Why smart people struggle to "build a list"

CopyHour Late Night ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ Everyone should start building an email list. Everyone. I don't care if you have no ideas. Too many ideas. If you're a brand new freelancer or an experienced copywriter. If you're an employee looking for a side hustle or you own a business. If you're a creator or a wantrapreneur or if your name is {NAME} and you live near Ashburn. If you can get about 500 subscribers on that list you can have a full-time, pays-all-your-bills business (or "side hustle") when you do things right. So what's stopping most people? It comes down to this one simple mistake in thinking... and this mistake in thinking is related to the type of email list you build and how you get people on it. But first, a little more on how CopyHour got started as an email list-driven business: Like I said and this is 100% true, CopyHour really started almost by accident. - I had no intentions of running it past the first 30 day session. - I had no business plan of any kind. - I was a nobody in the copywriting world. - The only thing I had was the idea for the handwriting challenge that I saw in Gary Halbert's newsletter. - I put together a quick 693 word landing page. - I asked for a $20 payment for people to keep themselves accountable (when you pay, you pay attention). - And I linked it in an entrepreneurial forum I was part of -- the Dynamite Circle. After I launched, astonished to get 20 people in that first round (including John McIntyre), I delivered the entire product day-by-day via email. I made and emailed the product out in real-time. It was completely email driven and setup in a weekend. Only later did I polish CopyHour into a "real" product with the same email list at its core. Now, things have obviously changed dramatically in the past 12 years and a new and better opportunity has emerged for people wanting to start an email list-driven business. The problem for most people is that when you say "build an email list" it's so generic because there are a thousand different ways to go about it. The reason you haven't built an email list is because you don't yet know what to write about and how to format everything. You've probably already started stressing out about "lead magnets" reading this series of emails. Here's what to do instead: build an email newsletter. Building an email newsletter fixes almost all the problems you might have been experiencing trying to build an email list. To be clear, when I say "newsletter" I mean building a list of people interested in a single topic - and sending them 1 to 5 emails a week around that topic (I recommend just 1 to start). It's kinda just semantics but the shift in thinking is huge. Building a newsletter instead of starting a list, in my experience, solves about 98.4758% of all struggles people have related to things like tech and email service provider setup... ...All the way up to the big one: imposter syndrome and feeling pressured to be an expert (versus a curator). This is getting a little long-winded as an email series but I feel like it's warranted to hammer home the point: - Start building an email list no matter what. - But instead of "building a list", build a newsletter. I've got more emails coming for you soon about how to pick your initial niche topic, how & when to monetize and some pitfalls to avoid. Cheers! - Derek Sent to: {EMAIL} [Unsubscribe]( CopyHour.com, 340 S LEMON AVE, 5007, WALNUT, CA 91789, USA