When people sign up to your newsletter, the first letter they get should be a personal message from you to them telling them what they can expect as a subscriber and why it’s a good idea to stay subscribed and read every single email you send them.
Almost no one does this.
Your first message sets the tone for everything you do later. If you don’t set the right tone up front, it’s going to take you a lot longer to “warm up” your readers before they’ll buy something from you.
When you make your first few emails about them and their needs, they’ll start to wonder if you have something for them to buy. That’s a good position to be in because it puts your readers in a more receptive mood when you actually do present them with a direct offer.
Put your own agenda on hold for a minute.
Remember this… Perception is reality. In other words, whatever someone believes to be the truth is the truth to him or her.
With that in mind, isn’t it in your best interest to “control” (as much as possible) what your readers believe to be the truth? You can control (to a great extent) how people perceive and react to you by carefully presenting yourself the way you want them to see you.
If you want your readers to respond to you in a positive way, you have to give them a solid reason to by giving them what they want before expecting to get what you want. This will become a lot clearer as you read on. Remember, people care about themselves first.
I’ll give you a non-Internet related example…
To a certain extent, many people will have an idea in their head of what I’m supposed to be like just by looking at me, but since I believe that the opinion I have of myself is the only relevant one, people tend to see me as I purposely present myself to them.
To give you an idea of what I mean… one night (about 2:00 am) I was on my way home from a friend’s house and I stopped to get some gas. Turns out, the gas station I went to wasn’t accepting gas cards that night so I wanted to use the ATM inside.
I walked up to the window, introduced myself to the attendant on duty and then asked the 5′ 5″ or so guy behind the counter if I could come in and use the ATM because my card wasn’t working (pointing out my car) and I needed some cash to buy gas.
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Side Note: Knowing that people care about themselves and what they need before even thinking about you and what you need, I gave the guy what he wanted before expecting what I wanted.
I wanted inside the store and he wanted to know that anyone he let in wouldn’t be a physical threat to him. So I purposely presented myself in a way that allowed him to see me as someone who not only would not hurt him but as someone who he could trust enough to let his guard down with.
Whether that was true or not, that is the person I purposely presented for him to see and I was completely congruent with that.
By congruent I simply mean that nothing about my behavior or the look in my eyes betrayed the image I purposely put in front of this person. Everything I said and did agreed with the idea I wanted the attendant to have of me.
If you don’t completely understand what I just said, keep reading it until you do. Yes, it’s that important.
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I already had enough money to get some gas (more than enough to get home) but I saw this as an opportunity to see if I could get into the locked gas station based on my attitude and my words.
If the guy didn’t let me in I just would have gone to another station so he wouldn’t see that I already had some money.
Now think about this…
I asked a guy smaller than myself who was protected by a locked door and bulletproof glass if he would let me (a man he didn’t know) into the store around 2:00 in the morning.
Now, I would have completely understood if he didn’t open the door but he did and on my way in he said two things…
1) “Well, I guess it’s ok because you don’t look like you’re going to rob me.” I ask you, what did he have to base that on? Only on the way that I carry and perceive myself. I know I wasn’t a threat to him and was able to project that by making my intentions clear to him before asking for what I wanted.
2) The second thing he said was to another guy behind me that tried to walk into the store… “Get back or I’ll call the cops. You can’t come in!” Again, why would the attendant let me in but not the other guy behind me? We were both to 6′+ 200+ men trying to get into the store and I got let in while the other guy had to leave under the threat of arrest.
Just to make my point; the gas station attendant had nothing to base his belief that I wasn’t going to rob him on other than my belief that I wasn’t going to rob him and my ability to get that across to him.
What does any of that have to do with creating the type of relationship with your readers that allows you to get them to buy basically anything you choose to promote?
Think about it…
People have nothing to base their opinions of you on other than the person/image you purposely or accidentally present for them to judge. As soon as you do the same things most of your competitors do, you get labeled as on of them even if you’re not.
That’s why it’s so important to make your intentions crystal clear right from the start. Do something that your competition hasn’t thought of doing because they’re only thinking of themselves and what they want. Not what their readers need from them first.
Believe it or not, people can pick up on your intentions.
If they can’t (because you haven’t made your intentions clearly known) they’ll just guess at what your intentions are and for whatever reason, whenever someone has to guess at what your intentions are, they will almost never think of anything positive.
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Side Note: Did you notice how many times I’ve used the word because so far? Some of that is natural conversation but a lot of it was purposely put there to (shut your brain off) get you to automatically accept what I said before it. I’m purposely leading the way and not giving your brain a chance to question me.
In other words, I was filling in the gaps between what I said and what I wanted you to hear so that you wouldn’t consciously think about or guess about certain things. I told you A is true because of B instead of just saying A is true. If I had just said A is true then you would have tried to figure out on your own if it was but when I say A is true because of whatever, people generally accept whatever answer you give them even if it doesn’t really make sense.
Whenever you leave gaps in what you say, people will try to connect the dots on their own. That’s what the brain does. It fills in the gaps between what you say and what you don’t say with the most logical (and most often the worst) explanation of what you mean.
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Your intentions (or at least what you can get others to believe your intentions are) have the power to move them to do things for you they wouldn’t dream of doing for anyone else.
To borrow from my earlier example, I made it clear to the attendant what my intentions were while the other guy wanting to get into the store simply tried to walk in behind me.
He just wanted to get into the store and he wasn’t thinking about the feeling of security the attendant needed. That led the attendant to automatically assume that he was up to no good.
The only thing that separated me from the other guy was the fact that I introduced myself, carefully stated my intentions and asked the attendant if he would help me out and gave him a “because” reason.
That applies everywhere.
Are you just trying to quietly slip into people’s email inbox or are you introducing yourself and clearly stating your intentions for being there so they can feel comfortable about letting you into their space?
Unfortunately, people have been conditioned not to expect much from free information so clearly stating your intentions is an absolute must. If you don’t, people will automatically assume that you only write to them so you can send them advertising.
That may be true but you don’t want people to believe that.
Too many people are teaching you to build your list without teaching you what to do with your list as you build it.
Just about everyone who joins your list will at least read the first message you send to them and make up their minds about you based on that first email. Knowing this, doesn’t it now seem obvious that your first email is the most important and that you should do everything in your power to make sure people have the right “picture” of you and your intentions in their heads so they don’t draw their own conclusions about you?
Letting people draw their own conclusions is almost never good.
Don’t leave it up to your readers to figure out why you have a newsletter because they won’t come up with a good reason. Tell them why. Tell them why they should want to be a subscriber/stay subscribed and why they should listen to what you have to say.
Practice making that extra effort to positively influence the way you are “coming across”. Practice is the only way you’re going to learn how to do this. You will start to understand (just like I now do) that you can make people see you any way you want them to.
How else could I be escorted inside of a closed gas station by an attendant who told someone else directly behind me (who looked like me) to leave or the cops would be called out to arrest him?
The only major difference between me and the other guy who had to leave under the threat of arrest was the way that I came across to the attendant. I came across exactly like I purposely wanted to.
It was a calculated effort on my part to project myself as being someone who the person on duty could feel comfortable about coming from behind bulletproof glass and unlocking the door for.
If I could do that, what could you do if you made the effort to change how people perceive you?
And that isn’t the only time I’ve been escorted inside of a locked gas station late at night. I tried six more times (just to prove the first time wasn’t a fluke) and got let in four times again where the attendant quickly locked the door behind me. The other two guys just wouldn’t go for it but hey, you can’t get your way with everyone.
There are three things you can do right now to change the way people see you. How people see you mainly has to do with the type of person you purposely or accidentally present for them to see.
With that in mind …
1) Evaluate your current image. Are your readers doing what you want them to do? Are they buying from you? Are they at least taking the time to look at the products you recommend to them? If not, take an honest look at yourself and ask yourself if you’re presenting a person that is worth (or appears to be worth) listening to and buying from.
If not, take steps to make yourself be or at least appear to be that type of person. Use the next two steps I’m giving you to portray the image of someone who your readers can see themselves looking to for answers, guidance and support on the way to achieving their goals. All people really care about is their goals and anyone who seems to want to help them reach those goals.
People will evaluate you based on how much they think you can help or hurt them on the way to what they want. That’s why it’s so vitally important that you give the best information you can.
2) Take a good look at your surroundings. Generally you want to do the opposite of what the majority of other people do because being a part of the “herd” will get you what the “herd” gets. A small share of whatever they’re fighting over. You have to remove yourself from the group and do what it takes to show your readers that you are different from the average free information publishing, commission-hungry, only care about themselves marketers out there.
Only people who do what others aren’t doing get noticed. Period. If you’re doing the same thing everyone else is doing then why would potential buyers pay any attention to you at all? You cannot have a “me too” business. Take some time to figure out what others in your market (your competitors) are doing so you can see how to consciously make yourself look better than they do.
It’s as simple as that. What you want to do is put yourself in a position where your readers see that you are making an effort to connect with them while the majority of the other newsletters and email courses they’re subscribed to are full of ads, recycled junk written by someone who’s desperate for a commission check.
3) Figure out what your readers want and give it to them without thinking so much about what’s in it for you. I know that doesn’t sound right but what you have to understand is that people are loyal to other people who are loyal to them. You can’t expect your readers to do something for you when you aren’t willing to do something for them first so you have to be willing to be the one to initiate the relationship. Extend your hand and invite your readers to accept your invitation.
Your main job is to serve your readers. Not to get them to buy from you. They will buy, but only when they feel like you’ve done a good enough job of catering to their needs first.
Why Do You Publish A Newsletter Or Email Course?
Is it so that you can send out ads for whatever products you happen to be promoting at the moment? That’s why many publishers send out free information and I can’t really fault them for that because that’s just what they were taught to do.
You’ve been told that building a list with thousands of subscribers on it is the way to make money online. While partly true, the other part of the equation has to do with how many people on your list value your opinion enough to go out and buy something you’re promoting.
So again, I ask you… “Why do you publish free information?”
Your first answer should be to SERVE the needs of the people who have taken the time to join your list.
They didn’t have to join.
No one forced them to.
Only by taking an active interest in the needs of your readers will they in turn take an active interest in your needs. Sounds simple but it’s easy to get blinded by the dollar sign and forget that actual people are subscribed to your list. Not mindless robots with money.
When you can figure out what the needs of your readers are and strive to fill those needs, you won’t have any problems making as much money as you want with your list.
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