Yesterday I wrote a post about unwritten rules that strengthen groups. That post got... 10 likes and 5 people to comment, in a group of 483 members. Maybe it was a particularly bad or irrelevant post. In any case it seems like a good time to talk about written rules. I recently joined a Facebook group. The group is about the same size as Daily Email House, but it's much more engaged. People are enthusiastically introducing themselves in the group as soon as they join (as did I)... ... spontaneously writing up new posts and starting new discussions all the time... ... commenting on others' posts all the time. How? Simple. The group has written rules stating that you have to introduce yourself when you join, and participate once you're inside, or you will get kicked out. And the moderators follow through on these rules. What do you think about that? Please comment below. Or don't. But I've decided to start doing the same: Periodically and randomly and brutally removing people who don't participate inside Daily Email House. Your choice.

My theory why it's easier to make friends when you're young: Because you do exciting stuff together. You play sports together... You go to the beach together or go for a concert together... You sit in class together (not so exciting) and study for the same exams (kind of exciting, if you're a nerd) and hate the same teachers (very exciting). When you grow up, interactions with others become reduced to: Sitting together at the same coffee shop... Talking... Nodding and smiling at each other. It's hard to really form a bond over coffee and some nodding. It takes cooperation, activity, a shared goal with an emotional outcome, even if it's trivial, to bind us to other people. And as for in-life, so for on-line. Which gets me to my question for you... How can we as a group here, inside Daily Email House, do stuff TOGETHER? What would that even look like? Something that isn't just sitting in the same coffee shop (or Skool group)... "talking" (eg. posting or commenting in here)... "nodding and smiling" (liking posts or comments)? Something that involves cooperation, actual activity, a shared goal? I don't know. I hope you have ideas, and that you will share them. I'll consider them all earnestly. And if you've been in this group for any length of time, you know that if you toss up an idea, there's a good chance it will become reality. Thanks in advance.

I heard marketer Sean D'Souza say once, "If you wanna solve your problems, go and solve somebody else's problems." ... as in, the advice you give to other people will be the advice you yourself can apply. Yesterday I got on a call with a list owner. I'm helping him monetize his list better with a $1k+ offer. As the call was going on and I was giving advice about what to do, I thought to myself, "I should really go through the recording of this and write down what I told him so I can do it myself too." I did that just now. I found 10 specific pieces of advice I gave the dude, which is relevant to me too, and maybe to you. Here are 3 of them: 1. If you have a client, create interesting content for your own list or offers around: - AB tests you ran for your client - Feedback you keep giving the people your managing/mistakes you keep seeing - Behind-the-scenes of what you're doing - etc. 2. Use your recent success as a proof element for a new offer you create around that proof element 3. Whatever you have, sell the advantages of that against the alternatives. (If you have prerecorded content, sell that against a live workshop. If you have a live workshop, sell that against prerecorded content.) Mindblowing tactical info? Probably no. Very valuable if you actually implement it? Probably yes. In any case, whether or not these specific bits of advice are relevant to you, the bigger point still stands: Note down what advice you are giving people. And then apply it yourself, to your own business or life. Have you given out any advice this week, mindblowingly tactical or not? I'd like to hear it and maybe benefit from it. Share it in the comments below.

The past couple days, I've been writing emails about what I call the Most Valuable Offer: A live workshop, delivered on a specific day that's coming up soon. In my experience, the Most Valuable Offer is most valuable because it: * Provides a quick injection of cash * Makes your list come alive and keeps it from rotting * Creates an asset you can keep selling for years to come * Forces you to move and deliver something now rather than never (relevant if you're prone to perfectionism and procrastination, like me) Since I know Daily Email House members are fond of cookies, and since I have recently found out they really hate oatmeal raisin cookies, I've baked up a batch of chocolate-chip Most Valuable Offer cookies. Would you like one? Specifically, the cookie I'm offering is made up of the following ingredients. I'm offering to directly work with you to: 1. Figure out a sexy, exciting topic for a live workshop you can deliver, which is likely to sell to your audience now and in the future 2 Come up with the structure + content for your Most Valuable Offer, so that you actually deliver something interesting and practical to your buyers, without going crazy or feeling like an imposter, which they will consume and (gasp) maybe even implement 3. Help you sell it via a launch to your list, and hopefully bring in millions or perhaps billions in sales, or barring that, at least create a real asset you will own and be able to profit from forever And now I guess the big question: Why might you want my help instead of just planning, creating, and launching a Most Valuable Offer on your own? Simple. Because I'm offering you my help NOW. Not "some time soon, maybe next month, as soon as I get this other project finished etc." I genuinely believe the Most Valuable Offer is the easiest, fastest, and most profitable way for folks to launch their next (or even first) info product, to make good money, and to engage their list. People still don't do it, or don't do it nearly as often as they could benefit from it (myself included).

Good news, everybody: Vinnie Vincent, formerly a guitarist for Kiss from 1982 to 1984, has just released a new album, Guitarmaggedon. Guitarmaggedon retails for $2M. Yes, two million dollars. $2,000,000, for a single copy. I haven't heard the album yet – you have to pay for that, and I don't have $2M in cash right now — but I know it features bangers like: - "Heavy Metal Poontang" - "Rocks On Fire" - "Ride The Serpent" - "Cockteazer" If you're not a big VV fan, you might wonder who or what would possibly pay $2M for a 10-track album by a washed-up, second-rate, 73-year-old rock star. I don't know. I also don't know if Vinnie will be able to sell even a single copy of this album. But he does have something working in his favor. For $2M, Vinnie is not just selling a single digital copy of Guitarmageddon... ... he's also selling the licensing rights. In other words... pay Vinnie $2M today, and you could be slinging Heavy Metal Poontang for the rest of your life, and keeping ALL THE MONEY. I bring this up because I have lately been thinking about the value of tying in an offer to money — whether it ties naturally to money or not — in order to make it feel like your prospect is effectively buying "money at a discount." This morning, I came up with 10 ideas for tying an offer into money [update: 11]. "Licensing" was #3 on my list. I would like to share my complete list with you... but I also want to hear if you have ideas I didn't come up with. So I propose a nice little round of Sunday-morning Marketing Battleship. Here's how that works: Tell me your idea for tying an offer into money. If I have that same idea on my list, I'll tell you so. If your idea is not on my list, you get a hit, and I'll share an item on my list that I haven't shared yet. You win when I'm completely sunk and out of ideas. Are you game? Then fire away below and tell me your idea, or two or three, for tying in an offer to money, and making your offer feel like "money at a discount."