Back in 2008, I had a lovely little online business, I had been building for 3 years, each day I would sit down at my desk and write a short 400-word article around any topic I wanted. One day it would be about how to build a backyard chicken coop, the next it might be about how to choose the gender of your baby. The only thing that I focused on was the niche keywords the bit of software I had spewed out.

I’d then take that 400-word article and feed it into another piece of software along with a domain name, and 5 minutes later there was a new blog online all about the niche topic.

They were rubbish, but back then Google couldn’t tell how bad they were, so they ranked well, well enough to earn $100- $400 a day with AdSense

(Ironically it’s probably rubbish like this that AI is built on!)

But then overnight Google eradicated them all (can’t say I wasn’t surprised) I went from waking up to $400 to waking up to $10… easy come, easy go.

That’s Karma for you, I can’t say I didn’t have it coming.

So in the face of this adversity, I started a writing challenge, I wanted to start to write content worthy of the clicks.

I started a 12-day challenge where I had to write and publish an article every day (plus some other minor stuff). In light of me now being on the 850+ day of writing every weekday, it seems a little bit naive… 12 whole days of writing wow! But we all have to start somewhere.

I quickly discovered that you sometimes have to dig deep to find things worth writing about. But I discovered a lot about myself in those 12-days. The biggest one was that Adversity couldn’t get me down, and in fact it drove me onto better things and made me a better person.

A little later, I found Email Marketing, and the first email changed my life, (I wrote about it yesterday go check it out) . I pivoted to email marketing to make myself immune to the actions of 3rd party companies, and that has been mostly successful.

Email marketing has few moving parts, you have a list, which you can download and keep safe in case anything happens, and an Email Service Provider, which you can change at a moment’s notice, and that's about it.

Grow your list, send Emails, earn money. (Let’s not mention the stress of finding a new angle every day or the effect of fast living has on your body)

It worked better than I could have imagined, and gave me a life I could only dream about, until adversity struck at 2 pm on a Monday.

The next thing I knew was waking up in Intensive care, and being told in broken English that I had had a stroke. That gave me lots of time to think and a reason to start over again with a simpler and less stressful life.

Back to square one…

That’s where I am now. I get up go for a walk (after my stroke, it took me 25 minutes to walk about 100 meters, I stuck at it until my walking speed was back to normal), I have a coffee, I think about what I am going to write about, I get home, write it and then do what I want for the rest of the day.

Without adversity, none of this would be possible. Adversity can destroy you if you let it, or make you stronger. I like to think I am where I am today because of adversity, not despite it. I doubt I would be happier if I was still getting paid obscene amounts by Google for rubbish articles, or if the life of luxury vacations, sports cars and fancy restaurants wasn’t ended by my stroke.

Bitter? No. Happy? Yes, very

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Yesterday I told you about how I created my first product and what it earned me, so today I want to talk about my very first email. I like to think of it as the email that changed my life.

Twenty-Eight Dollars.

That’s how much I earned from my first email, hardly enough for a decent lunch. But it turned out to be the most important email I ever sent.

Even though that email earned me the grand total of $28, it led to every $100 day, $500 day, every $1000 day, $5000 day and beyond. It was also probably the longest I have ever spent over writing an email.

A few hours before I sent it, I sat down with a blank page in front of me and a steaming hot cup of Nespresso (ohhh la di da) I may also have had a small cake I usually did back then, and started to write. I really didn’t expect anything to happen, I just wanted to see what writing an email was like.

I told a short story about something that happened the day before, I talked about the lesson that I’d learned, and then I signed off with. P.S. that contained a call to action.

That email went to 10 people. Yes, only 10, my list wasn’t very impressive at the time, and it still isn’t.

Four people bought a $7 report that I had promoted, and my journey as an email marketer had begun. Twenty years later, and I am still content to sell low-cost reports and courses, and send emails to small lists. Why change a working model?

That email, that $28, opened up a whole new world to me, unbelieveably I became someone that people wanted to listen to and whose ideas about how email marketing should be done were in demand.

That journey was been amazing, from one email with 4 sales to talking email marketing theory with some of the world’s best email marketers over beer and burgers to talking at events in 5 different countries to sending a quick email to 80 people and earning 10k.

That $28 changed my life, and the lessons from it can help to change yours.

If you write articles and content, then you should be building an email subscriber list, you have all the tools you need. You should be using that list, no matter how small, to engage with your subscribers and tell them more about your offers.

Your list doesn’t need to be big, your emails don’t need to be salesy. If you remember how people used to use Twitter before it turned into a cesspit, then you know how to write an email that will convert.

Story => Lesson => Offer.

It’s the story part that scares people, and it shouldn’t, because the story can be about anything in your life… go back to the start of this article, that is a story about how I made money from my first ever email. It's not impressive, and Hollywood won’t be knocking on my door, but it’s mine, and it’s true.

The lesson part, you are in it now. The lesson is to build a list and send an email. You don’t need a huge audience, I had 10 people on mine, and I had built that in about 3 days. (BTW, I am running a mini challenge in the community next week to start to build a list I’ll help you get your first subscribers… the link to the community is in my profile!)

It’s simple and to the point, you know why you should do it. It can open up a whole new world for you.

The final part is the offer… I was feeling frisky today, so I mentioned the community above, and below you’ll find the link to subscribe… over to you!

Go write an email

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I talked recently about how I started online, doing a Google search and then joining a community and buying some software that built blogs.. lot’s of blogs, so many blogs!

The cost of the community and the software was a lot of money to me back then, over 10% of what I had in my severely diminished bank account, I took me a while to pull the trigger, After a few days, I’d been to the sales page several times, and I finally bit the bullet and signed up.

There were several posts in the community about how to set up the software I bought. The guy who built the software was a member of the community and used it as his helpdesk. I just followed the instructions step by step, to the letter. (I wasn’t tempted to take shortcuts or think I knew better… But I can confirm I am a man.. But I know my limitations!)

After a few days, I ended up with some blogs, and I was creating more each day, and I had already put AdSense on them.

Lo and behold, I started to earn money… not a lot, but enough to think that I could do this full time.

So I posted in the success section of the community and showed my results.

Over the next few days, a lot of people asked questions about what I did. Bear in mind I had simply followed the instructions that had already existed.

To all the questions I answered... “I followed the instructions in these posts” and provided links to the relevant posts.

A week later, I was still getting questions.

So I DM’d everyone who asked questions and asked them if they would be interested if I documented all the steps I took.

They all said yes.

So I wrote a step-by-step guide ... which was based on all the posts they had access to along with a few ideas of my own and notes on any issues I found.

I then sold it for $10. (or possibly $7 I can remembe)

In 2 days I made $400 by explaining what was readily available.

That was the BEST $400 ever, as it taught me a valuable lesson.. taking openly available knowledge and repackaging it into a simple format will get you sales.

I don’t know if you play any video games, but you see it all the time.. How do I kill XYZ?… Just follow the guide… I tried it, it didn’t work.

You’ll see it all over online communities, like Reddit and Facebook, simple things that work for some people, fail to work for other people because they don’t understand the instructions or like the format the instructions are in so they refuse to read them… I mean, there is a thriving business in setting up IKEA furniture … it comes with instructions!

If you can make things easy or even easier for people, you have a ready-made business. Watch out for questions that are asked regularly, if you see the same question 2 or 3 times, you probably have an opportunity to sell a simple solution.

Can you summarise the question in one short sentence?

“How do I set up Adobe Whatchamacallit?”

Bingo… there’s your product.

I made almost $60,000 years later from showing people how to set up their first Activecampaign campaign… so yes, it does work.

This stuff Isn’t difficult you just need to keep your eyes open and be aware of opportunities…

And of course you can find my system for doing this and creating low-cost products on a regular basis if you check out $7 problems.

(Notice how I am still selling a product about a problem I discovered in my first weeks online over 21 years ago… that should tell you everything you need to know about whether this works or not!.. the reviews will tell you the rest!)

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Are you curious? Are you one of those people who have a store of interesting and not-so-interesting facts? Do you constantly want to learn new stuff? If so, an online business built on writing is perfect for you.

We all have this little nagging worm inside our brains. The worm gets stirred into life when we read something interesting. That worm’s name is Curiosity. Your job as an online writer is to supply your own work with lots of information, and then turn some of that information into content that will feed your audience’s curiosity.

But there is a problem… If you are just regurgitating facts and information (just like AI does) your audience isn’t paying attention. Your content isn’t “nutritious” enough for them. Your content is boring. Your business isn’t going anywhere.

The thing is, the more you feed the worm, the more curious you get. The more curious you get, the easier it is to achieve your goals and dreams. You read more, you learn more, you get more ideas, and you test more. Some will work, a lot will fail, but at least, with each new thing you learn, you are growing.

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Think about what happens if you feed your body constantly with junk food and poorly nutritious food, it’s going to suffer. Eventually you will get ill, and your health will suffer. Your brain is no different.

Stop feeding the worm junk, cut out content that adds nothing to your knowledge of the world. Stop reading uneducated views presented as fact. Fill your daily diet with inspiring stories and content that wow’s you.

Follow and subscribe to those who entertain, inform and educate, people who push the boundaries with their writing. Follow people who walk the walk and don’t just talk the talk.

• Be curious

• Try new things

• Read more

• Walk and think

• Take time to sit and ponder

• Set aside thinking time

All these activities will feed the worm. The more curious you get, the easier you will find it to create better content. Stop doom scrolling and start taking time to think, form thoughts and ideas, test them.

I read a short thread this morning that popped into my timeline overnight. It talked about affiliate marketing. One of the things in the thread referred to how to structure your offer.

That immediately sparked the worm into life, and within a few minutes, I was planning a new mini challenge for my community. I read it, thought about it and then implemented it. (Taking immediate action is sort of my useless superpower)

That challenge isn’t for an affiliate offer it is for something that will help people immediately grow their subscribers. However, the idea translated into something I could use to improve mine and my members’ businesses.

If I’d started the day by reading junk, I’d never have had the opportunity to make that improvement to our businesses.

Try to build a habit where you digest (food metaphor again) less low-quality content and replace it with articles and newsletters that bring you value and get you thinking. given where you are reading this, I am probably already preaching to the choir.

I’ve updated Write to Earn with the latest module, the price goes up in 24 hours! (free to paid subscribers)

Feed the Worm!

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How did you start working online?

Probably the better question is, why did you start working online?

For me the how was I did a Google search, “How to make Money Online” Yep, I was still a cliché 20 years ago. The why was I didn’t want to go back to the UK with my tail between my legs, I loved the Spanish lifestyle (still do) I wanted to be there for my daughter as she grew up and not be beholden to the tech companies I worked for, and the thought of returning to a corporate job filled me with anxiety.

I think I was down about €700 in the bank, and I went and spent $37 (recurring) on joining Keyword Avalanche and $79 on a tool that generated AdSense sites. All that came from a late-night search of “how to make money online.”

That was May 2005. On June the 5th 2005 I made my first online income of 97 cents in AdSense.

I then started building sites for people and writing content, in fact, there was very little I didn’t do to generate an income, it didn’t matter if it was $5, $50 or $500. I even did some internships, with a total head case, and paid for mentorship.

For months I earned enough to survive and pay the bills, and then after 15 months I was earning up to $200 a day from AdSense and a similar amount from Clickbank and Commission Junction. At every stage I invested as much as I could in my online business, both with time and money. If I had a bit left over at the end of the month, it went towards tools or courses.

I am pretty sure back then that we lived off around €200 a month plus €450 rent for those early months. If Fiverr or Upwork was around back then, I can guarantee you I would have been a top seller. I’d be churning out gigs all day every day, and then when I could afford it I’d outsource most of it and add more gigs.

Investing in yourself, believing in yourself and “understanding the mission” was the only way I could see myself build the lifestyle I wanted. I spent as many hours as I needed to get where I wanted to be. It was worth it in the long run, but boy was it hard work at the beginning.

I went from nothing to standing on stages sharing my ideas in London, Las Vegas, Spain and Portugal, earning every cent for over 20 years from the words I wrote. I’ll always be proud of that.

Knowing what you now know about my start in online marketing, imagine what goes through my mind when someone says to me that a $10 product is too expensive, or that they don’t have time to complete an exercise I gave them. Frustrating.

What lessons did I learn from my start in the online marketing world?

One thing I learned is that you aren’t going to get success handed to you. You need to go out and grab it by the balls and wrestle it until it submits. I also learned that you need to invest in your own success.

Online Marketing is like a jigsaw, no one product or idea will give you all the pieces, but get enough pieces and you’ll see the bigger picture.

It’s simple, and it works. So go grab it.

No excuses.

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How To Engage With Your Audience

Today was the first day since April when I got up and had to think... hmmm maybe I should get my jeans out, it’s one of those crisp autumn days, that start better with a steaming hot cup of coffee, but it’s still August... very weird weather here in Spain at the moment!

Let’s dive into today’s newsletter, and you’ll discover why I started with a weather report. The ability to write engaging content is the only skill you need in this business.

If you can engage an audience and have nothing but a phone and a writing app you would still be able to grow an online business.

Social Posts, blog posts, Facebook posts, emails, books, guides and sales letters just need the ability to write in a way that engages your readers.

How long do you spend each day honing that skill? The most powerful skill in your arsenal.

Just by writing, you can communicate directly with your audience, you can build empathy, you can cajole, you can annoy, you can trigger memories, and you can stir emotions.

You can take them wherever you want them to be.

When was the last time you wrote and deliberately used “word pictures” to transport your reader? Tomato sauce oozing out of the medium rare burger, the fries with grains of salt holding on for dear life, the background hum of people ordering and the hiss of a new batch of fries going into the fryer.

Word pictures are one of the most powerful things you can use.

If you want to sell a bag of your premium blend coffee beans… take the reader to a coffee shop.

“There is nothing nicer early on a wet and cold winter’s day than to walk into a warm coffee shop and smell the freshly roasted beans, hear the gentle hubbub of conversation, and know that the first and the best coffee of the day will soon be heading your way”

After that, your chances of selling coffee beans just improved!

Writing doesn’t require expensive tools. With daily practice, you’ll improve.

Your content can be formed in your head at any time, then filed away until you get a chance to commit it to “paper”.

Personally, I form a lot of my content while walking, I then write it down during my morning writing session.

Set aside 20 minutes to write every day, just write anything you want. Practice adding word pictures to every piece you write, bring the audience into your world. Write for the joy of creating. You never know where it will take you!

What will you write today?

The Craft

I’ve spent the week recording the videos and editing the book for “The Craft”, the next module I am adding to Write To Earn. It was supposed to be Q4’s module, but I went early because I can’t count!

It’s all about how to write content that will engage your audience and improve your conversion rates.

I’ll be adding it to Write to Earn on Gumroad on September 1st and increasing the price at the same time, so get in now if you want to save.

It is also already in the Inner Circle for paid subscribers (along with all my other books and courses and a private paid member community. If you want access to all that simply become a paid subscriber, it can cost you as little as $8.25 per month (paid annually)

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What’s your take on “fake it till you make it”? I sense a lot of people look at this as a negative thing, but is it really?

I will admit that in some professions it could be a bad thing. Do you really want your surgeon or pilot to be faking it? No, not really.

So, for the sake of this post, let’s stick to the Online Marketing niche and other online businesses. Let’s set a few ground rules as well, publishing an earnings screenshot that isn’t genuine is just plain fraud. Telling people your marketing method earns $100 a day when in fact you make all your income from selling that product is plain and simple fraud.

So now that we have that out of the way, let’s get on with faking it.

I personally think in a lot of situations there is a positive side to it. I landed my very first job as an IT contractor by telling downright lies.

I was working as a motorcycle courier in London at the time, trying to make ends meet. I had been building my own computers for a while and was genuinely interested in server technology. In fact, I carried a book on Managing Microsoft Servers with me that I studied between jobs.

One day in the Evening Standard (the evening newspaper in London) I saw an ad for a short-term job for someone to install servers at a bank in the city, (Via a tech recruitment agency), so I thought, why not…

I applied, got an immediate reply, and was asked to go along at 11 am the next day for an interview. So I went home, downloaded a pirate copy of Microsoft server software and set up a server… it was up and running in around an hour.

I arrived for my interview, and the guy who met me at reception took me for a coffee as “They are running behind schedule” with the interviews.

So over coffee we had a nice chat about my time in the Army, what I was doing now and what I had done with servers and computers.

I was asked if I had experience building servers. I answered, “yes, I’ve done lots of builds.” That was a lie, I’d only built one the night before the interview.

It turned out that the chat over the coffee was my interview and the guy who met me was my new boss. I started work immediatly, and there was nothing to worry about, everything I needed to do was documented.

That short-term job turned into the best 5 years of my life and resulted in me working for one of Europe's most important banks. Within 18 months, I was solely in charge of all their servers and was helping to manage their Y2K project

I faked it. Because of faking it, I went from a motorcycle courier with the life expectancy of a Spitfire pilot to an IT contractor overnight. I landed a job that led to a lifestyle I couldn’t have imagined when I was tearing around London on a motorcycle delivering packages 12 hours a day.

To be faking it till you make it, you need to be taking action, getting out there and actually trying to make something of your online business. It’s not about lying, it’s about actually doing the work and believing in yourself. You can do this

To fake it, you have to know what you are talking about, you have to put in effort and not just assume you know what you are talking about. I would much rather talk to someone who comes across as an expert in SEO who has invested time and effort in learning the subject than someone who has an opinion based on nothing but their own prejudices and ideas.

The actual philosophy behind fake it till you make it is a positive one of self-belief. It’s not really about faking it in front of other people, it’s more about pretending you can do it until you believe you can do it.

You Can Do Anything You Want If You Take Action And Believe

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One day I was putting the finishing touches to the weekly newsletter that goes out every Friday. It was 12.50, and I was cutting it close for the 1pm deadline I set myself. I had just got halfway through writing the intro when I heard this awful screeching noise and looked out the window, at that point, our cat Morrissey plummeted past my office window, no parachute or safety harness.

My office was in the middle of 3 floors. He’d fallen, or was pushed by the dog,(far more likely) from the top balcony straight through the centre of this weird shaft we had to allow light into a lower courtyard (or atrium if I’m trying to come over as posh.) It’s over 60 ft or more top to bottom.

I can confirm that yes, cats do land on their feet and have 9 lives. They also evacuate their bowels when you pick them up to see if they’re OK, my wife found that one out.

It was straight down to the vet’s, where they kept him in for observation overnight. He returned home on Saturday none the worse for his base jump.

The reason I’m telling you this story is that as soon as the pressure is on, people react in different ways and it’s fascinating.

My wife ran around panicking, while covered in a ton of cat poo, I can also confirm that stuff stinks. While I calmly got his cage, got him in it, and got him to the vet’s. No panic, just clear thinking. I am not saying this to brag it’s just a reaction to being shouted at by big hairy sergeants for a long time when I was younger.

Identify problem, identify possible fix, implement, review outcome… after a while it becomes second nature.

So what do you do when something goes wrong in your business?

Panic, run around as if the sky is falling, or take well reasoned action? What do you do if you’re approaching a deadline? Panic you aren’t going to make it, or work as best you can to make that deadline?

If you tend towards the panic side of the spectrum, don’t beat yourself up about it. Sit back, take a deep breath, and take well reasoned action, even if it proves to be wrong, you at least thought about what to do.

The worst thing any of us can do is immediately react, take time to take a deep breath and think about things you could try. then choose one.

I’ve honestly lost count of the number of times I’ve done calls with people who are really struggling and can’t see how to turn their business around. Usually within 15 or 20 minutes, when they’re thinking straight, the answers are there in front of them, as clear as daylight.

What’s the biggest problem facing you now?

What’s your gut reaction to what you need to do?

Don’t do it, go grab a coffee (obviously, if it's very time-sensitive, like your house burning down, ignore this bit and run… and what are you doing reading my drivel in the middle of a crisis?)

Drink the coffee and think about the options you have and choose the path that you think is best.

Don’t let panic cloud your vision. You have all the answers you need, you just need to think straight.

You’ve got this.

You are always welcome to ask for advice in our free community we are there to give good advice.

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If there is one thing I’ve learned over the past two decades or so, it’s that when you keep things simple, you get better results.

One of my first big successes was when I generated $20K from an article over a single week.

There was nothing complicated about it. It started as a single article on a blog all about one product, (single product blogs are vastly underrated) that just so happened to rank at #1 in Google because I was the only person writing about it when it became mainstream.

One evening I was checking my email before bed, and I got a press release… (PRO TIP => You do signup for press releases from companies in your niche, don’t you?) At the time, my wife and I had a fashion blog that looked at upcoming trends. … Fun fact many years ago we used to own a bricks-and-mortar women’s clothes shop in Ireland, selling clothes from Scandinavian designers.

Anyway, back to the story, the press release talked about a new pair of boots being released that week. My fashion spidey senses and my blogger spidey senses combined, and I thought I bet they will be easy to rank for… so there and then I built a blog based on the name and created a 300-word article based on the descriptions in the press releases, added an affiliate link back to the manufacturer’s store and went to bed.

I woke up to $300 in sales.

So I spent an hour creating a few more articles based on variations of the keyword.

The boots were the Ugg “Classic Cardy” boot, and they became mainstream when Oprah featured them in her favourite things show a few days later.

I had simply created an article and an affiliate link Oprah did the rest. Kerrrching, $20K into my bank account in the following week. Hint: listen to your wives when they say “ohh they look really nice.”

In fact, I within a week I ranked #1, #2, #3, #5, #7 and #10 in Google for variations of that same article.

Ugg weren’t happy. I was ecstatic.

After a couple of weeks, Ugg banned me from their affiliate program, so I switched the link to an eBay listing of the boots and made commission from eBay. I like to think that maybe I made commission from the original sale of a pair of boots and then commission from the eBay sale

This is not very repeatable, and you probably won’t be able to repeat this now, BUT the fact remains, by taking a simple action I put myself in the position that I could possibly have something that would succeed… and that hasn’t changed

If I’d decided that it was too late to create a quick blog that evening, I probably wouldn’t have done it.. so take action, prioritise what might work and subscribe to press releases… simple!

I am recording the next Module For Write to Earn, which I’ll add in the next few days. The price will go up before I add the new videos and book, so get Write to Earn now and get the new modules included. (It’s also included for free with a paid subscription)

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I crashed my helicopter last week. One minute everything was fine, then the rotor blade decided to make a break for freedom. The result was inevitable, carnage.

Before you get too concerned, I should point out that luckily it was a remote-controlled helicopter and no passers-by were injured, although the cat has taken to living in a cardboard box.

The terminal failure was caused by a very small screw working itself loose. I suspect it was the cheapest part of the whole helicopter, yet it turned out to be one of the most important, and something I’d never given a moment’s thought to.

Not once did I think, “I’d better check that really important small screw isn’t loose.” If I had, I would still have a helicopter in one piece and not one that looks like it was designed by Picasso.

And your internet business is a lot like my helicopter (see how I did that… amazing!) only as strong as the weakest part.

We can all spend hours every week making sure our business is working well, but if you overlook one small thing, then you could open yourself up to potential disaster.

I once found that, due to my own stupidity, the signup boxes for a guide I’d written weren’t working, and I hadn’t noticed it. I’d usually get 10-20 signups per day from those, and they had been down for over a week. It doesn’t sound like much, but take into account the lifetime value of subscribers, and it could add up to a 4- or 5 figure loss over time.

It doesn’t matter that you have multiple backups of the site, a resilient server, protection against hackers, and the best conversion tracking money can buy, if you don’t pay attention to the small stuff that matters.

The point of this article is to point out the need to know what your priorities are. When I found the signup forms working, mine was generating traffic and subscribers. I should have made sure everything was in place and working properly on a daily basis. I compiled a checklist of what I need to check every day to make sure it never happened again, and I urge you to do the same.

What’s the most important thing in your business?

If you’re relying on Ads then you need to ensure the ads are running every day. If it’s affiliate marketing, make sure the links are still working every day. If it’s list building, make sure your signup boxes work and that people are getting access to what they signed up for. If it’s writing for an audience, ensure the traffic remains consistent or grows.

It’s great knowing you have a 30% open rate, but pointless if you aren’t getting new signups.

Focus on the small things, it’s the stuff most likely to hurt your business if you get it wrong. It’s all well and good having backups of your sites, but if they have a fundamental flaw then the backups mean nothing.

Look after the small things, and the big things will generally fall into place.

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I was on a call with a coaching client a while ago, and we were talking about his business and how he was struggling to convert more than around 0.75% of his email subscribers to sales.

The bottom line came down to the fact that he was bombarding his audience with offers, he had one of the most convoluted funnels I’ve seen for a while, and frankly, he had no useable data he could rely on.

When I asked him about why things were so “weird” I got the usual answer “I bought a course, and this is what it suggested I do”

My fix for him was to go back to basics.

Simplicity + Data

It’s the fastest way to get traction.

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One of the reasons I use Gumroad is that there is a lot of raw data just sitting there. If you explore your stats and know where to look, Gumroad spits out all the data you could ever need about your account.

The first time I explored, there was a lot of data to go through and work with, but the bottom line was that each subscriber I got was worth $6 in the long term.

Now that $6 is a key bit of information, it means that I could run ads if that was my thing to get subscribers and know I am going to be able to cover my bills and save some extra for an emergency. I knew that if next month that if I averaged $7 per subscriber I’d have had a good month, and $5 would indicate a bad month.

It also means that I can go and start advertising, and as long as I get subs at below $6 each, everything is hunky dory.

Now we get to something a little more fun and something I love to do… taking things that you discover and creating an Acronym so that people remember them (I learned today that these might technically be Backronyms)

L.E.S.S is more.

Leads, Email, Sales, Simplicity,

Ok I’ll admit that that it a bit of a stretch! But it sums this up pretty well, I would even go further, and simplify that a little more,

ACE-C.

Attract, Capture, Engage, Convert.

But all those mean nothing if you don’t have the data to back it up. In fact, without data, nothing you do means anything.

“I’ve got a list of 50,000 email subscribers,” how much is each one worth?

“I ran some ads and made 100 sales,” what was the ROI?

The takeaway from this article is to go check your data, if you don’t have any then work out how to get some. You have to start somewhere, so try and gather data this week and then analyse it next week. Then allow that data to inform your decisions. That is the key, data for data's sake is pointless

Your bank manager will thank you.

Paid subscribers also get access to all my communities, courses, and books.

Ok, I admit it, I am probably the worst person to be talking about this, but on the other hand, I am fully aware that I am selling myself short every day, so maybe you should listen to me just this once 🤪

Your audience doesn’t know what you offer

Seriously, we all think that it’s obvious to everyone what we offer, “it’s there in my profile” “I put a link in my newsletter” In reality, they don’t know.

People get bombarded with offers hundreds of times a day, and you expect it to be obvious what yours is. Not going to happen.

Ohh yeah, he offers that course on errrr… hmmm, which one is it?

Think for a second, what do you think my community offers? (What? You have a community Mark?)

Let me refresh your memory.

You've seen that mentioned by me multiple times each week, and I am sure 90% of people reading this didn’t realise what was involved. That’s on me, not you, and likewise if I don’t understand what you offer .. that’s on you.

Shout It Loud, Shout It Often

Your job for the rest of this month is to get clarity on what you offer, break it down, don’t focus on what it is..

NOT: I have a course that will train your dog to sniff out truffles

BUT: I'll show you how to turn your dog into a $2,000-a-kilo truffle hunter, so you get paid to wander the woods.

NOT: A guide to sourdough baking.

BUT: The smell of real bread in your kitchen on a Sunday morning, and the look on your kids' faces when they realise you made it.

Once you get clarity on what you offer and can position it so that your audience can see the benefits at a glance, you need to start shouting about it.

If you don’t tell them regularly, you won’t mention it at the moment they are looking for the solution you offer.

I might not have a dog at the moment to go truffle hunting with, but maybe in six months’ time I will.. You’d better still be telling me then!

Stop Fearing What People Might Think

I hear it all the time, “people won’t read my stuff if I link to my offers.” I hate to tell you this, but very few of them actually get to the CTA in your articles, so they don’t know you are making offers.

The ones that do see your CTA’s don’t mind it… I’ve never had anyone tell me I hate your CTA’s and anyone that does and unsubscribes probably isn’t my ideal audience anyway.

Put your offer front and centre!

Like this…This is what paid subscribers to this newsletter or my community get access to… (creating this list really gave me a handle on what I offer… try it yourself!)

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What Does $8.25 a Month Get You? (Paid Annually)

What’s Inside Inner Circle+ ($8.25/month, paid annually, $99/year or $19/month)

I thought I'd take time to lay out what an upgrade to a paid subscription will get you ..I was even surprised myself at how much you get...

Upgrade to Inner Circle+ and every course, book and challenge in the classroom unlocks, plus live calls and a direct line to me.

Here’s everything you get access to:

Community

The Inner Circle Plus Community - Look at what I am working on and how I do it...it’s the inside track to running an online business. I include lots of guides and frameworks for you along with AI prompts that will help you to do tasks like audit your Substack.

Courses & books

You get access to all my books and courses and all future books and courses… there are a lot!

• Write To Earn - the book and the 12-video course together: the exact system that took me from 48 reads a month to 35,000, built on nothing but showing up daily

• The Long Game - Substack Growth For The Rest Of Us

• $7 Problems (Book) - build a business by solving one small problem at a time

• $7 Problems: Masterclass - the course version, how to build an online business one $7 problem at a time

• The Article Funnel Blueprint - the structure behind 800+ of my Medium articles, so one piece of content can build an audience that trusts you enough to buy

• Email Infotainer - write emails that convert

• Engage Empower Enrich - the simple framework my whole business runs on.

• Content Infotainer - the S.L.O. method I use to write content that hooks people from the first line and moves them toward a sale

• Content Centric Marketing - how to build a writing-focused business

• Email Marketing Revolution - email marketing for right now

• Email Marketing Reborn - a new hybrid model for how email marketing works today

• Bootcamp: A Content Business From Scratch - step by step, from picking a niche to a loyal, paying audience

• Project ONE - build your business on solid foundations

• The Grid - a simple system for controlling your messaging and momentum

• 500 Buyers - an older product from 2012, some links don’t work, but the ideas still hold up

• The Growth Hub - prepare to grow your business

• 30 Minute Affiliate - set up an affiliate system that runs on 30 minutes a day

• Let’s Build An Email Marketing Funnel - build and test a simple email funnel

• Using Gumroad - how to use Gumroad for sales and email marketing

• Build A Medium Mini Course - how to add a mini course to Medium

• How To Fopdoodle - two reports from Peter Spaepen, worth reading and implementing

• Let’s Build A Course - how I actually built The Article Funnel Blueprint

• Repurpose Your Content - quick ways to repurpose what you’ve already written and widen your reach

• Project: Micro Empires -build small, simple blogs with income potential

Challenges

• Write a Book in 14 Days Challenge

• Challenge: Make A Sale — build a system that gets you one sale a day, then more

Plus everything I add to the classroom while your membership stays active.

Phew… I didn’t realise I had included so much!

Have a great week

Paid subscribers also get access to all my communities, courses, and books.

Sometimes lessons come from strange places…After watching the Oscars in 2015, I decided I should go and see Birdman, it had just won 8 Oscars, but everyone I knew who’d seen it didn’t really rate it very much.

What did they know!

True, it’s wasn’t action-packed and not at all what I expected, but the writing, directing and acting were superb, it proved to me that a film doesn’t need to be full of explosions and blood to be good.

There is a superb section that anyone who writes articles, emails or blog posts should take to heart.

Riggan (Birdman, a film actor) and Mike (a cool hotshot stage actor) are reading through some lines of a play which start out as follows.

“I’m the wrong person to ask. I didn’t know the man. I’ve only heard his name mentioned in passing. You’d have to know the particulars. But I think what you’re saying is that love is absolute. Yeah. The kind of love I’m talking about, you don’t try and kill people.”

Mike (stage) hates it, it’s too wordy, he points out that 4 times the script reiterates that Riggan didn’t know the guy, so he strips it back to basics while at the same time bringing out the emotion of the piece. The result is it goes from just someone talking to anger and passion being transmitted by fewer lines.

“I didn’t even know the guy. The kind of love I’m talking about is absolute. The kind of love I’m talking about, you, well, you don’t try to kill people.”

The same message but more powerful.

What I want to try to get across to you via this article is that, just like films, your writing doesn’t need to be full of explosions, they need to connect to your audience. Try to get the emotion of your message to come across so you connect to your readers.

If that means stripping it back to basics, do it. If that means talking on a more personal basis, do it.

Let me try to give you an example.

A while ago, I was documenting a test in the community that I did with one of my sites. An article I was running traffic to was barely breaking even, but after 2 days of split testing it is now running at almost 400% ROI. The $45 I spent on traffic one day earned me just short of $200.

That is interesting but nothing more than that it’s the type of thing reraders would skim over and think ohh thats nice for him….

But what if I told you what doing that could mean to your family or how it affected me? Even though it’s longer and not “stripped back,” would the following be better? Does it connect more?

I am on an absolute high today, I had an article I was running traffic to that was barely making a profit. After all my problems with Facebook recently I was hoping that this was the way forward. It looked like I was wrong.

As a last resort I decided to test a theory I had. I set up some split testing and ran some traffic to it. One of the split tests showed a lot of promise so I decided to roll the dice and send a lot more traffic to it. It was the ultimate “Hail Mary.” It worked. After 24 hours I’d made 100% profit. After a few more tweaks, 48 hours later it is running a 400% profit.

400% profit, that amazed me and I thought I’d seen it all. That means that instead of spending $100 a day to earn $100 I can earn that same $100 by spending around $30. Hell, I turned a $10 article into an income stream.

That, my friend, is a powerful reason why you should split test.

I hope you see the difference that letting readers know how you feel and just injecting a bit of emotion and passion can make.

So next time you write an article, look at how you can make it resonate on an emotional basis, I bet you’ll find it performs better.

I am recording the next module for Write to Earn. The price goes up when I add it. Get it at the launch price this week, and it’s included for free along with all future modules.

Paid subscribers also get access to all my communities, courses, and books.

A good story will be far more effective than any list of facts and it will be remembered long after the facts have disappeared. Back in 2019 I read about Major Tunde, the lost Nigerian astronaut. I still remember the story to this day, long after the facts have faded.

Ohh how I laughed.

I saw a report several years ago about a Nigerian astronaut who’s been trapped in space since 1990, when he went on a secret mission.

His cousin only needed $3,000,000 to pay for a rescue mission, which will be repaid as it can come out of his $15,000,000 salary he’s accumulated since he went to space.

It’s probably the funniest scam email I’ve read, (sorry to spoil it for you!), but still some people will fall for it.

You can read all about it here: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nigerian-astronaut-lost-in-space/

Why?

Because it’s built around a good story that might, just might, be plausible.

“His other Soviet crew members returned to Earth on the Soyuz T-16Z, but his place was taken up by return cargo. There have been occasional Progrez supply flights to keep him going since that time. He is in good humour, but wants to come home.”

Before you laugh too much, just think for a moment if the email was about a secret CIA mission and an American astronaut was left orbiting the Earth. How many conspiracy theorists would have latched onto it by now and be demanding an enquiry?

Some people want to believe, they want a bit of whimsy in their lives. Others are greedy and want to make a quick buck. The standard Nigerian prince scam has been working for years, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t got an email from a prince or a banker with access to millions of dollars and just needs a bit of help to release the funds.

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And yet if they weren’t successful, they would have dried up years ago. Advance Fee Fraud (to give it its more common name) still costs victims billions of dollars. I am sure that most people suspect they might be getting scammed, but never underestimate the power of a good story.

That is the whole point of this article… start using stories and build your content around them. You’ll grab people's attention and hold it for much longer than a dry boring article full of facts.

Your stories don’t need to be epic or far-fetched, they just need to be memorable or entertaining. On the one hand, I’ve told stories about afternoon tea with famous fire-starting musicians who turned out to be polite, and generous and not at all like their stage persona, on the other, I wrote an 800-word email based on the hunt for a ripe avocado at the local supermarkets.

The only things they need to do are to entertain and keep the reader reading to the end, where you can present a lesson and the day’s offer.

Story => Lesson => Offer.

The skill isn’t in the telling of the story, frankly, it can be about anything you want… the skill is to turn that story into a lesson.

Look back at this article; I started with a story about Major Tunde, it’s what you’ll remember later, I then used that story to talk about how you need to use stories to get your audience to the lesson, which was to use stories in your writing in case you missed it and finally it got you to this point in the article where I can remind you…

That there are only a few copies of Write to Earn left at the launch price, and the new module is being added next week once the price goes up… you’ll get the new module included at the launch price. (The new module is all about how to write articles and emails that convert readers to buyers) Drum roll, maestro, please.

Paid subscribers also get access to all my communities, courses, and books.

Years ago I wrote a book for my community members about how to be Successful in Internet Marketing, it’s not one of those …Do this and do that type books it’s more of a this is the mindset you need to succeed type book. (You’ll find it in one of the community posts, it’s called I Can)

One of the sections talks about how people are afraid to actually try things.

What puzzles me is when do people start to get scared of failure?

In the book I tell a story about the first …and only aeroplane I ever built.

It must have taken me 2 months or so to get the bits I needed and it involved a lot of sneaking around building sites when there was no one there. (Did I mention I was probably 7 or 8 at the time?)

Anyway, I finally got everything I needed to build my plane … mostly long wooden planks and my sisters roller-skates for the undercarriage. I had also built a long ramp and it was ready to go on it’s maiden flight. It couldn’t fail.

I remember I didn’t have a flying helmet so I made one out of an old plastic ball I had… eat your heart out Mcguyver !

5 – 4 -3 chocks away – 2 – we started to roll down the ramp 1 – Fly you, bugger Fly

Did you know you have a tailbone and you can break it?

Can you believe it didn’t fly? ..I was shocked once I came around.

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I didn’t really learn my lesson as I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to get various motorcycles that I maintained myself around a track. The point is stuff we do is supposed to be dangerous and scary it’s one of the reasons we evolved. What would have happened if our ancestors had decided that rubbing 2 sticks together and making fire was a bad idea because it might cause a few burns?

What would have happened if they looked out of the cave and thought that hunting a mammoth was dangerous so it’s probably not a good idea to do it.

Ok back to reality now.

When was the last time that someone created an email list and got horribly injured? When was the last time a Blog went feral and hunted down it’s creator?

Internet marketing isn’t dangerous, it won’t hurt you. You’ll either not achieve anything or you’ll suddenly find you are successful and you can change your lifestyle to one you want. The more you do, the more chances you have of being successful

Come on! Show some of that pioneer spirit. The majority of my readers are from the US , UK and Australia . 150 years ago, think what your ancestors were up to … travelling across continents looking for new lands and opportunities, making a living with their own hands, being adventurous … what are you planning to do tonight? Watch the Biggest loser? (is that still a TV show?)

So what are you going to do? Sit at home watching TV or take a leap into the unknown?

Stop putting things off, find one thing you are a bit dubious or scared of doing and just do it… Now, … don’t put it off any longer… do it.

Build a list

Create a product

Do a Video and post it on YouTube

Ask someone for an interview

Make a personal blog

Whatever you do, do something….. Make your Ancestors proud!

Share what you are going to do in the comments … I seriously am interested!

Challenge One… come join the community if you haven’t done that yet, if you have, make a post and introduce yourself or tell us what you are going to do outside your comfort zone this week

Paid subscribers also get access to all my communities, courses, and books.

Back when I started in 2005, I built hundreds of blogs, sometimes up to 10 a day. Eventually I had over 1,000,000 pages indexed in Google, do you think for a moment that I wrote all of those?

Did I Hell! I used an early 2000s version of AI, the word spinner.
Which basically worked like this:

This {Morning|Afternoon |Evening} I took my {wife| daughter| dog} to the {beach|park|pub}

That line above alone gives me 27 different opening sentences.

If I add the following: Unfortunately, it was {raining | cloudy | closed |snowing}

We now have 108 possible opening sentences. I could go on, but I am sure you get the idea. LLM’s and AI are nothing new.

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I just wanted you to know where I am coming from with this today, especially when I say | think | worry (joking!), we’re approaching AI and writing all wrong, and it might be time for a straight conversation about it, because the debate keeps getting treated as black and white when it really isn’t.

I checked the first few articles in my Medium feed, and they were all AI, 100% pure AI, there was no effort to even make them look human. Let’s start there, in anyone’s book that should be classed as AI slop, there was nothing human in them.

On the other hand, lot’s of good, useful and interesting articles have elements of AI in them, information pulled from previous content the writer has written, a framework that gives the writer somewhere to start from.

I used AI to lay out and plan my content for a few months, each morning it would give me a topic and the key points that I should cover. For the past month I’ve written with no AI input.. It hasn’t improved my writing one bit… in fact, my writing is probably worse because of it.

We’ve all known for months who uses AI. You spot the same tells often enough (Random Tuesday again!) that you start recognising AI content from the opening paragraph. In fact I’ve noticed that I used to use the em-dash quite a lot , now I feel compelled to remove it, and it sucks!

Now, on Substack you know for certain if someone is using AI, because they have turned off the ability to check with Pangram and added a statement about what they use AI for.

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AI detectors have been notoriously bad up to now, but the latest versions (i.e Pangram) work differently and are scarily accurate. I know this because I have been testing it relentlessly for the past 2 weeks.

I’ve tested my own content against AI versions of my content, I’ve taken an AI article and changed almost every line, and every time its verdict has been closer than I’d expect.

There is no hiding place, now your content is either AI, AI-assisted, or 100% human.

So this is where the black and white comes in there is no room for anything else, and that’s a problem, because AI can help you to write better content when used properly.

A lot of AI content really is slop, there is no denying that. You can usually spot it a mile away, it’s bland, with no flavour or seasoning, and looks nothing like a human would write… it’s boring and it won’t help you to retain readers.

But a lot of AI-assisted content reads no differently from something written by hand, and I don’t think most readers could tell the two apart if you put them side by side.

This brings us to the important question, do people actually care whether an article was improved by AI along the way, or do they just care whether they got some value or insights from it?

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Could AI genuinely make some writing better, and are we too busy arguing about everything being AI slop to recognise the nuances?

As I said earlier, I used to get AI to map my content out for me based on what I’d written before and what I knew worked, then I’d write the actual piece myself. These days I write everything, start to finish, and AI doesn’t come anywhere near it. I honestly don’t think it’s improved my writing by one iota.

With all the testing I’ve been doing and documenting in the community, I’ve spent the best part of 2 hours a day for two weeks running different types of articles through Substack’s built-in AI scanner, I’ve been watching the score swing from 80% AI down to 28%, back up to 88%, then down again, over simple changes.

I’ve managed to take a 100% human article I wrote 10 years ago and get it to 64% AI-assisted by simply breaking a paragraph up into single lines and adding a closing sentence.

I learned a lot about how it works, but none of it has helped me to improve my writing.

AI hasn’t had your experience and working knowledge of what’s worked for you and what hasn’t, it will never (maybe I shouldn’t say never) be able to add your special sauce to an article, so why worry so much about it.

Instead, let’s focus on whether an article is useful or a waste of time.

So.. let’s get to the point… I’m considering turning the detector off on my own account, not because I use AI to write my content but because it is a distraction, and sometimes it might improve an article to have AI refine my chaotic style. I mean the article I published yesterday would definitely have been improved by Claude giving it a better shape.

I’d replace the ability to detect my articles with a statement saying exactly how I use AI and howI don’t.

Tell me what you think, are the constant assumptions of AI slop getting tiring or is there a balance we should strive for between the use of AI to improve your writing and using it to write your content?

I’m genuinely curious…

In case you were wondering…

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I’ve been an online marketer for over 21 years. When I started, I struggled to build my online business for almost a year. Exactly a year to the day I started, I was still earning just under $15 a day.

Eight weeks later I was earning $180 a day. Nothing had changed apart from the fact I stuck with it. I had wanted to give up so many times and probably should have. 15 years later I am glad I stuck with it.

This guide is designed to help you get started and earning quicker. This is the type of thing I pass on daily in my community, The Systematic Marketer Inner Circle. It’s a friendly place to gather if this article resonates with you. (It’s free to join)

“The best time to start online marketing was 21 years ago. The second best time is now.” — Me, stolen from a Chinese proverb

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Getting Started

This guide is a quick no BS guide to building your online business. It comes from 21 years of working online and coaching others to make an online income.

There are no shortcuts, loopholes or ninja tactics. If that’s what you are looking for please stop reading. You need to start with realistic income expectations. Set yourself simple targets and try to beat them.

Choose Your Business Wisely

Choose something that fits in with your skills and your lifestyle, recently I’ve seen 2 people complain in forums about the business they have built.

The first created a YouTube channel but because the topic was “Car Mechanics 101” each video took 15–20 hours to complete. That wasn’t sustainable.

The 2nd built a large email list but hated writing emails, because of this, she hadn’t sent an email in 2 weeks. That’s not a business; it’s an unused expense.

“The biggest mistake people make is flitting from one thing to another.”

Focus...

If you have 6 hours a week free, choose something that you’ll enjoy doing in those 6 hours. If you don’t like writing... don’t create a blog or a newsletter.

Focus on One Thing

When you’ve chosen your business, you need to focus on it 100%.

Create your offer, find your audience, then be relentless in engaging with them. The biggest mistake people make is to flit from one thing to another, hoping that something will click for them.

Everything will work if you apply yourself to it.

Flatlining

“Most online businesses flatline for 3–6 months. Most would-be marketers give up before 3 months.”

If you look at YouTube channels, blogs or most online businesses, most flatline for up to 6 months before getting traction.

Unfortunately, most people will give up after 3 months and try something else for another 3 months. Then give up again. You must stick with whatever you do so ensure you have a great offer.

The Offer Is The Key

If you’ve got traffic and your business isn’t working then there is only one thing wrong, your offer. Change the positioning of your offer, don’t be too hasty to change the price, it’s rarely the problem.

A great offer will always convert to the right traffic.

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The Passive Income Myth

The days of throwing up a few blogs with recycled content or AI-generated content and earning a living are long gone.

If you hear anyone talking about their amazing system that generates passive income, walk away.

“Passive income doesn’t exist, it’s a myth that’s been peddled to gullible marketers for far too long. Just like non-online businesses, income needs to be earned with sweat and hard work.”

Building a passive income is a myth, it’s 99% certain that it won’t happen. Every online business needs constant input, whether it’s building your list, creating regular content or posting on social media.

Choose wisely, and you can build any online business in less than 75 minutes a day.

Take Action

Look for an income that is reliable and repeatable, monthly commissions or subscriptions are a great source of income that will give you stability while you build your business.

I would recommend building your main offer around monthly recurring income if possible, there is nothing like knowing you have a regular income in the current financial climate.

“Those that publish can succeed. Those that don’t publish can’t.”

Try to do something every day to advance your business, create an article, create a video, create a social post, send an email… do something every day.

I challenge myself to create and publish 5 articles each week that will help grow my business. In addition, I try to add Videos, emails or Substack notes, they all count and help growth.

Master Techniques

Everyday we get bombarded with ads for tools that make marketing easier. You don’t need most of them. Most of the techniques you need to market online are ones you learned in Kindergarten.

Basic Psychology

Remember when your best friend had something you wanted in their lunchbox and you offered them something from yours BEFORE you asked for the thing you wanted?

That’s the Law of Reciprocity in action.

Wordsmithing

Using words to convey your story. Don’t just write emails or articles, tell stories.

We’ve all listened to and told stories, translate those to your posts and emails.

“Build your business using free tools and by mastering a few basic skills and techniques.”

The #1 Secret

Build engagement with your audience before you try to sell to them. That’s it, there is nothing more!

You can sell to an engaged audience with nothing more than a post and a payment link. No sales page, no membership site, no webinars. I 100% believe that you can build your online business by just using some of these basic skills and tools that are available to you for free.

Medium, Substack and Gumroad provide everything you need to create content and find an audience Google gives you everything you need to create offers and free guides, Reedsy give you the ability to create books, it’s all there, just waiting for you to use it.

You already have and know everything you need, you just need to dust it off and use it.

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Make it Happen

Choose your business carefully, craft an offer your audience needs, focus on engaging with that audience using the skills you have and present them with a well-crafted offer.

Identify the problems people have, this is the “itch,” it’s your job to provide the “calamine lotion.”

That’s how you succeed and make money online. It’s not complicated, it’s not difficult. It just takes time and effort and a determination not to give up.

Time + Action=/__u/thesystematicwriter.substack.com/Profit%3C/strong>

The Plan

“Be honest with yourself, are you prepared to stick with your business when you want to give up?”

Step 1 is to look for a business that will fit in with the time you have available.

Step 2 is to find an audience that you can engage with.

Step 3 Find an offer that will appeal to that audience.

Step 4 Constant action no matter how small is better than no action.

Step 5 Be honest with yourself.

Is your business realistic given the time you have spare and your skillset?

If not, walk away now and start over with something that is realistic and that you’ll stick to.

Reality Bites

“No man is an island. Never be afraid to ask for help or advice.”

I’ve mentioned this before but it’s worth mentioning again, it generally takes around 3 -6 months to get traction for an online business, unfortunately most people give up before 3.

Create a plan to move your business closer to your target every day, you may not see any immediate improvement but it will come.

In your plan your targets should be realistic, not: “I want to earn $10,000 a month by this time next year,” but: “I want to get 1 subscriber a day for the next 7 days,” or “I want to sell one course a week this month.” That will allow you to surpass and increase your targets on a regular basis.

Important: Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

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Key Points in 300 Words

This is taken from a forum post I made…

“It’s ALL about the OFFER, nothing else matters as much.”

1. Pick one thing and stick to it for at least 6 months it normally takes that long for things to work or for you to master them.

2. You don’t need half the tools you’ve bought. (If you are a newbie, you don’t need expensive tools like ClickFunnels, SamCart or an expensive autoresponder!)

3. Communication is the one tool you should master. I know marketers who make 100K+ a year with a social post and Messenger or a personal Gmail account. I once I sent personal emails to 40 subscribers and generated a conversion rate of nearly 50% on a mid ticket item. I also know several marketers who only have a Facebook group and a PayPal link or a $9 skool community and yet earn a full time income. It’s all down to communication with their audience.

4. The OFFER! It always comes down to the OFFER. If you don’t have a good offer or don’t understand your offer you’ll never succeed. Your offer will dictate who your target audience is, it will dictate the messages you put in front of that audience. It will dictate your success.

5. All successful campaigns are temporary, so never get comfortable. There is always something around the corner that will cause you problems, so expect them, take them in your stride and move on.

The Next Steps

Take Action

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” — Colin Powell

That’s it, build a daily habit and a system that works for you, as you get better at it add a few more simple things, if something isn’t working, drop it and try it again later. If something is working or you enjoy it ..stick with it.

You Can Do This

Remember to keep things as simple as possible, you don’t need expensive tools and you simply must not jump from shiny object to shiny object.

We’ve all done it and I can tell you from experience you’ll never succeed by changing your business all the time.

Ask Yourself: Do I want an online income or an online business, and proceed accordingly.

Thank you for reading this, I sincerely hope you apply what I show you and succeed online, it can be a great lifestyle.

If you need any help or advice, please contact me I am in the community every day, or you can pick up one of the last launch copies of Write To Earn (and I’ll include the next quarter’s module for free)

Paid subscribers also get access to all my communities, courses, and books. included

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