"Hey man, why did you take so long to start your email list?"
The simple answer is that I actually spent the last couple of years doing the thing rather than telling people my theories about how to do the thing.
I spent two years slowly but surely building my social media audience without using hacks, tricks, giveaways, auto DMs, or any of that shyt. I set myself the goal of reaching 500 followers before starting my list because honestly, if I couldn't build an audience of 500, then really I didn't focking know what I was yapping about and no one should listen anyway.
Also, my life changed a lot.
I moved in with my girl, I got a 9-5 where I now write for a living, and I worked with some great clients for my solopreneur business that I never thought I'd get the chance to work with.
$100k a month clients - the type that really broaden your horizons on what can be achieved in business.
All of this took up the majority of my time, working 40+ hours a week for my 9-5, writing for my clients before work, after work, and on weekends, settling into the domestic bliss of living with your girl... plus then you gotta build your own business?
The email list was always in the back of my mind, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't one of those people who rabbited on about things they'd only read in books.
That I actually went out there and got the experience of putting my theories into action.
I attracted all the success I've had so far using the power of my copy alone - no email list, no cold DMs. I literally posted on Twitter every day until people started to ask me to write for them.
I even landed my corpo writing gig thanks to my shytposting. Of course, posting and waiting for inbound is an incredibly inefficient way of running a business. But I was confident in the skills I had - thanks to my background of absolutely inhaling books ever since I was a kid, going to university and getting an honours degree in English, teaching English on the Amalfi Coast for three years, learning how to sell by selling horse racing bets at a racecourse, and then persuading people to take jobs for almost minimum wage as a recruiter.
All of that shyt had me confident about being able to attract clients, and I did. But working with clients was never the end goal. I'm happy to write for others - but essentially, you swap one employer for many. Every time you write, you write an asset that works for them rather than for you.
The email list was always the goal.
My goal is to build an email list of subscribers I can truly serve - my kind of people who think the way I think about bizness. Or if they're not thinking that way yet, they're interested in learning how.
Then I want to build offers that help the people on my list rather than writing copy that helps people on someone else's list. People who never knew it was me helping them or persuading them to help themselves by buying another company's products.
So that's why things took so long.
It's been a busy couple of years - in fact, I've never felt this busy in my life. All of the old bad habits have been dropped simply because I don't have time anymore.
Copy is the first thing I think of when I wake up, and it's the last thing I think of when I go to bed. I spend all day writing - something most just really can't understand. I switch brand voices on and off like a lightbulb. I jump into writing for myself, my clients, and for my 9-5. Writer's block doesn't exist for me. I probably write close to a hundred hours a week. But when you love something, it doesn't feel like work.
Anyway, enough about me. Self-indulgence almost over...
If you'd like to take advantage of this level of insane dedication to something so simple everybody thinks they can do it, but so few actually do well, then go here:
James Perkins
