It's not a question I came up with. It comes from Dean Jackson. Says Dean: [...] [wait for it...] [gotta tease it a bit more...] [I hope you will appreciate the significance of this simple statement...] "What would you do if you only got paid if your client gets a result?" This does not mean I work or sell stuff on commission only. (Though that can be a good model.) Still, thinking about only getting paid on results has been incredibly sobering to me. Am I selling something where I ultimately don't expect anybody to get real-world value from it? If so, why am I selling it? And vicey versy. If I have to take a bet on my customer or client succeeding, what all would I do to help them succeed? Beyond that, who would I even entertain working with or selling to, because I have a good hunch they will succeed, with or without my help? It's maybe worth asking yourself these questions when you start thinking of your next offer. (Btw the "result" in Dean's question above doesn't have to be major, ultimate outcome in your customer's or client's life. Even a small, concrete win can be valuable.)

I've been recommending list swaps as a way to grow your email list. The #1 objection I hear is: "My list is too small to make it worth anybody's while." How small is too small? 4 people? 100 people? 200 people? I was recently on a call with a list owner who has a list of 1,500 entrepreneurs. He said he's worried his list is too small to do list swaps! That dude asked for my advice about approaching people for list swaps. What I told him is: 1. A fantastic lead magnet and solid emails will go a long way. Right now, I'm doing a list swap with somebody who has a list of 150 people... because he's willing to custom create a lead magnet I know my audience will get value from. Plus his emails are solid. 2. You can always offer to make things right. If somebody's list is bigger than yours, you can offer to promote them multiple times, now and then again in 6 months or in a year etc. (In the end, that's the deal I ended up striking with the guy in point 1.) 3. Money can plug the gap. You can always offer to both promote the other person AND to pay them something to make the exchange more equitable. So? Are you convinced now? Are you gonna rush out and start doing list swaps? I hope so. But if not, I gotta tell you my dark-psychology conclusion here: I don't think list size is really what's holding people back from doing list swaps. Rather, I think it's the same old culprit that holds back pretty much everybody, pretty much all the time: Fear of rejection. Putting yourself out there... and having somebody tell you no or ignore you... and feeling so small and worthless because of it. If that's your situation, then I'd suggest, in the words of business coach Rich Schefren, that you put your business goals ahead of your personal development goals. It would be great to not care about being rejected, or to just do stuff in spite of this fear. But while you work on that, it can make sense to look for alternate routes to achieve your business goals. I'd like to point you to an opportunity to do so right now.

A reader forwarded me another marketer's email that said, "Are email agencies fucked?" And she (the reader who forwarded me the message) asked: "I wanted to know what you thought of this - is the writing on the wall for email copywriting?" That was two days ago. Yesterday I saw a promo (in my email inbox) with the subject line, "R.I.P. Email Marketing." And last week, I polled my readers on a different question, and got a response from a reader (and member of Daily Email House), who runs a 6-figure info publishing and coaching business. He wrote: "The sales from emails are really down, I sell maybe 10 % of my revenue through email, the rest is from ads and I am sending good emails, if I say so myself and almost daily." Is something in the water that I failed to notice? Or is email marketing dying? Any thoughts or better yet direct experiences?

Work in Progress Wednesdays... What are you working on? Doesn't have to be complete... Doesn't have to be majestic... Just real. What's your current project? Or what's on your todo list for today?

What's your favorite ridiculous, fun, or parody song? Comment below with a link to it on YouTube. (You can find mine in the comments below.) And if you want to know WHYYYY I might be asking you this pointless question... I wrote an email once about how even entertainment gets boring after a while, if it's the same kind of entertainment. So baseball team owners introduced fireworks to juice audiences beyond just what the athletics could do... A Croatian pop singer (possibly) leaked a sex tape to get more interest and sympathy than her singing alone could do... And I'm taking a break from our ongoing sports-like teaching tournament to talk about music. Same for you. If you've been giving people interesting anecdotes, or analogies, or any other form of infotainment over and over in your emails, that's good... ... but you need throw in a changeup among all the fastballs. Such as for example, working in some pop culture, in the form of your favorite ridiculous, fun, or parody song. So list yours below, and then, for bonus points, work it into your email today.