Everything I’ve ever learned about selling starts with

THE LIST

It’s true. I spend the better part of each morning reading as many blogs, magazines, and books as I can in an effort to find information to make our businesses better. And everything I’ve learned either boils down to the list or can be made so much more effective when it starts with the list.

The list in this case is your audience and base of customers.

Priming the pump

I’ve said before that “build it and they will come” only works in the movies. Businesses, websites, and products often launch to a trickle of interest. If you work hard (and you’re lucky) that interest can build over time. But wouldn’t it be nice to finally launch something that takes off like a rocket ship?

Nathan Barry did just that when he launched his latest book Authority. All of Nathan’s books are self-published and promoted. Authority had $26,872 in sales in the 24-hour period after it launched. At this point Nathan is pretty well known in self-publishing circles. But a lot of that is due to the way he markets himself. And for his book and product launches, he relies heavily on his audience of about 10,000 to prime the pump. Nathan’s list is a group of people who have already expressed interest in what Nathan has to offer. Before Authority, his 24 hour sales record was $26,679 for his Designing Web Applications product. Jealous of those numbers? I know I am.

Testing the waters

Have an idea but you’re not sure if it will take off? You can do what most people have traditionally done: spend time and money investing in the infrastructure (a website, retail store, etc). Then spend time and money marketing it only to close the doors a few months down the road if things don’t take off. Even if you do your homework (market research), what people say they’re willing to spend money on is often different than what they actually spend money on.

Instead, you can use email to test the viability of your idea with a minimal investment in time and money. You can easily create a landing page that highlights the benefits of your idea and capture the email addresses of those that are interested in it. Then use the number of people who “sign up” to gauge whether it’s sustainable or not.

Getting started

There are a number of services out there for newsletters but I really like MailChimp. They have a free plan if you have under 2,000 subscribers and send fewer than 12,000 emails a month. This should be more than enough for people just starting out. And even if/when you outgrow the free plan, you’re lucky, because that means your audience is growing! And I think you’ll find the financial rewards of that will more than offset the minimal monthly charge for their paid plans.

Here is a great Freelance Switch tutorial on creating a free email newsletter with MailChimp.

Speaking of lists

I wouldn’t be doing myself any justice if I didn’t take this opportunity to mention my own newsletter. I send it monthly and it contains more tips and advice (that don’t appear on this site) designed to help us grow our businesses. I’ll also send you a free WordPress users manual right away when you subscribe. And don’t worry, I’ll never share your email address with anybody. For any reason. I hate that too.