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When I was asking the internet how to start an email list, all of these successful entrepreneurs said the same thing…
In order to start and build your email list, you need to find consistent time to create content to get traffic to your freebies.
Cue the thoughts in my head that started to turn…
🤯 You'll never be able to manage.
🤯 You've never been consistent with anything in your life. There's no way you're going to create weekly content.
🤯 You're too busy to build a list. Just give up already.
Months later, my email list was still at a measly 15 subscribers. In fact, it was doing the opposite of growing… I’d add one or two subscribers, and then the next thing I knew I’d had 3 people unsubscribe, so some weeks I was even going backwards!
I knew exactly why, and I had no one to blame, but myself.
I hadn't been creating consistent content to get traffic to my freebies, like all of the experts said to.
Don’t have a freebie yet? That’s step one - hop across and read these 8 tips for designing a great opt in freebie (aka lead magnet) and then come back!
And to add insult to injury, that very day, a competitor posted their income report online. It was 10 times mine.
She then followed it up by sharing how thrilled she was to have been asked to speak on stage and event, which had been on my vision board for ages…urgh…
Thing is…
I knew the topic better. AND I had way better information than she did, but she was getting all of the things that I wanted and I knew why…
She had an audience and an email list and authority. And I didn't.
She posted consistent content to grow her list and I didn't.
And I knew deep down that I needed to find the time to build my list consistently.
After years of trial and error, trying every strategy that Google suggested, I finally found two strategies which changed my life and ability to find the time and stay consistent with content creation and list building forever, which resulted in an email list of thousands and an income of millions.
So read all the way until the end as I spell those two game-changing secrets that I learned…
First let's start with what every guru will tell you to do and then I'll share how to actually manage it.
Step one, decide on your priorities and align your time with them.
Okay, so if your priority is to build an email list, it means carving out time to create content, but there are probably a few other things pressing for your time too.
You know, the usuals! Health, kids, family, bills, friends, exercising, hobbies, instagram…oh and clients too!
Obviously, if you try to focus on all of these at the same time, you'll end up focusing on none of them.
So next you need to rearrange them into priority order.
Interestingly, when you solve some of these higher up, they automatically solve the ones lower down too.
So for example, growing your business will help you achieve financial freedom. So by solving the one, you're naturally solving the other.
Sometimes priorities clash with each other though. So how did I deal with that?
Simple.
When you've arranged your priorities in order, the one on top wins and you can make decisions without guilt knowing you are getting closer to your goals with every prioritized decision.
But what if you're still not finding enough time to build your list?
This is where you need to get as strict with yourself as the IRS does come tax time. It's time for an audit, but don't worry a time audit, not a tax audit.
For this, a tool like toggle can help track your time to see where it's going.
If your time tracking tells you things keep distracting you from doing what you prioritize, it's time to do what you advise your toddler to do a playgroup - remove yourself from the situation, honey!
Imagine you've decided to take up meditation and you decide to attempt your first time meditating in the middle of a city during rush hour.
If that's the case, you might struggle with distractions.
Sure a Buddhist monk who has done this for years could probably be as then as a sleeping newborn in the midst of all the craziness, but you are a beginner here.
So put yourself in an environment that's easier to be successful and to start and then work up to meditating in the middle of crazy-town.
This could mean finding a new workspace, telling your clients you don't work on Mondays or blocking out the mornings from calls and meetings.
Really figure out what's causing the distractions and eliminate them.
When I created my first course, I didn't know how I'd find the time. I knew I needed to work overtime to get it done, but my calendar just seemed to fill itself.
Helping friends move on the weekend, spending three hours teaching my parents how to connect to wifi, going to birthday parties and baby showers and weddings and reunions.
My time just seemed to get away from me. All of these personal obligations, while totally stuff I wanted to do, except the baby showers, I never wanted to go to those, 😉 kept sidetracking me from my goal.
So I made the very logical decision to move to Bali. Yep, it was the most obligation-free, distraction-free three months I have ever had!
And I smashed that course launch.
Now I'm not suggesting that you need to go to the same extreme here, but alternating the school pickup every other week with another family might be wise if you notice the thing which keeps pulling you away from list building is the school pickup.
To demonstrate the next point, I need to tell you about my new year's resolution flops. In my twenties, every year, my new year's resolution was to eat healthier. And what would I do on December 31st?
Party with my friends in the city.
And what would happen on January 1st?
I'd wake up hungover at someone's house at 11 a.m., drive home, be starving mid-drive and stop at McDonald's… oops…
My goal was to eat healthier… but after my new year's breakfast for the fourth year running was at about the least healthy place you could imagine, I realized maybe I needed to make some different choices, which would give me a fighting chance of reaching my goal.
So be conscious of the choices that you're making.
Take note of what consistently keeps getting in your way and make different choices to set yourself up for success.
So you've…
Decided on your priorities
Arranged them in order
Audited how you're spending your time
Removed yourself from unhelpful situations
Got conscious of your choices and made different ones.
Oh and you can also work to become more efficient too - for example using a hack to embed your freebies in your blog posts like this one!
And steal the best tips for freebies that actually work - like my top 3 best performing lead magnets here!
So what's next?
This one is the big kahuna, the one so powerful you'll find yourself achieving your goals list faster than you can say “go me!!!”
As my therapist would say… go downstream.
Imagine you're trying to water ski.
You stumble upon getting up, but you're still holding on to the rope for dear life, getting battered by the waves as you go.It's time to stop resisting. Let go. Find another way and go with the flow. If it feels like you're drowning, stop forcing it…
Let me explain by telling you something that happened to me…
A few years ago, I wanted to take up more hobbies, so I bought a watercolor painting set and an online course and…
… I never did it.
Everything else seemed to fill my time. Work, life, friends, scrolling the internet, those sorts of things.
And then upon stepping back to look at the situation, I came to a realization.
I hate canceling on people and flaking on things, but if I've just agreed to myself, I'll paint at 8 p.m. tonight, it never happens!
So I decided to go downstream. I booked painting classes and every week without fail, without an appointment in my calendar, I went, I painted, I had a new hobby, I succeeded at my goal!
So work with yourself and go downstream.
Identify what's not working, what works better for you and plan accordingly.
Oh, and take joy into the equation!
There are 100 ways to get fit and if you hate going to the gym, don't go.
Exercise involves moving your body. That doesn't have to be going to the gym.
Think of skittles as the amount of motivation that you have available.
You want to go big and work out five times a week, but because you don't really like going to the gym, so it takes 10 motivational skittles.
Going for a hike with friends, however, only takes two motivational skittles.
So you'll be a lot more likely to be successful if you choose the hike rather than the gym.
So again, go downstream. Work with yourself and not against yourself!
Maybe when it comes to list building, you would hate to write blog posts as your form of content creation, but talking, yeah, that's pretty easy to you.
Then podcast and don't blog.
It takes about 100 motivational skittles for me to show up on Instagram and share my life daily.
So I broke up with Instagram and did something I enjoyed much more and that was YouTube.
I've posted consistently (go check it out over on my channel!) and it takes so little effort because I enjoy making videos. I even have some skittles left over… yum!
Need a little help figuring out what’d be a good fit for you? Check out the quiz below!
So now you've got the time problem of list building solved.
Next you need to know the strategy for building your list, but what exactly should that be?
What's the best way to explode your growth and build a list of thousands?
Watch this video next where I will share how I got 48,000 opt-ins to my email list, exactly how I did it. And I invite you to steal my strategy too.
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