pay for small things like that. So if it’s, uh, small, I would do, I would go for it. But if like the annual pass and all that, that’s, that’s just way too much.
So small product on Substack wouldn’t really help, I think.
So that’s like her thing she publishes.
Yeah, so she, I think she owns like a game company. And they pay for
that product because they’re subscribed, they’re a paying subscriber. Yeah,
so they would get, yeah. I mean, I think they can sign up for the normal one for free.
They have, every newsletter I think has a base free one. Yes. But there’s like,
so. To me, it’s like a, it’s like medium. It’s the exact same thing as medium. Yeah, Paula knows what she’s talking about.
Um. Except you can, like, subscribe and pay them directly, which I don’t think you can do on Medium. But yeah, I do, it is very good for authority building.
So if I hadn’t started a podcast on YouTube, I probably would be doing Medium and Substack. And that was even something I was getting myself on Medium a couple years ago before I went on Survivor and forgot about it. Um, but, because, because of what Paula said. They, the platform itself is invested in you.
And invested in growing Substack. So it’s going to put you in front of people, right? So it is really good for authority building. So if I wasn’t, excuse me, if I had terrible boundaries with myself, we would be on Substack. Excuse me, I’m so sorry, y’all. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think Diana’s got it. It shouldn’t be like a, you know, an, or it shouldn’t be an or.
It should be like, do I have capacity to add this? Does it seem fun to me? You know, stuff like that. Great, great points. Thank y’all for helping me out. And y’all, I’m, it is 56 degrees in my house. I’m gonna turn my heater on. I’m sorry for the noise,
y’all.
Um, I wonder, I wonder if it’s more economical to just run your whole heater in your house versus a small electric
Shut up! Shut up, you! Y’all, y’all, you know, I Spend so much money, Patricia will tell you, I like my spending has gotten out of control, but there are some things I just can’t spend my money on.
And one of them is utilities.
My utility, y’all my house. So this wasn’t asked, but here we are. Now I see 46 of y’all here. So if we don’t have 46 brand new subscribers, by the end of this video, y’all need to like and subscribe, please. While I tell you this story, my hands are freezing. Oh my gosh, I have hot tea here I forgot about.
I forgot what I was saying. Oh, I hate spending money on utilities, y’all. My house is 2, 200 square feet. It feels huge. And I am the only one living here full time. And even that is a stretch. Chelsea is with her dad, um, you know, about 40 percent of the time. And so I just feel like when Chelsea isn’t here, It just feels so wasteful for the environment and my pocketbook to turn the heat on.
So I got a little space heater here and lately my daughter has been sleeping with me because I’m a sucker. Well she has a bed in my room. That’s how big my bedroom is. I mean it’s just ridiculous and then there’s two beds in there now and Uh, last night we just turned the space heater on. It’s like, so to Patricia’s point, I don’t know if it would be more economical to just turn the heat on.
But I did say, um, I did see that it was 54, 56 degrees in my house earlier before I started this live. And I was like, wow, that is cold.
Anyway. I do want to note that Liz had, in November, Liz and I were FaceTiming and she has made, she had made, I think, around 200, 000 that month so far.
Yes, in, in November, yeah, in November we made almost a quarter of a million dollars.
Wow.
Oh my God. Well, we
were FaceTiming and she was wrapped up in several blankets on her bed with a beanie on because she refused to turn on the heat.
Jessica’s with me, Patricia. I said, aren’t you just one room? Well, and y’all, I have a natural gas fireplace. And so, over Christmas break, I pretty much only
slept in there with the fireplace.
But my, my gas bill was 200
the other day. Um, but I feel like that’s still low because I Y’all, I, I bought a second house last year, um, and it’s currently empty, but my ex husband, my husband, does his laundry over there and showers. And that gas bill was exactly a hundred dollars less. So I feel like I’m still doing good.
Like I feel like, yeah, yes, propane is expensive. Let me tell you something. I don’t know if Patricia will like me telling this story, but we grew up pretty poor and we had propane. And my mom never turned it on because our house was like from the early 1900s. And I mean, it was It’s cold in our house and we had this one wood stove and y’all, let me tell you this.
Actually, this is how I found out Santa wasn’t real. Hopefully no kids are watching this. I marked this not for kids, uh, Patricia and I, cause my mom, I think the last like three winters we lived in Michigan before we moved to Florida, my mom just refused to buy propane. She was like, whatever. We’ll just freeze.
We’ll just sleep in the living room. Honestly, maybe that’s why I’m like, oh, 56 degrees, whatever. Um, we were walking out to get the wood in the garage and Patricia was in front of me. And she’s always been a lot stronger than me. I was a really scrawny kid. So she’s like handing me, she’s like putting the wood in my hands.
And I’m like, Patricia, do you, do you think Santa’s real? Now mind y’all, I’m in 6th grade and Patricia’s in the 4th grade. So Patricia is the same age as my
daughter right now and she whips around with this wood in her hand, slams it onto my arms, and she goes, Liz, don’t be ridiculous. It’s time you grow up.
And I was like, what do you mean? And she’s like, it’s obviously mom. And I said, well, and she’s like, I’m just saying that so I still get presents, you idiot, or something like that. Storm into the living room. I throw the wood down near the stove. I’m crying. I’m so dramatic. Mother. Is it true? Patricia just said Santa’s not real and my mom, you know with her 90s She’s like, oh liz, I didn’t think you’d still believe that Y’all, I started sobbing, I was gagging, I start running up the stairs, and then I come back down and I say, Is this mean the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy aren’t real either?
And by this point, Patricia, I can only imagine she’s like, Wow, my sister’s definitely ill.
They think she’s the smart one. Um, yeah, so that’s my Santa story. Um, next question.
So basically, you can take the girl out of poverty, but not the poverty out the girl.
Period. Period. Yeah, I was so sad. I was legitimately, and y’all, I did not tell Chelsea Santa was real. I was, I’ve been scarred for life. But Chelsea still believes in Santa.
Yes, no matter how often you and I both say he is not real, she refuses to believe us.
Well, I think now she’s playing me a little bit. She’s a smart girl.
Y’all got kids? Put it in the comments, hashtag Santa.
Literally Paula, literally, Patricia was born to be my reality check. Otherwise I’d be floating in the clouds, nothing would ever get done. We wouldn’t be here, we definitely wouldn’t be working on email. Okay. Oh gosh, Wendy. Oh, shout out Jessica, it’s a mindset.
I hope y’all are having fun, I hope you subscribe to the channel. Follow me for More ridiculous news.
Well, we still have a ton of questions left.
Okay.
We got eight minutes. So, Rich asks, Do you have thoughts on non subscriber emails to paying customers that haven’t opted in? I have an e commerce business and want to email customers after purchase to get them on my regular list.
Yeah, Rich, I would just add them. I mean, they’ve purchased, I would say, especially if you’re in the United States, that’s kind of typical behavior. Um, now if they don’t, what I would do is kind of set up some sort of automation or reminder for yourself. If they don’t open any emails in the first 30 days, as long as you’re sending at least once a week, excuse me, then delete them, remove them, and then I would just run ads to them for e commerce.
Um, yeah. Yeah, I add them to my list if you come in as a purchase.
Especially as a purchase, because I am getting signed up for lists. It’s for car abandoning, abandoning. Yeah, I hate that. That I don’t
like. And also I have an e commerce brand. Did y’all know? TexasSwagger. com TXSwagger. com If you’re from Texas, buy yourself some leggings or something.
Um, I always forget I own that. But they are added to the email list when they purchase as well.
Huh. Um, Chris asks, what might be a good ballpark number of subscribers versus actual customers like a ratio?
I mean, I’m extra, so I try to go for 50%, but I would think 30%, especially for someone like Chris, he has a membership model.
He does. client work. He’s got a few different products. Uh, I would, I would try to aim for 30%. And, um, like if you’re at 10 percent right now, how can we get to 15 in the next 90 days? Um, and then just move on from there. 50 percent I would say is like, wow. Um, So obviously when I get under 50%, I want to die.
So, I consider myself an absolute failure. I am not immune. But, yeah, I’m always just striving for, like, to maintain around 50 percent right, uh, now. I think, I think we’re at about it. But I will say, I, if you joined the membership and you exited the membership, you’re still a customer. So you’re still being counted.
Yeah, no, no pressure, babe. No pressure.
Um, how can I add scarcity and urgency in selling always open membership in my email?
Yeah, uh, different bonuses if you’re gonna, if you’re doing like live events. Um, also what I do is my annual pass rate. So the yearly option is only available three times a year, March, July and November.
And that’s how I create a lot of scarcity and Patricia will tell you. You know, that’s, that’s a lot of our income. The bulk of our income is during those events where we’re creating, Hey, this is only available for a short time, even with the membership. Uh, what was it last week? It turned four years old.
We did a 4 trial. And that was limited time, right? Um, and then I did, anyone who missed that sale, if they joined before, you know, the next Wednesday, they still got access to special bonuses. They didn’t get the price, but the bonuses. So this is actually a question I asked. Pat Flynn about a year ago. And, you know, of course I didn’t follow any of the advice.
But, um, he, he said, you know, doing things like that, especially like having special content once a month, like this is only available if you purchase this month, uh, is a really good way to create that scarcity. Also a price increase. I mean, I’ve never done it, but if you are like, Hey, I really need to run the numbers here and I need to increase my price.
That should get you some really good, uh, signups.
And if you’re not in the membership, Liz just gave away a free bonus of price increasing templates. So, if you are in the membership, you should definitely check that new template out. You can find it in Sequences folder on your Everything tab.
She’s so good.
Paula, I would say yes to that. That was just a quick question. All right, what else we got?
Um, I have two lists, one for marketing email business and one for a smaller side business in wine. Do I try to grow both at once or just focus on one?
What is your capacity, my friend? My capacity is always, you know, at max, right?
And so for me to have two lists, that’s why I said, oh yeah, I own Texas Swagger. I forget about it because I’m over here doing all the stuff that’s actually making me money. So it’s, I mean, it’s really. Up to you, right? Like which one is working? Which one do you enjoy more? I would focus on that for at least three to six months.
And then if you have capacity, we talked about this in the first hour, um, you know, where can you add more? What can you subtract so that you can add that second one? But I mean, and I say it with love, I, I almost never recommend two businesses at once. Like, it’s hard enough. I, you know, y’all, every day of my effing life, I’m trying to hit 10, 000 members and I haven’t done it, you know, like, it is hard work.
Um, what’s your recommendation on how to more seamlessly capture customer emails at outdoor markets as most opt out of email receipts?
Um, inside the membership. Um, we have a mini course on list building and it talks, it goes more in depth on locally based ideas for you. Um, so I would check that out if you’re not in the membership, you can go to lizwillcox. com, hit the yellow bar at the top and join. It’s nine bucks. Why not? Um, but I would do some sort of specialized giveaway.
That could be a simple one, you know, and just. Get a fishbowl, right? Put your email address. Get entered to win, you know, this cheese plate or whatever, whatever you’re selling there. I don’t know, right? That works on me every time I go to a vendor thing. I’m like, I want to win that, right? And it’s specialized, right?
It’s not like you’re giving away an iPad. Everyone’s going to do that. It’s only the people that want the thing you’re making that are going to do that. Um, yeah. Ooh, uh, Sonia just had a great idea. Using a QR code would be a great way and just really sharing the benefits of being on your list like, Hey, you know, I know, even when people are, you know, opting out, right?
Like, Hey, I know that’s going to ask you for your email. I know you want to opt out, but here’s why, you know, anyone that’s opting in today, I’m going to send a coupon of this, of that, whatever incentive you can think of. Uh, you know, so that you can get da da da da da next time, something like that.
Especially if you’re selling something like candles, they might want another one, right? Like, how can you give them an incentive to keep that email address in there?
Oh yeah, and you know, join List Building live March 11th through 13th and we’ve got lots more ideas for you coming in clutch as always. I
know, right? It is
4. 01. I got one more question. Let’s make it a good one. Okay, um,
oh, I like this one. Sorry. All right. Which newsletters slash creators do you admire slash subscribe to? I really
like this one, too. The answer is none. No, I’m joking. Honestly, it’s very little. I subscribe to very little, um, other creators because I believe in producing, not consuming. I think as a creator, the more People you follow, the less you’re going to do, the more overwhelmed you’ll be, right?
Uh, so someone that I have been following for the last, like, year I mentioned is Pat Flynn. Uh, he feels like an actual leader in the space. Um. You know, I don’t always read his newsletters word for word, but I really admire his ability to stay relevant after so many years. I mean, he’s been in business, I don’t even know how long, right?
Um, and he’s constantly changing with the times, right? Even his membership, I was in it last year. Um, I, I canceled it this year, I just didn’t dedicate enough time to it, and I didn’t get the result I wanted from it, um, I think it was a little too advanced, but um, I, he’s, he even, And that year changed a lot about the membership based on feedback and it’s less for Pat Flynn right now.
Less about teaching and more about community, right? And that’s very similar vibe for me, right? I mean, we just went live for an hour and a half, right? Um, oh, that’s it. That’s it. Our Patricia, we’re not at 100 minutes yet. So, um Pat Flynn is someone that I admire and I have been watching. Uh, quite a bit.
Someone else, um, oh, and I know Pat Flynn, yeah, Jessica says, create more than you consume. That was something I didn’t even know about Pat Flynn until I started following him about a year ago, that we had that same sort of philosophy of, you know, learn less, do more. Um, so I really, that’s kind of the thing that keeps me intrigued by what he, you know, what he’s, you know.
Telling his audience, um, another person. I actually, I really admire for a totally different reason and she’s someone that’s does the exact same thing as me is Tarzan K. I’ve been on her email list for many, many a moon. Um, She does things so Differently than me like everything I say she’s gonna say the opposite But I I admire her in her resolve for what she’s teaching Right and what she’s teaching works for some people, right?
I I tend to have a different audience I tend to attract different kinds of people than her um But I, I do follow her. I read every word of hers. Um, number one, because I think she’s just a very interesting human. And number two, it’s like, You know, when you do something, like, let’s say you dance one way and you see someone else dancing the complete opposite way, and you’re like, I could never do that, but somehow it’s working for them.
Uh, that’s how I feel about Tarzan. And we have a very, uh, I would say deep mutual respect for each other. Um, yeah, entertaining Lisa in two different ways, right? To where it’s very very different like some of the things she says in her emails. I would never could never But also the way I write emails is not something she would ever do either And then as far as other creators Um, really I look outside of my industry.
Those are really the only two people that I’m paying much attention to. I guess I’m starting to pay attention to Jay Klaus because I’m on YouTube and he’s seen great success in the last two years on YouTube. Um, but really like I pay attention to what will these people on the wall are doing. Okay, let’s look at it.
Childish Gambino. He’s one of the most creative artists of the modern time. He’s written for 30 Rock. He starred in Community on NBC. He’s had multiple successful platinum albums. Uh, you know, now he’s into writing dramedies for FX. Um, he’s just very much himself. And that’s someone I admire. If he had an email list I would be on it.
Will Smith. Y’all already know he’s been inspiring me since I was a kid And it seems you know, yes the slap heard around the world. It’s been so fascinating to me To watch him since he slapped someone what three years ago almost um Reinvent himself, and that’s been really, really cool to see. He’s actually just gotten back into music, and he’s been doing a lot of features with some really famous artists, not just from North America, but from all over the world.
Um, he’s really popular in Spanish speaking, um. Countries right now. And he just broke into the Japanese market. So it’s really, that stuff’s very fascinating to me. Of course, in sync, you know, there’s five of them. I, and I still follow every single one and it’s just so interesting. Like Lance Bass is a true entrepreneur.
He’s. Always launching. He’s always shipping. I get a lot of inspiration from Lance because he never takes no for an answer. He wrote a kid’s book last year. He launched an ice cream shop, uh, two years ago. He launched a, a winery a couple of years ago. Like he’s constantly doing new businesses. Um, so that’s where I get.
Great inspiration from also, obviously they don’t have an email list, but I love madam CJ Walker She’s on my wall over here She was the first woman millionaire in North America and she just happened to be black She sold hair care products Uh, for women door to freaking door, uh, back in the day, she was a disruptor of her time.
She went head to head with another, uh, black disruptor of the time, Frederick Douglas. And I just find so much inspiration from her. So I tend to not follow too many creators. Um, you know, within my own industry, I love instead to look outside of the industry and, you know, look at other like amazing entrepreneurs and disruptors of their time, uh, for inspiration.
There are two more questions that I actually really like, um,
if
you were to build EMM all over again today, starting from scratch, what would you do differently?
Nothing. It’s working so well. Why overthink it? Uh, I think the only thing I would do differently is not be on Survivor. Because I probably would have hit the 10, 000 by now.
And I had more than a million dollars. And much less grief. Not that I regret it, but I mean, if that’s the question. Honestly, I don’t think I would do much differently. It really worked so well. It really feels like the work of my life. I I don’t know how else to say it, um, I’d probably bring Patricia on faster, um, Maybe I would do more free trials, but Patricia says hell no, uh, to those.
But really, it, I mean, it just worked so well. It’s still working so well to this day. And I would say that the key to it working well, other than it’s just like the thing I’m just really good at. And the thing people really need is I just keep, um, trying to keep it as simple as possible. And that’s something Patricia helps me with.
I remember when I first came back to work after Survivor and everything, we actually got into a bit of a tiff. Because I was trying to complicate things. And she was like, Liz, you are always bragging. about being the two step chick, yet here you are creating ten steps for you and a thousand for me. Like what is the truth?
And I had to sit with that. I had to walk away. But I really I think like the key other than it again just being what people really need and what I’m really good at is just the ability to understand it is nine dollars. What is, what for 9 is going to get people to action and yeah, you know, I’ve added things over the years, but at its core, it’s still weekly newsletter templates with some extra bonuses sprinkled in if you need them.
Okay. The last question is what’s the biggest mindset shift you’ve made it to grow in your business and how did you get there?
Oh, this is a great question. You
are going to lose a lot in order to get the thing you want. And do you want it that badly that you will take the loss? And Patricia’s been beside me every step of the way, even before she started working on this business. I mean, she’s had people say to her, Who does Liz think she is trying to do this?
Right? I didn’t make that up. Okay, sometimes I’ll be making stuff up. Um, but I really, I really had to sit with what am I, what am I willing to sacrifice? What am I willing to give up or let go? And it’s been people, it’s been opportunities, um, it’s been relationships, it’s been my relationship with myself.
Y’all, I’m desperately trying to get back to her. Uh, it’s been just a lot of loss, but it’s all been totally worth it. I literally am living my dream. It’s insane to me what I wrote down nearly 10 years ago about what I wanted my perfect day to look like. It looks almost the exact same. And like, I mean, I’ve lost people along the way and I wish that it wasn’t that way, but I think in order to be,
in order to gain the level of success I personally want and also needed for my family, it, it did require that sacrifice. I was listening to. An episode with Jay Klaus and this guy, Nas, I forget, Nasir, I think, that’s not his name, but Nas Daily. He has this daily YouTube channel. It’s got millions of followers and he said the same thing.
He was like, I’ve lost so much for this dream. And you have to decide, like, the benefits are very public, is what he said. Like the benefit, oh, Liz bought a house. Oh, she mentioned she bought a second house. Oh, she’s got this, she’s got that. Uh, she’s got Patricia, you know, but the, the price I’ve paid is more private and that’s what this Nas Daily guy said.
You know, I’ve, I’ve lost a lot of my house. You know, and part of that was survivor and part of that was I was already getting sick. Um, you know, I, I am divorced, you know, my business, I’m not going to say that’s the reason I got a divorce, but it was the gasoline on the fire and that relationship will never be repaired and it will, the business will.
Always be a source of contention between me and the father of my child, my one and only child. It cost me memories with my child. Patricia used to live with me and I would go places to grow the business. And Patricia would tell me, Oh, Chelsea lost her first tooth. Chelsea did this. Chelsea did that. I, I won’t have those memories.
So the, the price I’ve paid is more private. I think Patricia is probably the only one that knows. You know, as closely as anyone other than myself can know, um, but it was worth it. Oh my gosh, it was so worth it. Like, I don’t mean to be any type of way. Like, I’m so happy and I’m beyond privileged and blessed.
And it was, it was worth everything that I’ve had to sacrifice. Um, but it is a thing, right? Like I see people in the community. You know, struggling. Liz, this is hard. This is, you know, I’ve been doing it for three years. You know, I’m tired. I’m this and it, you know, it is more than mindset. But the mindset that I’ve had that really pushed me is Is it worth it, Liz?
Is this really what you want? And to me the answer is, oh my gosh, hell yeah. Like, I’m gonna get up and now it’s, I’m gonna go to my naturopath, I’m gonna take my 30 supplements a day, I’m gonna, you know, uh, I’m doing all sorts of weird stuff right now guys. I won’t go into it, but um You know, it’s a lot of sacrifice even right now where it’s like, yeah No I can’t have a boyfriend or a partner because If I don’t take care of my health my business is gonna suffer if I don’t take care of my business my health I can’t pay for all that stuff.
There’s no room for you right now and But that’s, but it’s so worth it. My life is so great and I feel so blessed that Patricia is on this journey. I have no idea. Why she chooses to spend so much of her personal life on these goals, but I’m glad she’s here
and I love you so much.
You’re crazy. I would, that’s what people, so a lot of people ask, Oh, how do I find me a Patricia?
I’m like, you will never find you a Patricia because I am just invested. I’m just as much invested in. Liz’s child. I was the, I was there when Chelsea lost her first tooth. I’m just invested in the business because I, when, when Liz is like we’re soulmates, when she’s successful, I’m successful. Like, of course I’m going to work crazy hard, especially, um, so she can be a great mom because Chelsea’s.
Oh, there’s my dog. Hi Callie. Chelsea’s both of our number one priorities. So, and then the business. So I’m sorry, you guys just have to find somebody who loves. What you’re doing. I mean, it could be your partner. It could be whatever. Yeah, you have to be
born.
I also was not born. I’m Patricia. I’m so selfish.
I’m so self absorbed. I could never be Patricia. Oh, look at Callie. Everyone say hi to Callie. But yeah, I think that’s that’s the mindset. It’s like, is it worth it? Is it worth all the B. S.? Is it worth losing all this? You have to shed who you are to become who you are meant to be, so to speak. And I’ve had to shed a lot of myself and others.
Some of them, peace out. Others have been harder. You know, it’s been like, really? Um, but anyway, I hope that was helpful. Isn’t that dog the cutest freaking dog? Y’all, that’s another thing with the business something I had to shed. I love animals. I have become so Outwardly annoyed by animals
and I’m like, I know it’s just cuz I’m at capacity.
I Love Callie. That dog is so cute y’all that dog
will let you hold it like a baby All day long. It’s so cute.
Yeah pup
pup came in to give and get hugs All right. Well, thank you all so much. Seriously. I feel so absolutely blessed I’d feel even more blessed
if you liked and subscribed
I’m so corny Anyway, thank you guys so much.
Seriously. This does feel like my life’s work and I have truly dedicated everything I have to it. So I really appreciate each and every one of you, uh, past and present and future. And I can’t wait to see, uh, what we do, especially with list building live coming March 11th through the 13th. I will see you guys on episode 101 coming out Monday.
Bye friends.