JLD: Fire Nation in the house. JLD here with an audio masterclass on how to squeeze big profit from a small email list. And to break down this process, I have brought Tarzan Kay, who is a launch strategist, an email copywriter, and yes, that is her real name. Tarzan teaches digital course creators how to turn a small email list into maximum profit. And I saw this firsthand, Fire Nation, where Tarzan was all over the leaderboard on Amy Porterfield’s digital course academy, and guess what? She rocked it with a small email list. And we’ll be talking today how you can do the same. So, don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back after we thank our sponsor.

Tarzan, say ‘What’s up?’ to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don’t know.

Tarzan: Okay. What’s up, Fire Nation? I’m Tarzan. So, something that I love to tell people about, because it shocks them, is that before I was in the business I’m in now, I was a lounge singer in Australia. And I would travel up and down and visit – in Australia they have these things called RSL clubs. And they’re basically this gambling lounges, mostly populated by older people. Ozzies love to gamble. So, I would travel to these RSL clubs and boat clubs, and bring my huge, heavy keyboard and sing covers of really silly songs.

JLD: What would you say your favorite cover song is, if you had to name one?

Tarzan: Oh, yeah. It was definitely Outcast. “My baby, don’t mess around.” You know that one? We all know that one.

JLD: Of course I know that one. That’s killer.

Tarzan: Yeah, for sure.

JLD: Love that. That’s a great share, and Fire Nation, you can see that you are in for a treat, because Tarzan’s gonna be talking today about how to squeeze big profit from a small email list. And as I mentioned in the intro, she’s done that, multiple, multiple times. I’ve seen it. So, I can’t wait to dive into this content.

So, Tarzan, let’s be real with Fire Nation. How realistic is it to make, let’s just say, $100,000.00 on a single launch if you only have 1000 people on your email list?

Tarzan: I would say it’s possible. It’s been done. But I wanna be careful about that, because then some people will think, “Oh, I could just go out and buy 1000 subscribers, and then I can have a $100,000.00 launch. Gonna be so great!” But, so, I’m gonna put a caveat on this. Because it depends on the subscribers. 1000 organic subscribers? Totally, it can be done. If they are 1000 paid subscribers that are brand new and you have a low-price product? That’s a huge, huge stretch. So, where the subscribers come from is huge.

And also – and a bigger one is it really depends on your relationship to the list. Like, how long have you been nurturing them for? Do they know you? Do they trust you? Those are really important ones which we’ll definitely talk about today.

And – but also the price of your program. If it’s like several hundred dollars – most clients, when they come to me and they have a program that’s like $300.00 and they’re starting out in the online course game, I’m always like, “Okay. Can we just back up a second and figure out how to make this program like $3000.00 and way more awesome so that you can actually start making some money right away?”

JLD: So, Fire Nation, I love this content because this is where I’ve been coming at for people for a very long time. They come to me. “John, what should I podcast about? What should I start my product launch about? What should my brand be?” All these different things. I’ve been pushing people for years towards this micro niche. They can just be such a big deal in such a small micro niche, at least to start.

And I love using a ballerina example, because we have somebody in Podcasters’ Paradise who was gonna launch this very broad, vague podcast just about overall dance and all these different genres. But when she went through the course and said, “You know what, I’m just gonna niche down and I’m just gonna do a podcast specifically on being a ballerina,” then she didn’t have this massive audience, but every single one of those people were perfect for her niche.

And so, that’s where I really wanna circle around to Tarzan is, if you really dive down and you really nail your niche, and it’s a specialized niche, and you’re the one person that’s dominating that, and you have 1000 people, then you have an opportunity to make serious revenue. Because they’re the right people, there for the right content, who have the exact problems and options and challenges that you want to solve.
So, have you seen people who have done really special, cool things in a micro niche? If so, let’s hear an example.

Tarzan: Yeah, totally. I’ll give you a great example. So, one of my clients – whenever I meet someone that has a really awesome niche, that is what makes me the most jealous. Tell me about your revenue, sure, I’m gonna be jealous. But a really sweet niche, that’s what I really get fired up about. So, one of my clients, her name’s Kim Constable and her brand’s The Sculpted Vegan. And she teaches vegan bodybuilders how to get a body that’s so sexy you could be on a stage and win first prize, which is what she actually does.

And her business is so niched. And what I love about it is, it’s actually not just vegans that are attracted to her. People are attracted to specificity. And that’s why they’re really attracted to her. Lots of people don’t even – they kinda just ignore the vegan stuff. And Kim has built – like, she went from zero to $1,000,000.00 in, I’m gonna say, about 18 months. It was just absolutely incredible to watch.

And I’ve noticed this myself when I’m selling a produce. I have this program and when I sell it, I specifically say, “You shouldn’t buy this program if you have fewer than 500 subscribers.” And ultimately, people will come to me and they’ll be like, “Tarzan, I really want it. I don’t have those 500 subscribers yet, but will you take me? Can I do it?”

So, it’s interesting. I think people resist niching down because they’re afraid it’s gonna – people will say, “Well, I don’t meet the criteria, therefore this is not for me.” But actually, what I have seen is, the opposite happens. The people who meet the criteria are like, “Great. This is awesome for me. I’m getting it.” And then the people who don’t meet the criteria, they’re still somehow attracted to that specificity and they still want it.

JLD: So, let’s say somebody listening right now is launching for the very first time. And let’s say they are gonna take our advice, and they’re not gonna try to be broad and vague and scream into the wind where nobody’s hearing them, and getting into that saturated part of the market. But they’re gonna micro niche. They’re gonna go down. They’re gonna be specific. They’re gonna be passionate and curious about the topic. They’re also gonna have some value and expertise to share, just like Kim can with all of her great content in the vegan body-sculpting world. How big does that individual’s email list need to be?
Tarzan: So, I always wanna make the number as low as possible, so that people feel like they can actually do this. I would prefer to see people have a list of like 2 to 3000. The thing is, is nobody likes doing the work of list-building. Launching a product is so much sexier, so people will be like, “Ah, I’m just gonna launch my online course. It’s gonna be so great.” And they don’t do the work of building a list. So, that’s the thing that I wanna say first. Do the work of building the list and actually nurturing them.

If you have even – but let’s say you don’t have 2 to 3000. Let’s say you have like 500. That’s totally fine, but you’re gonna use way different methods if you’re launching a list to 500 people than you would if you’re launching to a list of 20,000 or 100,000. Because when you have a small list – and this is really the magic here – is you can get so personalized with people. You can start individually reaching out to people on your list. You can make videos for them. You can actually do sales calls with them.

So, if it’s more – think about – okay, maybe your target number is 3000, but if you only have 500 and you’re ready to launch your product, cool. Go for it. I think you can still have a successful product launch, provided the price is not too low. But be prepared to get on calls. Don’t just rely on inviting people to one webinar and sending them a bunch of promo emails. You need to really squeeze that small list for all it’s worth. And that means personalized.

JLD: Let’s talk about some specific tactics for going from zero to 500, which some of our listeners may be at right now, to the 2 to 3000 that you’re looking for. So, if we’re listening in, we’re at zero or 300 or 500, and you’re saying it’d be good to get to 2 to 3000, what are some great ways to do just that?

Tarzan: So, what I see with a lot of my clients and people that are newer in business is they struggle just to be visible. They’re probably hiding behind their job, or maybe, in many cases – like I have this one client, she’s an acupuncturist. She has a really successful business as an acupuncturist and now she is doing an online course and she needs to grow her list. But many people in that position, they sort of hide behind their job and their brick-and-mortar, one-on-one thing.

So, what I always tell them is – when someone comes to me and they buy a package, I’ll give them a special bonus for showing up every single week on video and sending a weekly email. And just like – so, in most cases, it’s just like, be more visible, whatever that means. Like, book podcasts, guests’ episodes, write some guest blogs. Where is your audience hanging out? You can just ask them. You can ask your existing customers and existing subscribers, what blogs do they read? What podcasts do they listen to? And then start, go and pitching those.

JLD: Okay, so, we’re growing our list. People are actually on our list and we’re getting to that magical 2 to 3000 and beyond number. But now we need people to actually open these emails. We need people to actually reply to these emails. What’s your No. 1 tool for this?

Tarzan: Okay, I’m so excited that you asked me this, because I discovered a new tool. So, you and I came together because of our mutual friend, Amy Porterfield, who’s a client of mine. And when I was promoting her program, I added this new tool called BombBomb, and I can’t even – all I could talk about, every live, every interview, everywhere I went, I was like, “I want the whole world to know about BombBomb.” So, it’s this tool and it works right inside my Gmail inbox. And I can make videos without leaving my browser tab.

JLD: Oh, that’s K.

Tarzan: Yeah, it is amazing. And also, I can make stock videos and snippets of text, so when you’re doing an affiliate promotion, what happens is people email you all the time. They’ll be like, “I just bought through you. Yay.” So, I had a snippet and a video ready to go. I could send that email in like literally 30 seconds. And people feel so cared-for and excited. So, that’s post-purchase.

But even before they’ve purchased, I love to use a great small-list strategy. It’s like, after you’ve done a webinar, let’s say you were like, “Oh, bummer, I only had like 30 people show up to my webinar.” Great. So, now you can go through your list of 30 people and you can make a personalized video for them. And it’s gonna take you like an hour, because they’re gonna be two minutes. You’re gonna do – go, “Boom, boom, boom.” You’re gonna do it.

The wonderful thing I love about BombBomb is it creates this gif, and it’s like, it just creates a gif out of the first three seconds of your video. So, I always do funny things. Like, I’ll be off the screen and then I’ll slide in in my chair, or I’ll, I don’t know, shake my hair, do something silly to get people’s attention. And people cannot resist.

Another beautiful thing they do is they have an X over the volume. So, it’s just a gif. So, it can’t play. But it has an X and it looks – the instinct is like, “Oh, let me un-mute this.” And then it opens up in a nice clean window and there’s a video.

JLD: Now, does this work on mobile at all as well? BombBomb?

Tarzan: Yeah. So, they have an app, which I haven’t gotten that into. So, yeah, they do. If I’m – I was traveling recently and I had a launch going, so I used it during then, because that’s the easiest way to make videos on your mobile. But for the most part, I use it in my browser at my desk, because I can just crank them out so fast. I looked at my video count a couple days ago because I was working on a blog post about BombBomb, and I have made 131 videos in like six weeks. And I estimate that it only took me a couple of hours. They’re so short and it’s just so fast.

JLD: Nice. And how do you spell it?

Tarzan: BombBomb, like a bomb. B-O-M-B B-O-M-B.

JLD: BombBomb goes, “Boom, boom,” Fire Nation. Make it happen.

Tarzan: Exactly.

JLD: So, Tarzan, you have a lot of advice for entrepreneurs, but one thing that’s – I’ve heard you talk about it in past is how entrepreneurs seem to really resist certain things when it comes to email marketing. What is that thing, or things, that they do resist, and what’s behind that resistance?

Tarzan: Okay, so, before I answer this, I wanna qualify it. I work with personal brands, and what I’m about to say does not apply to ecommerce or big brands. They do not have this problem. But with the personal brands, people hear this all the time: write a weekly email, and write it yourself. But oh my God, is there so much resistance. We have all these beliefs, like, ugh. It’s funny. There is a lot of blocks.

So, the main thing is, people are afraid of unsubscribes. They take it so personally. And I always tell people, “Stop looking at your unsubscribe list. Why are you even looking at that?” Just stop. People are gonna leave. People are gonna come back. That’s a good thing. And in the future, you don’t wanna pay for people that aren’t even reading your emails. So, embrace the unsubscribes.

People think they’re not good at writing, which, honestly, if you don’t write at all, you’re probably not very good at it. But the only way to get good at it is to just keep doing it.

And in terms of doing it yourself, this is probably the most important part. Everybody wants to outsource it. And for a long time, the main arm of my business was copywriting. And the reason why I have switched more to the strategy side is because 90% of the people that came to me should not be hiring a copywriter. They’re too early in their business, and I would tell them, “You have to do this yourself. I can’t figure out what your voice is for you. You have to figure that out yourself, and writing those weekly emails, that’s how you really cultivate a relationship with your list. You write something and they reply. Or sometimes they get mad at you. And that’s how you learn.”

JLD: Fire Nation, stop looking at your unsubscribe list. Why are you putting yourself through that? And by the way, guess what? They aren’t meant for you and they’re costing you dollars. So, just be happy when people unsubscribe, because they’re not meant for you anyways. It’s like people leaving your birthday party. They’re sitting in the corner, being all, “Wah, wah.” You want them gone anyway, so get rid of them. And Fire Nation, put in the reps. Put in the reps. You wanna get good at writing emails? Write emails. You wanna get good at podcasting? You do podcasting. You actually put in the reps and you podcast your face off. You write your face off.

Nobody gets good at anything without doing that thing. Period, end of story. And if you think Tarzan’s been dropping value bombs, you just wait till we get back after we thank our sponsor.

So, Tarzan, we all want a successful digital course launch in 2019. I mean, I’m not gonna put words in Fire Nation’s mouth, but 96% of my listeners, if they were asked, “Hey, do you want a successful course launch in 2019?” they would say yes, because that’s awesome when that happens. How do we set ourselves up for something like that?

Tarzan: So, you take the advice that most people resist and you just show up. Start showing up on a weekly basis for as long – if you start now, and maybe then you’re gonna have a launch in November, and you can make a really long runway. My clients who have the most successful launches, it’s because they’ve been talking about it to their list. They’ve been warming people up for months and months ahead of time. So, if you want – actually, I would love it if you just stop working on your digital course. You can create that after you’ve sold it. That is not the most important thing right now.

Just start nurturing your list. Send them good stuff. Reach out to them. Perhaps do a survey. Start making some personalized videos. By the time you’re ready to launch, you should feel like, “These people are my friends. I know them, I love them, and I can’t wait to bring them into my program because it’s gonna be awesome for everyone.”

JLD: Create your course after you sell it, Fire Nation. I know that’s a very strange concept, but here’s what most people do: they spend months and months and months holed up in their little office and they create this course. And then they announce it to the world, and people are like, “So what?”

Tarzan: “So what?”

JLD: And, “What’re you talking about?” And, “That’s not something that I’m interested in.” Fire Nation, people vote with their wallets. People vote with their purses. Back in 2013, people were saying, “Hey, John, I wish you would create a podcasting course.” Oh, yeah? Well, here’s the deal. Give me $250.00 right now, today, or this weekend. I actually ran a little weekend campaign. I said, “Give me $250.00 this weekend. If at least 20 people that are claiming they want it do this, then in 45 days from now, this course will be ready. Because then I’ll create it. But not until then.” And 35 people signed up over that weekend, and Podcasters’ Paradise came to life 45 days later.

I wasn’t going to kill myself, time, energy, and effort, if people weren’t actually going to pay for it. So, Fire Nation, decide what it is you want to create in this world, and then sell it, and then if it actually sells, create it. And just be honest and transparent that, “Hey, it’s not ready right now.” Or, “It’s gonna be ready at a certain date.” Just share it in that manner and you’ll be just fine.

And here’s a question that I know a lot of people in my audience are asking. Aren’t people already getting way too much email as it is? Do they really need an email from me? What would you say to that, Tarzan?
Tarzan: I would say, yeah. People are getting way too much email, and they’re getting a lot of crap. Most of the email – most of the lists that they’re probably subscribed to, they delete almost right away. And this is actually a huge opportunity to stand out and be the person in the inbox that is actually real. You want – we all know, we all have all these lists we’re subscribed to because we wanna see what the person’s doing. And then there’s like one or two people that when you get an email from them, you’re like, “Oh, yeah. That’s the one I wanna open.” That’s always my goal, is to be that person.

And for me, the way I have managed to be that person is by sharing the good stuff and the bad stuff, and being really real. In the online course industry, there’s just so much – we’re really saturated with, “So-and-so had a six-figure launch,” and then, “This person had 200 people on their email list and made $400,000.00 the first time they launched.” And there’s so much of that.

I actually just sent an email out to my list a couple days ago and was like, “I have this promo, and it was a total bomb. And I’m embarrassed to tell you this, but also, hey, come to my webinar on Friday. I’m gonna tell you all the things that you shouldn’t do.” And I had so many people email me back, and they’re like, “Oh, my God, thank you, Tarzan. Thanks for keeping it real.” And I know that that’s why people are on my email list, and that’s why I have these ride-or-die subscribers, because I always – I just tell them the real –

JLD: Lemons are gonna happen, Fire Nation. Make some lemonade. Now, if we’re taking your advice, Tarzan, and we’re doing the work, we’re putting in the effort, we’re creating the emails, we’re doing all these things, how the heck do we know if they’re actually effective? What metric should we be tracking to judge this?

Tarzan: So, I would say this is the simplest metric, is just, are people replying? If they’re not replying, you definitely have a problem. To me, that’s the single – for any size list, that’s the single biggest indicator. So, for this launch that I just mentioned that was a bit of a bomb, I knew right away that there was a problem because I wasn’t getting replies to my emails, which is important, because then I did a few things. I fixed it. It was okay in the end.

But, so, are people replying? That’s a big one. Because if you’re looking at a target open rate or click-through rate, it can vary wildly depending on the size of your list. Some people will say, “Tarzan, I have a 70% conversion rate on my landing page. How awesome am I?” I’m like, “Yeah, that’s super great, but if you only sent like 30 super-hot people to visit it, you can’t really trust that conversion rate.”

So, a metric that would be really awesome for you, JLD, with your list, would be pretty shite for me because I have a much smaller list. So, I want my open rate to be consistently really high, and my click-throughs as well, because I have a small list.

So, I think people – you just wanna be careful about saying, “Okay, so, I’m gonna look for like 20% open rate and like 2% clickthrough.” It’s gonna be different across industries and depends on the size of your list. So, just look at, are people replying? What kinds of things are they saying? How are they – do they like you? Those are the metrics you should be tracking.

JLD: Are people replying, Fire Nation? Are they asking questions? Are they engaging? Are they acting excited that they’re getting these emails from you? I mean, this are things you need to be focusing on. But let’s be real, Fire Nation, because I know, Tarzan, there’s people right now that are saying, “John, Tarzan, can’t I just automate everything and make sales while I sleep? I mean, I hear other people are doing it. I want to do that too. I wanna go to sleep tonight and wake up $10,000.00 richer. Tell me how.”

Tarzan: Oh, my gosh, JLD, I’m about to crush the hearts of hundreds of thousands of people right now, okay? Most evergreen funnels don’t make money. This is a very, very advanced technique. Clients come to me – almost every client that comes to me wants an evergreen funnel. It’s like, if they don’t say it, I’m just waiting for it on that initial call. Like, “I wanna automate this.” I know it’s coming.

JLD: But, Tarzan, how soon can we automate this?

Tarzan: Oh, yeah. Exactly. That always comes up. Like, “When can I automate it?” It’s like people wanna exit from their business, and they just got in.” It’s like this magical unicorn. Like, “I’m gonna have this evergreen funnel and it’s just gonna make money for me.”

That’s actually not how it happens. And when you see people that do have evergreen funnels, what I see – my clients, what they don’t know is usually that evergreen funnel is part of an ecosystem of products. So, that person with this famous, popular evergreen course, they might just be breaking even on it. But actually, they’re building a relationship with their subscribers. People that have bought something low-priced and liked it are much more likely to buy your high-ticket thing. There’s lots of reasons to have that evergreen funnel, but not for it to – if you want it to support you and allow you to quit your job, well, we need to talk about some other strategies that are a lot more realistic.

JLD: So, Tarzan, you been dropping value bombs. I want you to take a step back right now. Give us one huge takeaway you think would be super valuable for Fire Nation, with everything that we’ve been talking about throughout this masterclass. I know you have a really killer and special opportunity for Fire Nation as well, so talk about that. And then we’ll say goodbye.

Tarzan: Cool. Okay, so, the one thing, and we already said this, and they’ve heard this before, but honestly, this will be life-changing when you decide to email your list every single week. Whether you have 30 people or 30,000 people, just send that weekly email and watch how much it changes your life like a year from now. This is long-game, Fire Nation, long-game. And if you wanna be a successful entrepreneur, you gotta have long-game.

So, for those who do have long-game, I have a webinar coming up on May 14th. It’s called Small List, Big Profit: How To Cultivate A Seven-Figure Relationship With Your Email List. And you guys can sign up at tarzankay.com/fire. So, it’s May 14th, Small List, Big Profit. There’s a couple of times to choose from, but I’m gonna be going a lot deeper into a lot of the stuff that we just talked about today.

JLD: Fire Nation, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and you been hanging out with TK and JLD today. So, keep up the heat. And if you head over to eofire.com and type Tarzan in the search bar, the [inaudible] [00:25:11] page will pop up with everything that we’ve been talking about today. But the call to action here is, get on this live webinar, Fire Nation. Small List, Big Profit, tarzankay.com/fire. That’s Tarzan, T-A-R-Z-A-N K-A-Y, tarzankay.com/fire. Get over there, sign up, learn how to, with a small list, make a big profit.

And Tarzan, I wanna thank you for sharing your truth, your value bombs, with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you. And we’ll catch you on the flip side.