Hello friends, as some of you may be aware, ThriveCart has had a couple major outages this year. Personally, I haven't been able to process a single transaction since March 5. Curious if anyone uses a different cart that works better than this thing that looks like a late 1990s website? Unfortunately I also use ThriveCart for course delivery so migration would mean moving all my courses too. Thank you for your time and hopefully your words of encouragement.

I've been going through a presentation by Jeff Walker of Product Launch Formula fame. Here's a bit that particularly stuck with me. Says Jeff: === When I'm looking to run a launch I'm as much interested in what strategic benefit does it have to me in addition to any money I could make. I'm a big believer in thinking long term. That's one of my competitive advantages, that I always think very long term. === Sounds really good, except.. ... what does "strategic benefit" really mean? And how do you think long-term? I'm not just farming for engagement here. I'm genuinely asking, because my time horizon is like 3 days. To help me with that, I just sat down and made a list of "10 kinds of strategic benefits of a launch." I wanna hear yours as well, because I'm sure I'm missing some. If you're game, we can play the usual "Battleship" format. If you name a strategic benefit that's on my list, I'll confirm it. If you name one I don't have, I'll give you one I have that hasn't been named yet. The game goes on until I'm sunk. Your turn.

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.

Following up on the topic of following up... Do you have a system that works for you to follow up with people 1-1? I'm not talking about the content of the follow-up, but just something that gets you to follow up in the first place, when it's actually time to do so. I can imagine a few options, all of which I've tried without amazing results: 1. Just remember it's time to check in with people who dropped off 2. Have a spreadsheet of people I've reached out to, and revisit it daily to see who it's time to reach out to again 3. Use calendar reminders for each individual unfinished conversation that say, "Did person x respond?" For reference, there are currently about a dozen people I should follow up with in case they don't get back to me, based only on conversations that happened over the last week. Maybe, if I had a good system, I would realize there are actually even more promising conversations that I've let drop. Do you have a system that works for you? If you do, let me know, I'm all ears.