I want you to imagine something. Nearly 40,000 orders, almost a million dollars in sales, then one morning it's gone. That's exactly what happened to Etsy seller Courtney Nichole. No warning, no appeal. She built her business on someone else's platform that she was renting, and that's exactly what's happening with most people.

Your email list is something that you own, and today I'm gonna show you how to build one. So stay with me and I'm gonna share with you some really cool things to get you moving. All right, so let's dive right in.

You know it. I've seen it out there way too many times. People build their business on rented land, and they're not truly building something that they own and that they can hold onto. The email list, your email list, is the number one thing that you own.

And a lot of people have said email is dead. Well, I'm here to tell you it is absolutely not dead. It is the one major asset that you need today to make sure that you secure your business, not only today, but 5, 10, and 20 years into the future.

All right? So let's dive in. The first one to understand, this is the first key that you need to understand, is that you are building on rented ground.

So when you go to Facebook, when you're on Instagram, or you're on YouTube, or any of these platforms that you're using, they are essential in building a business. There's no question about it. Social media, video, all those things are absolutely essential, and you need those to build a business and build an audience.

But the very first goal that you should have, and this is absolutely key, is to take them off something that you're renting and put them on something that you own. And this should be the absolute goal of using social media or any platform that you don't own. See, because if you do constantly rely on those platforms, at some point the rug could be pulled out from underneath you, and this is just a reality.

This has happened so many times over the years, and I can't begin to tell you, I've watched people build incredible assets online. I actually saw a woman one time who had over a million subscribers on YouTube. Her channel actually got hacked, and she lost access to her channel, lost all that work and everything that she had put in.

So if you think that building an email list is outdated or it's old or it's old technology, I'm telling you right now it's not. And there are a lot of people that would lead you to believe that, but it's just not true. You need to build an asset you own. It's the number one thing that you own, and you should be able to do it very easily with what I'm about to share with you.

Now, number two, the point number two is you don't need a big audience to make real money, and I'm living proof of that. Now, I have generated over the years well over 200,000 leads, maybe more. I mean, I'm just guessing, probably being pretty conservative here. But the truth is, my active list right now is very, very small.

And I make multiple six figures a year in my business due to that one email list. And I have worked my email list for many years, and this is something that is very important. So the size of your list does not matter, okay? It really doesn't. I know some people that have very small lists that earn hefty six figures because they have an engaged audience.

So I just want you to know that the size of your list does not matter. It's all a matter of how you engage with your list. So, very simple to do, very important for you to understand. A large list is not necessary.

So let's get into point number three here, and point number three is what you use to build your list. You really need a simple freebie. Now, you can go out and do this. We're in a day and time where AI is really big. It's not hard to create some type of a freebie.

Now, I will say I have shifted away a lot from PDFs and things like that. They are absolutely beneficial. You can use them. The problem is today is that people's attention spans are very short. So if you're going to create some type of a freebie or a PDF or a giveaway, you can do that, but you wanna make sure that you've got something that's going to really engage them and give them something that really matters.

I'm a big fan today with AI of creating some type of an app, an app that people can... you can create super easy. It can take you 30 minutes to an hour to create using AI, using a tool like Replit, which I use. I absolutely love Replit. If you wanna check that out, you can look at the link in the description to that and see. You can get some free credits to use it.

But you can build your own app that you can put online and you can give that to people. It engages people much more. So those really work. But you could create a guide, a PDF, a template, an app, something that walks people through a process and helps them solve one major issue that they need help with right now. I've had some of my clients create a weight loss calculator, a diet plan generator that help them give them something very specific to their specific needs.

So you know your customers best. You know what they need, and you can create something around that. And of course, you can use AI to help you research that and flush out the idea. Okay?

So let's go on to point number four. Now, point number four is very important. Every subscriber that you have on your email list is worth money, okay? It is a proven fact that every subscriber is worth money.

Now, the key is many people, they treat their email list... I think one of the best quotes I ever heard on this was from a woman named Yara Golden, and she said the quote, she said, "Most people treat an email list like a late-night booty call." And I heard that and about fell over laughing because it is so true. Some people create an email list, they rarely ever email it, and then they only email it when they have something to promote. And the truth is, if that's all you do, then you're probably not gonna get great results from it.

And I see it all the time. I just got two emails yesterday from people who haven't emailed their list in literally three years, but they got something they're gonna launch, and they want you to know about it. So the truth is, like, you really should not do that. If you have an email list, you should be sending emails very frequently, and we'll get into that here in just a second.

But the truth is, every subscriber is worth money. Now, it is proven that every subscriber should be at least $1 to $5 on your email list, okay? And if you're using it and you're showing up consistently, then that should be the case. But you also need to learn how to write some good emails, okay? So keep that in mind.

All right, so point number five, and this... I kinda already mentioned this, but I think it's important to make as its own point here, and that is you need to show up consistently. If you built an email list and you have subscribers and you are not showing up consistently, if you are not sending emails regularly, you are not building a relationship with those people. You see, know, like, and trust means showing up consistently. And a lot of people get afraid to send emails to their list once they've built it because they don't want people to unsubscribe.

But let me share with you this. When people unsubscribe from your email list, that is exactly what you want. You want the people who are not interested to leave. The goal is, in a funnel or an email list, is that you let the emails do the work. You see, imagine if you had to talk to people one-on-one over and over and over, but let's say you send an email out to 100 people.

That's a whole different thing. You can send out one thing that goes out to 100 people, engage interest, and if two people raise their hand, then awesome. But let's say five unsubscribe 'cause they're not interested. That's great. You want to get rid of those people 'cause if they're not interested, you're letting the technology do the work for you, and that's so important.

I cannot understate the importance of an email list today. Many people put this off. Many people, they do not... They just don't put importance in it. They think it's all about the followers, but it's really not, my friends. It's really not. It's about how many leads can you get on an email list, nurture that list, and sell at the same time, and that is the goal.

Now, one of the things to writing really, really good emails is obviously you need to know what to say. So I actually put together a list of over 300 power words that you could use in your emails. You could feed this into AI to help work some of these words in. But if you want it, go ahead and look at the link in the description.

It's called my Copywriting Power Words Cheat Sheet. You can check it out. And again, I'm giving you this as more of an AI asset that you could feed into AI if you're using AI to help you write emails. But I know this can help you.

I hope this video helped you. I hope you got some value from it. I hope that you understand the importance of building an email list today because you are building on rented land, and I'm seeing this still all these years later.

I've been involved in this for almost 20 years now, and I cannot stress it enough. I'm always pushing the fundamentals. The fundamentals are not followers, my friends. It's not subscribers on YouTube. It is how many people are on your email list and how are you engaging them. If you can get that part right, you can go out and build an amazing business.

So am I wrong here? Leave me a comment below. What am I missing? I'd love to know. All right?

And if you have a question, put that down there as well. Maybe we'll answer it in a future video. All right. Appreciate you.

Go out, build your email list, create that freebie, and start driving people to it. You won't regret it. Have a great one. See you in the next video.