Val Selby [00:00:06]:

Hey, this is Val Selby and after over 20 years online, I can track where my mindset has blocked me. If procrastination, impostor syndrome and a lack of focus have been blocking your biz, then Val Full Volume is here to help you see choices you are making. Get ready to use your expertise to collaborate like a pro as you create the business of your dreams. Now is the time to make changes and live your best life. Let's get to it!

Val Selby [00:00:36]:

Alright. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. If you know where that's from. My God. You are old like me. And it's okay. So I wanna talk to you today about emails. Hopefully, you didn't just tune out.

Val Selby [00:01:02]:

This came up in, the summit that we had a couple of weeks ago, a month ago now, and the mindset around emails is insane of what we go back and forth on. And emails become the bane of so many of my clients' existence. They build them up. And to me, I know, yes, at times, I've had email issues of not sending out emails, and it was because I wasn't clear. I wasn't clear on what I wanted to do, what I wanted to talk about. So spaghetti at the wall was happening and I'd be doing emails and you never knew what I was gonna talk about in the emails. Right?

Val Selby [00:01:52]:

And so for some people, I get that. I get that that is is an issue of why you're not emailing. It's not that you don't know what to say. It's the fact that you don't even know what you're doing yet. And not that I think that we all know exactly what we're doing at all times or, you know, we're all experts at everything. It's the fact that you haven't figured out what you want to do, who you want to talk to, what you want to tell them, what expertise you do want to bring to them. So let's get some key stuff in here and get you emailing more. Because why do you need to email more? Hands up.

Val Selby [00:02:32]:

Anybody? Anyone? Bueller. Why do you need to email more? What's the point of building your list, collaborating with people, joining bundles, joining summits, joining giveaways, growing your list if you're never gonna talk to them. There's no point. No point to building your list. If you are not in in fact, if you are not going to email your list once you get them, don't get them. Just don't even bother building your list because you have to be talking to them. I know. There's gonna be a lot of tough love going on. Believe me.

Val Selby [00:03:10]:

Because most of this stuff, you're just gonna have to get over it. There's no other way to do it but to just do it and just decide that this is important. In fact, go hush up a little bit on that one because that's on the list. I actually have a list again today, so I wouldn't forget some things. But why do you wanna email your list? Why do you want a list? You could go into, well, they would help people blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, you don't. That's not why you want to have a list.

Val Selby [00:03:45]:

All of that stuff is extra. You want to have a list because you want to sell because you are in business and in business we sell. That's how businesses stay in business. We sell. If you're not talking to your list, you're not selling. It's just fact. You're not selling, so you're not growing. So are you really in business? Just think on it.

Val Selby [00:04:12]:

Just think on it. So that's why you need to - that's why you need to be emailing is because you need to be selling. And the more that you do it, the easier it becomes. So one, let's just start with tough love immediately. My number 1, stop saying out loud and in your head that you can't email is too hard. Stop it. Because as you are saying saying it, especially if you're saying it out loud, all you were doing is was self sabotaging like we just talked about last week. You're absolutely self sabotaging it, and you're self prophesying.

Val Selby [00:05:00]:

When you say it, that's what you do. So by saying it's too hard, blah blah blah, yes, you are correct. It is too hard because you have just made it so. So stop. Stop telling yourself it's too hard and I don't know what to say. What if you decided instead, I am just going to email my list today 2 sentences. Actually, a sentence and a question. I'm gonna do a check-in sentence, and then I'm gonna ask them a question, and that's all I have to send today.

Val Selby [00:05:37]:

How does that feel besides maybe weird? What if that connected with the perfect person, your perfect new client, your perfect new customer. What if just that one email connected and brought you in? Your next best customer that wants to work with you, buy everything you've got constantly. What if? You don't know until you do it. So stop telling yourself that you don't know what to say and it's too hard.

Val Selby [00:06:10]:

Number 2. We get done what we prioritize. And because if you're telling yourself that it's too hard and you don't wanna do it, that means the email is probably not very high in your priorities, right? But last week, remember I was talking about the whole marketing thing and how I thought I had done great on marketing. My brand new launch when I did it, you know, 5 years ago or, you know, whatever it was. I don't remember what product it was. And I thought I'd done so well, and I had prioritized the sales page. I had prioritized the graphics. I had prioritized the videos, the course, the ebook, the check list, you know, whatever else was in there, I had prioritized every single piece of that over emailing and all of that other stuff is a complete waste of time if you're not gonna email and tell anybody about it.

Val Selby [00:07:16]:

Therefore, emails bump up on my list now as a priority. I actually like to get them scheduled ahead of time for launches so that I don't even have to think about it. So I don't even have the opportunity to sabotage and let other things get in the way. And I will tell you right now, as of this recording right now, I still have times. I have times where I have to do the marketing emails, and it feels like, so boring. And I put it off. I keep moving it in my Asana. Next, I will do it tomorrow.

Val Selby [00:07:54]:

I'll do it tomorrow. I'm gonna do it tomorrow. I'm doing that right now. I have done that this week. As of this recording, I am human. I am absolutely human. I own my humanness, and it doesn't feel fun, so I haven't made it as a priority. But you know what is fun? What is fun is seeing conversion of the emails and then bundle sales or giveaway sign ups.

Val Selby [00:08:20]:

That's fun. So that's why the marketing emails are our top of my priority list for today to get them scheduled, but I do like getting things like that that don't feel fun, I need to work on figuring out how to make it feel more fun, but right now it doesn't. This week, it does not. So I like to get them scheduled so that I'm not doing it, okay, well, today's Tuesday. I need to get it out, or, you know, today is Thursday, I need to get promo number 2 out. What if something came up and it was really easy for me to just continue to move it? Then I'm not gonna make sales, and that's horrible.

Val Selby [00:08:59]:

It's horrible. I have bills to pay. I have people to pay, so I have to get those marketing emails out. I also have to, at times, really pay attention and bump it up as a priority. Emails are a priority. Now I wrote stuff, and I think I had it out of order because I wanna talk to you about how are you doing your emails and newsletters? What is a newsletter to you? And I know some of you are gonna think that I'm talking directly to you because we probably have talked about this before, but, you know, in the PLR world, it's a thing for these emails that are a fucking laundry list. There are 450 links to every single damn product that has been released yesterday, the day before, and it's a ginormous laundry list. And some of my clients that I talk to about this, they're stuck in that rut of doing this.

Val Selby [00:10:06]:

They are absolutely stuck in the idea that if I don't add all of the links, I'm going to miss out on the sales. However, I've talked to them about the fact that I don't even read that shit. I open it, and I'm like, whatever. If it wasn't at the very top, I ain't got time. And I'm definitely not gonna click that little link down in my Gmail that you have to click on it to open up the full email because it's so fucking long. I might be a little passionate about this. It's so fucking long that you can't even read it all in my regular Gmail. I have to go and open it up so that it's the full down there.

Val Selby [00:10:41]:

And a lot of the times now, I'm unsubscribing from those as well. And we work on the fact that how about if you change it? You know, look at your stats for 1. If you are doing the laundry list emails, look at your stats. What is actually converting? And specifically look at where those links are in your email to see where they are converting because how many other people like me are not opening that entire email? So if it's not in that part, which is a really long part in my Gmail and it's down in that other section that I have to click read the full email and opens it up in another browser tab, if it's only in that top part, then you're wasting your time on all of those. And I know some of these people putting these together, it takes 2 hours a day to put these together. 2 hours, and it's boring ass work. No way in hell I am doing that. I don't even get that why that's a priority.

Val Selby [00:11:48]:

That would never be a priority for me. I'd have to be making a lot of money from that to our email that I'm writing. No. No. So pay attention to that. Is it something that's converting? If it was converting, you would be doing it more. You wouldn't care that it was 2 hours of your time because you would be getting paid for your 2 hours of time. But if you hate doing it, then stop.

Val Selby [00:12:16]:

Stop. Stop doing the laundry list if you hate doing it. Stop doing the laundry list if it's not bringing you enough money for your time because if something's taking you 2 hours and you're only making a few sales and you've got, you know, $25 in commission for your 2 hours. Was that 12.50 an hour worth it? I don't know. You have to have the answer. It has to be worth it to you. So stop doing emails that you don't like doing. Switch it up.

Val Selby [00:12:57]:

Switch it up. Maybe do it once a week if you're doing the laundry list. Maybe do it once a week. Maybe do it twice a week. But on those other days connect with your people. Connect with your people. Go in detail about one product that you're really liking, and sell your products first. 1st.

Val Selby [00:13:23]:

Sell your products. So just pay attention to what a newsletter or an email means to you. You know? Do you have a good idea of what it means or do you have this idea of what you're supposed to be doing, of what you should be doing, and you don't want to? So that's why you don't wanna make it a priority because you feel like you have to do it a certain way. This is your business. You don't have to do anything any way. You're good to do it your way, whatever that looks like, as long as you're sending emails. So really pay attention. Are you also, are you asking too much of yourself.

Val Selby [00:14:06]:

Are you telling yourself that you have to email every day? And so then all of a sudden you're just like, oh, I don't have time. I don't wanna do it every day. Well, then don't do it every day. It's better to email 3 times for the week, then 0 times for the week. So just get into that habit of setting up the priority of I'm gonna send out 2 emails this week. I'm gonna send out 3 emails this week. You know, just up your ante, up your ante of what you're already putting out there. Yeah.

Val Selby [00:14:41]:

And be realistic with your schedule. If your Mondays are super crowded with stuff to do, my Mondays are usually really, really busy. So if I'm going to get Monday emails, I'm not a big Monday email person because my inbox is so full on Mondays that I barely read anything, I'm pretty much mass delete because Mondays are the big day that everybody emails. So I tend to not email often on Mondays because I'm just for when I'm working on other stuff for the week. And for 2, it seems ridiculous to be in that mass that everybody else is probably mass deleted as well. But that's just me. That's just me. I don't know.

Val Selby [00:15:21]:

But I do know that if I'm going to send out a Monday email that I like to get it scheduled, you know, the week before, because I know Monday mornings are always just, like, a mad dash to really crank out the week. Healthy or not, it's just how it works. Let's see. So then what did I skip? Oh, it didn't really skip. I kinda touched on it because to become regular in your emails to start regularly emailing, you just have to start, and then you build a habit, and it becomes a positive habit. And then you start seeing sales come from it and engagement come from it and sales, and then you're like, all right, this is a little bit more fun. This is the word that I'm getting the feedback that I want, and it becomes a priority, but you just have to start. Gotta start.

Val Selby [00:16:13]:

So what are you gonna email? What are you gonna email? So I am talking very specifically to one person in particular that this question came up to. If you are ready to podcast, hosting a podcast, then you already have the information to send out. Once a week, you should be sending out I'm gonna use the word should. Once a week, you should be sending out your newest podcast to your list. That's 1. That's already 1 off out of the week right there. An easy one if you've been running your podcast for a while, an easy one is so, like, my episodes come out on Tuesday, so that would be a Tuesday. Thursdays, maybe I talk about a previous episode.

Val Selby [00:17:03]:

There's 2 emails for the week just with the podcast. If you have a launch that's coming up in the future, start nurturing your list for that topic. So what are the things that you are going to be doing in that launch? What kind of questions are they gonna be having? What questions could you answer now before they even get to the sales process? You know, warm them up for 2 weeks. Write a little email series. A lot of the times, I can sit down and I'll start writing an email, and the next thing I know, I'm like, oh my gosh. This email is getting way too long. So then I can take out pieces of it. I can break it up into a few emails.

Val Selby [00:17:54]:

Then if you are warming them up on that topic, all of a sudden in 2 weeks, you're like, well, boom, you know, this topic that we've been talking about, here it is. I'm going to go into much more detail on this topic can help you. So those are very specific ones because I know that that was a conversation that we were having. But, also, if you've got blog posts, those are instant emails as well. And make sure that you're going through the old posts just like you would be repurposing those blog posts over your social media and over and over and over and talking about them, you're gonna do the same thing with your list. You're gonna cover the same topics a lot as well. Because just remember, if you've got 15 to 35 percent open rate, that leaves all of those other people that didn't open it.

Val Selby [00:18:47]:

So a few weeks down the road, you can talk about the same topic again or even the next week, you can talk about the same topic again. Put some new spin on it. But one of the things about your expertise is you're gonna be talking a lot about the same topics, and that can get a little weird feeling, it takes a little bit of adjustment. And even then, sometimes it just feels weird because you're like, oh my God, I'm beating a man over the head with it. That's a yes, that is. That is the point. That's why they're there. They're there to get beat over the head with your topic, your expertise. They want it all.

Val Selby [00:19:21]:

That's why they're there. Which leads me to another thing that I didn't write down. They're there because they want to hear from you. They signed up for your list knowing that you were going to contact them. So give them what they want. Give them what they want. Now I have gone through different spurts of actually creating the emails. There's times where I will sit down and I will write out a bunch of emails at once, and I will get them scheduled.

Val Selby [00:19:53]:

There's times that I don't feel like doing that. I go with my flow and my energy and what I'm feeling like and and what I'm actually seeing it happen. So if I'm going with the flow and then all of a sudden I'm noticing that, well, that flow is I haven't emailed 2 weeks, then I have to stop that flow and I have to go into scheduling again. Right? It's just a matter of being aware. Maybe even do a tracker of some sort. I'm old school. I have a desk. I'm hitting it right now like you can see it.

Val Selby [00:20:27]:

I have a desk calendar. So I will even come on here when I know I have not been being good about emailing. I will even come on here, and I will leave some kind of symbol on the day of the month that I have sent emails. And that way, it's a nice visual for me to go, oh, okay, well, look. Yeah. If I'm doing a heart on I sent emails on these days, and now we're at the end of the month and I'm only seeing 4, that's not okay. That's not okay for me.

Val Selby [00:21:00]:

So if you need the visual, put it down on there. Other ideas for sending out emails, they got on your list through some kind of opt in or freebie usually. Go into more detail about that. Bring it back up. Send them back to it. If it's a download, go, hey, you know what? It's been a few months. Did you go through this? You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna talk about the stuff that's in here. You know, invite a brand new series, bring it back to their attention.

Val Selby [00:21:32]:

Get it out of their computer graveyard where they opened it up and then never to be seen again after they went through it the 1st time. Bring it back. Why not? Just reeducating them on stuff that you know they want because they downloaded it. Alright. If you need more tips, more specific help with emailing your list, getting out of your way, getting out of your own way and actually emailing your list. Hit me up. Love to chat with you about it. Hit me up email, contact form, or reply to any email I send out for sure, and we'll get you emailing.

Val Selby [00:22:12]:

We'll get you more comfortable about it and get you sales, which is what we all want, right? Alright. Chat at you later. Thanks for being here.