MaryEllen Tribby - Creating Your Own Inbox Magazine

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

What's up, everybody? You're listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast with your boys, Mount Wolf and Joe Fear. Welcome back to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast.

Hey, we're back again. We're back as we're here. Every time you ever turn on this podcast, it's typically us.

Typically both of us. No, no fill ins today.

It's no fill ins.

No, we do have an extra guest in our room.

She smells a little like a skunk. Not gonna lie. Matt's dog got sprayed by a skunk. So.

Yeah, that was like a month ago.

No, there's. There's an essence. You're just immune to it.

I think. I think Joe's imagining a smell.

Smell my hands.

I think a skunk shot on your hand.

Oh, God, no.

She's a great dog. No, today though, we have no fill in co host, but we do have an amazing guest we. We do on the podcast today. Who is it?

This is Mary Ellen Tribby.

Dang. Right, it is.

And we actually came across Mary Ellen years and years and years ago, I think, at like a GKIC conference.

Yeah, we. I know we talked about this when we did a webinar with her, I believe.

Yeah.

I don't know exactly where, but maybe.

You weren't there actually.

Maybe I was not there. We do have separate lives occasionally.

No, I don't believe. I don't think anybody listening to this. I think most people just assume you and I just like, live together, live.

In the podcast world all day long.

We just make each other dinner every night and, you know, watch baseball together.

And we do watch baseball, though.

We do do that together.

Yeah.

Anyway, we do live separate lives. I have a wife and two kids. You have a wife and a kid on the way.

That's correct.

We have separate houses and.

And we're talking to Mary Ellen Kearney today.

Let's get into this. Let's get into this.

So she's just a total badass and we go into her story. So I'm not going to, you know, give you the word for word bio or any of that stuff. She's going to say it way better. But basically she is just a scalability master. And she actually lays out an amazing business model that she actually built at early to Rise, which is an agora company. And now she said that that early to Rise newsletter concept was basically now replicated 300 times. Yeah. And they're like over $1 billion companies. She said. I'm like, oh, so it worked.

What I love about this episode is this is a soup to nuts like, blueprint to build a business. So what she's teaching us on this episode, she calls the Inbox magazine the Inbox magazine concept. And, you know, it's kind of what it sounds like. You're essentially delivering a digital magazine to customers. But we talk about everything. How to come up with the idea for the magazine, what to put in the magazine, how long the magazine should be, how to monetize and make money off it, how to grow it, how to get new subscribers on this magazine, Soup to nuts, everything. No stone left unturned. And she also gave us a real cool resource. You know, we have our notes that we take on this episode, but she also broke down some of these concepts over@mariellentribbey.com evergreen and you can go and check it out there as well.

It's like a. Basically a detailed approach to all this, but definitely hear it from her words. First, she lays down all the steps and. And we, of course, ask her about these little details and relate to it and throw a little bit of curve balls here and there. But, oh, my God, She's. She's got this thing down. And it's such a leverage model because at the end of the day, it stems from having this laptop lifestyle.

Yeah.

Just being mobile when you need to be mobile, if it's for family vacation, just business needs, traveling around, kids, all these things. And I think she said that she actually. I don't know if it was her that actually home. Homeschools her kids, but at least one of her kids are homeschooled, too, so it's like. That's crazy.

Yeah. Yeah.

But she has this scalable business, so she could do it.

Yeah. So she's got. She's got these notes that you can grab@maryellentriby.com Evergreen we have our notes that we're taking on this episode. You can get them for free over at hustleandflowchart.com comp. Those are available for a very limited time. So the notes that we took on the episode, you can get them within roughly a week of the episode going live. And then we take them down and lock them in the vault. So grab both sets of notes. Evergreen profits.com comp. No hustle and flowchart.com comp either one will work.

You can go to either.

We've. We've misspoken it so many times that both those links actually go to the same place.

Just redirect all links that direct there.

Yes.

Like, everything directs To Hustle and fluidchart.com c o m P. Yes.

And we have a sponsor for this episode, a really, really amazing sponsor. And it's a tool that we use ourselves all the time, like almost every single day.

Yes, I would say so.

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Hrefs.com, a h r e f s.com all right, let's go talk to Mary Ellen Tribbe.

Mary Ellen, welcome to the show.

Why, thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here.

Thank you so much for having. Just for showing up. I know we've done, what, webinars together. You're a busy lady. You're doing a lot. You're managing and leading companies. I mean, interesting things. You have multiple companies. That is. Yeah, give us the scoop. You have an interesting background. Like, everything you've done in business, I feel like you do it at, like, a really high level, very scalable. And yet you can run everything, usually by a laptop. It sounds like for a lot of your work.

Yeah, you know, it really. It really. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said scalable. Right. And kind of. You know, it's really funny because in my career, which I have now, I never, ever, ever, like, imagined this as my career. I mean, I went to college. I was actually a theater major in school. I came out of theater. I was in New York City, and I really thought I was going to get into production and movies and all these things. And a friend of mine was working at PBS in New York City. And I said, you know, I'd love to work at pbs. Pbs, get into production there. Well, the only job they had was in marketing. And it's really, really funny because I had never even thought about marketing. I never took a marketing class. I just never thought about it. And I get this job, and I loved it. And it's kind of like that butterfly, butterfly effect where it changed everything, because instead of doing theater and making, like, you know, $50 a week, I was actually working at PBS, making money doing something I was innately good at and really loved it and really a lot. And I just went on from there and just kept going from one great company to the other. And the first lesson I kind of learned there was that I was getting all these calls and that, you know, instead of thinking I was going in for to be interviewed, I was thinking, I'm going to go in there and interview them to see if they want me there. Like, to see if I want to be there, because how I want to spend my time. Because, you know, the most valuable commodity that everybody has is their time, Right? It's something we don't get more of. You know, if I've got three kids and you've got one, I don't get more time. Or the woman who's got eight kids and runs a business doesn't get more time. We've all got the same 24 hours in a day. And I've always said that the really successful people know how to spend those 24 hours. Right? Like, that's the key. One of the main keys to success is that if you look at really successful people, they spend their time wisely. So I really would go. I just went from kind of company to company in each step, getting further and further. And when I moved to Florida, I actually landed a position at Weiss Research. And by this time, I had some real marketing skills. And I kind of went in there as marketing manager, and within a couple years was the president of the company and took that company from $11 million to $67 million in 12 months.

Wow.

And. And then from there, and there's a reason I'm telling you this. And then from there, I went to Agora, and to an Agora company early to rise. And the same thing took that company from $8 million to $26 million in sales in 15 months. And why this is so pertinent is because I did it with the same business model, and it's the same business model that I've been doing ever since I was at Weiss in 2000, which pretty much is that inbox empire. Inbox magazine, business model. Model. A lot of people might think of it as a blog, but it is not a blog. It's an inbox magazine. I really would love to go through some of those steps in just a bit. But why this is important is because, you know, I always knew I wanted to start my own thing, right? Like, I always wanted to start my own thing. But I loved working at Weiss and I loved working at Agora, right? Agora is a great company, Brilliant marketers, a lot of fun. But I will tell you, at this point in my life, I had three kids, a husband, and all of a sudden I heard the words that nobody ever wants to hear, which is, at this point, we can't rule out malignancy, right? I was sitting across from a doctor, my husband holding my hand, and heard those words. And after 21 days of kind of going through the slicing and dicing and doctor's appointment and X rays and all those things, I found out I did not have breast cancer. And everything was great. Health wise.

Good.

Yes. But that night I went, you know, my husband and I were kind of like just talking and I just said, something's not right. I've always wanted to start my own thing, and I think I've got to do it. And my husband said, you've got to do it. And in 2009, during the worst housing market, worst unemployment, Mark, employment, worst stock market that we'd ever seen, I went in to, you know, Mark Ford and Bill Bonner and resigned from the best position I ever, ever had in my entire life, and started my own company, which at the time was working momsonly.com.

So, like, how did, how did that conversation go? I'm just curious how you approach that.

Well, this is really funny because Mark Ford, also known as, like Michael Masterson, sets, he looked at me and said, well, it's about time you start your own thing.

I love it. Perfect answer.

And he said, and then he said, let me invest in it.

Wow.

How cool is that?

I said, thank you so much, but I want to start this company the same way that I've been teaching people how to start companies here at early to Rise. And then he said, well, let Agora, you know, invest in it. You know, let's be a partner. And I said, I can't do that, Mark. I just need to do this. And he's like, okay. And he was just absolutely great. And it still remains a close friend, mentor, colleague, wonderful person. And I will tell you that, you know, in. In about 45 days, I had crossed the six figure line of starting this. And. And then within 10 months, I had made more money than I ever made as a corporate CEO.

Wow. All right, so it sounds like we're gonna have to dig into this Inbox magazine business model a little bit here.

So that's why I love talking about this, because what it allowed me, it not only allowed me to make a boatload of money, it allowed me the flexibility of doing this from a laptop anywhere I want to go. You know, you guys know that I had just recently gone through, you know, a personal loss. My mom passed away, and I travel a lot with my kids. My kids are all athletes, right? Like my dent. My. My youngest is training to be a professional tennis player. She's homeschooled. We travel all the time. My daughter's a collegiate softball player now, but we traveled everywhere, travel ball with her. And my son's a quarter, you know, was the high school varsity quarterback. He just graduated. And we're always going on seven, seven, you know, seven and seven road trips with him. So what I was always able to do, right? I mean, I started this in 2010, working moms only. I started in 2010, and from that time on, I was able to travel with my kids and never miss a beat with my Inbox magazines, right? Like, literally, I will celebrate 10 years of working moms only in January. 10 years. I have never missed putting out an issue, and I have done it from. From Europe, from New Jersey, from California. It doesn't matter where I am. I live in Boca Raton, Florida, right? So it doesn't matter where I am. I can do this. And this is why I want to share this so, so badly with your audience. Because it's a real business model, right? It is a real business model. And what's going to get you guys really pumped, I think what your audience is knowing that you have a real metric of hitting that for every name on your list, or I'm going to talk about that more as a community in a little bit. But every member of your community is essentially worth 50 cents to a dollar per name per month.

50 cents to a dollar per name per month. So when I was at Weiss and we basically built money in markets from zero to now, they have 900,000 subscribers. Okay, think about that. 900,000. 50 cents to a dollar per name per month.

Not too shabby.

Per month. So when I was at early to Rise and how we went from that 8 million, $26 million was going from a list of, you know, 50,000 to 300,000, you know, you know, $0.5 to a dollar per name per month. Okay. So that why I love this, because it doesn't matter if you are a one person show or a huge company. And this is the model that I perfected at Weiss and then early to Rise and then all of my. And the funny part was when I left early to Rise to start working moms only, everybody asked me to consult. I never started out to be a consultant at all, ever. And that became very large part of my business because people wanted to learn how to do this. And that's what the Inbox magazine allows you to do. It gives you a huge platform. Okay. And the real, you know, and one of the first steps with this is really marrying your passion and your experience. So when I was running companies that were financial newsletters, very male, dominant, lot of men in the office, most of whom had wives at home who were kind of taking care of the kids in the house and all those things. I didn't really have that role model of a woman who not only was a CEO of companies, but raising children. Like I said, I have three kids. So.

When I went to early to rise in 2005 or 2006, my youngest was one. I mean, she was one years old.

Wow.

So I had an eight year old, a six year old and a one year old. And I'm running Early Rise. And so really I had to figure out a way to do this, run this business and have this family. And my husband's a pilot and at the time he was flying a lot, so he was not home a lot. Okay.

Oh my gosh. Was that a work at home position or were you actually.

No, no, this was in the office. And that's why we always teach people how to run businesses at early to Rise. One of the things we did, and I was always like, oh, like I had bought the URL workingmomsonly.com two years before I started that company. Before I had that, that health scare. Because I kept saying someday, someday, someday. And then after that, that health scare is like some days here, like it's here right now. And that's when. And then I did the whole thing from home. And that was, you know, and that's when like again, my kids would get. They were still. They were real young then, but they were starting in. The older two were Spartan, starting into their sports. And we knew they were going to be pretty special at it. And then we just kept building and building. So it really Allowed me that flexibility to, you know, to be with them and travel with them and just have this business. And like I said, to be able to take this inbox magazine from zero to more than I was making it early to rise, going in there every single day. I love the folks. I love the gore and everything, but I just didn't want to go somewhere every day, and I wanted to figure out what I could do. So working moms only. You know, I started that to give working moms a healthier, wealthier, more blended lifestyle. Because the whole world balance is kind of like a BS word to me. It's not about balance. It's about blending your lifestyle.

Totally agree. And we talk about that pretty often, Matt and I, right?

When you try to balance, there's always that, like, lopsidedness, right? Like you're keeping score. But when you blend, you know, that's when everything comes together. And so what I did is I started, you know, workingmomsonly.com and what we found out was that we had 30% of the subscriber base were men. And they would say to me all the time, Mary Ellen, you know, I'm not a working mom. You know, I'm a dad, and I have a business. But I, you know, changed the name. And I said, and this is one of the. One of the steps here. I said, you know, I'm not going to change the name of Working Moms only because my advocacy is for working moms. Right? Anybody, welcome. But my advocacy is for working moms. So what I did is I started another inbox magazine called the CDC CEO's Edge. And so basically the exact same business model, the exact same steps, but I pretty much doubled my audience because now Working moms only is 80% women, 20% men. CEOs edge is 80% men and 20% women. So this is why this business model is so awesome, because you can just duplicate it and just pick your audience. So the first step of doing something like this is really, like I said, marrying that passion and experience and working moms only. I had that experience of being a working mom and a passion to have, you know, to have help these people have a healthier, wealthier, more blended lifestyle. And then with the CEO's edge, I really, like, had the passion to be someone's virtual CEO, and that's what it was there for. Just, you know, kind of this business advice. So the exact same, like. So that's step number one is being able to find that. Find that marrying of your passion and experience, and then really step number two is really understanding the difference between a market and topics.

And that's okay.

This is why, this is why this is such an awesome business model because your market is your who. And I really don't like the word list. I mean, we have to say it, it's kind of essential in the online business. But for me, I wasn't building lists. I was always about building a community of like minded folks. And I always, I never thought of someone as a nameless, faceless email address. I always thought about what are these people's challenges, what can I help them with? Right. And when you, when you approach it like that, you are going to make so much more money. It's kind of the difference between, between having a transformational mindset and a transactional mindset. Right, right.

Yeah. It's a community you want to engage with for the long term. There's no use in kind of churning and burning anybody, you know? Right.

And that's like I said, like, I'll celebrate 10 years in January of working moms only and eight years, I think in March of the CEOs Edge. And the beautiful thing about once you define who your market is, your topics are what you share with them. So never start out thinking about Inbox magazine from a topic viewpoint. Start out from the markets and then you really think about who that person is and now what do they want to learn from you? And that really kind of leads really nicely into the next step, which is there's different types, there's actually different little mini models of the Inbox magazine. Right. Because you can have a panel of experts, you can have a single guru, or you can have a kind of a faceless model. And, and out of those three, I really want to talk about the panel of experts because that's really my favorite for so many reasons and me the first reason. And I'm going to use Working Moms only as an example. Or you could use early to Rise, or you could use any Inbox magazine, but with a panel of experts. You know, for me I can't be everything to everyone, but what I can do is I can go out and I can find the best people in any sense, subject and topic. Right.

Experts are everywhere and usually underpaid too.

But like, for me, like, I'm a real believer in like supplements and health and working out, but I don't formulate my own supplements. But I could go out and I could find the working mom, the best person, I believe, who makes the best supplements. Right?

Yeah.

So I can go out there and do that. And that's why the expert, the panel of expert model is so fabulous. Because essentially it's that opw, right. It's other people's work.

I like that.

So now what they're doing is they're supplying you with content for your community, they're supplying you with product for your community, and they're supplying you with the promotional material that you're going to put out there to your community. Okay? So remember I Talked earlier about 50 cents to a dollar per name per month. So as you build this community. And the first year I had working moms only, I didn't have a single product of my own. I only went out and found the best products that I believed would benefit my community. Okay. I didn't. So I didn't even. So when you start out with this model, you don't even have to have a product as long. As long as you care about your community and you vet the other product, that makes sense.

And that. So it's a very. It sounds like a lot of affiliate marketing you do inside the model.

Yeah, yes, absolutely. And then you can develop your own product. And the other thing that's wonderful about that is you're kind of getting the R and D done for you. Right? So before you go out and you create whatever kind of, you know, before you go out there and you create some yoga course for your community, see if they like that. Right. There's plenty of experts out there who have it right now. So see if that resonates with them. Right? So you can do that. That's why I just love that, you know, that panel, the expert model, because you're going to get great. Because experts, like you said, they're everywhere. They want to be published. Most people, most people who have good content, guess what? They're not, they're not good marketers.

So the money's not flowing in so much.

Right, right. And that's why, you know, you know, it's always like, you might find people who, who are great at developing software or writing books or whatever, but they might not be making money. But if you're a really good marketer, you're never going to, you know, you're not going to have a problem. So go out there and find somebody who's great at what they do to be on your panel.

So does that look like a. Is that a rev share model? Typically, with the expert, it can be.

Anything you want it to be. And actually kind of in my, in my report that I want to talk about later, it Gives you a lot of examples. But yes, it can be a reg there, it can be an advertising. You can do it several different ways.

Okay, got it.

But this is what I always did. And I'm going to tell, you know, tell this to everybody. This is a kind of a secret that when I promoted people, right? So basically you first what you do. Cause people get this wrong all the time. They just send promo, promo, promo to the list. But basically send them content from this person because you're giving your audience useful, actionable advice for free. And they're also getting to know your expert. Okay. So it's their, you're sending this to them, right? And now you're following up with a promotion and people are thinking, wow, they just gave me this great issue on, you know, XYZ for free. I bet this is going to be great. And so what I always did, since I owned, I was the publisher, I own the Inbox magazine, I'm, you know, putting that person out there. I actually got 75%. And the content provider got, with the product, got 25% because guess what, they just got a buyer's name.

Oh, yeah. Can't get more valuable than that.

Right, Right. So, so how many times do people that they do this 50, 50 stuff when, when reality is you're giving somebody about a name that's a buyer.

So now they've got, they've got back end. Right. I mean, where's the money? The money's in the back end, right. You've got a name, you know, and they're still getting 25% of the revenue from a digital product.

Yeah, it's amazing. You're propping them up, you're giving them a platform. The audience, they're already indoctrinated. So basically you're teeing them up, assuming that they can do something with those buyer names, saying that they're not marketers. But I'm sure there's probably some ways that you can partner on that aspect as well.

And that's kind of how a lot of my consulting came along from those kind of things. So that's out of those kind of those panel of experts. A single guru. In the faceless model, the single guru is all well and good, but then what you have to do is you have to be the one to continuously give the content every single week. And so what I always recommend with an Inbox magazine is one to two times a week, one to two issues a week. Start out with one to make sure you can do it, get it out there. Because once You. And that's what I said 10 years. I've never missed an issue once. You. You're going to do it. You can't not do it.

It's kind of like a podcast. It sounds like. I mean, it's like us, if we were to miss a, you know, one of our two days per week, like, people are going to be starting to scream at us in our support and social channels.

Exactly. So you're building your reputation, you're building your bond, everything. You know, one of the biggest things I ever learned from Martin Weiss and Clayton Makepeace, because, you know, Clayton. I don't know. People don't know this. Clayton was my copywriter for seven years at Weiss was the element of bonding. Right. That there's nothing more important than, you know, than people trusting you. And a lot of people say, like, they have this thing where they always say that people should know, like, and trust you, and which obviously is true. But then there's one more thing, and this is why the Inbox magazine is so different, which is people should know, like, trust you, but they also should think, I believe this person can help me. Right?

And that. Does that just come with time? You know, with all these different issues? That's just a, you know, they finally trust you enough. We're like, let's do this.

They think so that. So those first. So you kind of are building that. The first is they know you, then they like you, then they trust you, and now they believe you can help you. And that's why I've had so many subscribers for 10 years on working Moms, only because they think of me as their girlfriend, right? They don't. They don't think of me as, like, a faceless person coming into their inbox. They think of me as their girlfriend. And that's why I bet everything I sent them. Like, when I did a lot of joint ventures with Dr. Sears when I first started, he had great supplements, and he also had people at his office who were developing incredible, like, skin care and stuff. And I would, like, say, okay, I'm going to promote you. Like, I love Dr. Sears. I launched him in early Rise. So I'm like, fine, I'd love to promote you. Send me your stuff so that I can take a picture of putting the cream on my face so that my girlfriends will see this. And then I was just honest with them. I would just say, look. And if I. Of course, it had to be like, if I like the product, I love this product. I'm using it. It's worth you taking a chance, you know, there's a money back guarantee, you've got nothing to lose. And when you're just transparent with the community, it's all about, you know, that again, that building the trust and then, then, then writing. I mean, I still have every single letter people have written me over the last 10 years and put it up on my board. So when I'm writing issues, guess what I'm looking at? I'm looking at their letters, their pictures.

Their faces, inspiration everywhere. Yeah.

We're a community. So that, that's why this is just such a wonderful, wonderful.

Platform for anybody. Whether you're a content provider, you know, whether you're, you know, writing book, creating products, whether, you know, I mean, it doesn't matter. Or you can simply be the publisher and never have to write a single thing if you don't want to. Right. When. And that's the whole thing about anybody who owns an Inbox magazine is the publisher. And you can choose to be part of that panel or not.

Yeah. Now, can you quickly define what an Inbox magazine is versus like just, you know, somebody sending email broadcasts to their list?

Yes. Okay, so an Inbox magazine essentially is. It is actionable, useful content that you are sending on a regular frequency with a set format. Okay. So if you look at like Working moms only and CEO's Edge, the name of the sections are different because they're to that market who I talked about earlier, but yet it's exactly the same. So that, you know, my intro to both of these Inbox magazines, you know, are about 50 to 100 words. Right. My essay is 800 to 1200 words. Right. My Check it out section, or what's producing profits, which is essentially an ad, is, is 50 to 100 words. So it's very formula. And this is why I've been testing this and doing this since 2000. So every single Inbox magazine that I've created for clients. Right. Has been exactly the same format, whether for people like Noah St. John or Rich Sheffrin or, you know, or Ron Legrand, like, it's exactly the same.

Yeah. So the content, these written articles that from like the panels of experts or the guru or whoever's creating the article for that week, Is it just all right there within the email? Are you linking back to another website where the article would be.

No, no, no, it's all right in the. It's all in the email. It is in your publication. So, no, you don't link back to that. Like, you'll link to either their product or their lead mag. Right in that kind of that check it out section, that ad section. But the whole thing is that first you have all of their content. And thing about it is the content can never leave a question mark. The content is always about, now I know what to do. It's not like, oh, now I've done with this content. Do I do this or this? No, it's, this is what I do now.

Gotcha. So you're not like opening a loop and making them go buy to learn the next step in this thing you just read?

Nope. It's actionable and useful. And that's the key. That is the key that every single issue has to have.

That that is so similar to our, I keep thinking of our podcast because like you're doing right now, you're giving so much actionable advice and you know, they will have an opportunity. Of course there's a way, you know, we have a link for, for them to dive deeper with you. Of course there's a way that they can grab notes from us. You know, it's all time saving and it's just, hey, you want to go deeper.

Cool. And also just to clarify as well, to be a subscriber of your Inbox magazine, it's completely free. Anybody can be a subscriber. But you're monetized through promoting other people's products and things like that.

Absolutely, absolutely. And that's the key right there that you're bringing them on free. You're giving them all this stuff for free. So the know like and trust is really adding up and now I think they can help me. And now so that's when they start buying product and, and so really we're doing the same thing in different mediums. You know, I literally wrote the book changing the channel with, with Michael Masterson, you know, AKA Mark Ford. And really it's multi channel marketing. And I love multi channel marketing. Right. Because if, you know, if you reach people in two channels as opposed to one, they are.

50 to 100% more valuable to you.

Yes.

Okay. If you read them in three channels compared to one, they're 100 to 150% more valuable to you. So you speak to people and how, how they want to be spoken to. You know, I still, you know, I love to read like I'm a voracious reader and that's kind of the audience that I'm going to. And that's the other key about an Inbox magazine is that format where if they should take it should take them. No longer than 4, 4 to 5 minutes to read it. That's the key. Right, because. And they walk away with something every single issue.

Yeah, right. I'm thinking of Matt. You and I, we read this thing called Morning Brew every morning, and we also subscribe to POD News and the podcasting space. These are like our daily. They're daily, but similar model. They definitely link out a bunch of places. But it's interesting, once, you know, you get in this habit of opening that email, you're one. You're training people to listen to you, which is very difficult with all the emails getting thrown around. But then, like you said, you kind of know the format. I know exactly what to expect with each one of these publications, and I trust them.

Yeah, there's. What's the Futurism one? The Peter Diamantez one, too.

Oh, yes, Peter Abundance.

Insider.

Insider. Yep.

Yep, Exactly. And that's what I mean. I've talked to Peter about that before he started. I spoke at Joe Know Polish this stuff a lot, and this model, and a lot of people, really, what I always say is follow the exact steps, get a benchmark, and then test. Right. Know your numbers, get the benchmark, and then you can test it. You know, once in a while, I'll throw in a video in Working Moms only. Right. And I'll see what that does. Right. And how people like it. And I also ask for feedback, and that's key, is asking for feedback.

So does that look like a survey or are you just getting folks to you, prompting them to just reply back to the email?

Just prompting to reply back. So every issue, actually, it says one of my. It says, look who's talking and Working Moms only. That's the name of section, and that is basically a testimony on every single issue. And then right underneath that is tell us what you think. So they've already read what someone else just said. Now they kind of want to say a little something, too. So you build your testimonial file as well as put it. You know, you put one out there every single issue. It's just reinforcement. So it's really. It. Like, to me, it's. It's your whole personality. Like, you can make. You can make your. You can call your sections whatever you want to call them, but the key is to follow the format as far as the word count, because word count is key. And I test it, like I said, I've been testing this since 2000. I've tested, you know, and especially even at, you know, early to rise, what was really Funny, because it was a daily then and what I heard all the time when I was speaking at events and everything, they would or get people writing to me, they'd say, like, I love early to Rise. I just can't keep up with it. They're too long. There's too many. And that's when I started playing, you know, with certain formulas and, you know, in certain days. And so I, you know, so that's why I always recommend, like when people are starting out, do once a week. If you want to go twice a week, fantastic, no problem. But make sure that you can honor your commitment.

I think, you know, it's interesting you say that because years ago I was subscribed to early to Rise and I believe I felt the same way. I was like, ah, this is all so great, but it's a little too much every single day. And so I like the fact that if you can kind of space it out a little bit where, yeah, someone can at least act on.

Yeah, same with the Glazer Kennedy, the no BS email newsletter that they used to send. I used to get like my inbox used to just have like 30 of those at any given time because I was like, you know, trying to get through them.

Yes, yes, I do. And then actually Bill Glaser and I are really good friends and he asked me to come over and do like a diagnostics, like of each other's businesses. And we went there and I told him that this is. And this is. Then he started doing that like once he left there, you know, on his own. So, you know, it really is just a great platform to have because what it does it, you know, like when I started Working Moms only, oh my gosh, I had all these people from like the Today show and everybody called, like they wanted to do segments on working moms. So like, it's just a great way to get out there. I had all the, I was on so many different channels, like between NBC and Lifetime and all these mom kind of shows, like working mom shows, and kind of doing those to be with, you know, you know, the working mom, stay at home mom. And I would always say, you know, it's not, it's not a either or.

Or.

It's not any. Like, you know, everybody's decision is their own. Right, right. Everyone is their own. So. But if you're going to be a working mom, I'm here to help you, you know, so. But. And so let's talk a little bit more about getting that contact because that's really the next Step. Because that's one of the hardest things for people, even if they're doing kind of that panel of experts. So really the best thing you can do is when you know your market, know who your who is is really to come up with who would you like on your panel? And if you ever looked at the Working Moms Only panel, you know, I've got people like Mariel Hemingway because she interviewed me once on a show. And then I'm like, hey, will you be my expert? And she's like, yeah, like, we just hit it off. So that's the one thing that people need to realize is, so what if someone says no, right? If you don't ask, it's already a no, right? So go for it. So I published Marielle Hemingway. I published, like I said, Dr. Sears or I mean, my friend Ryan Lee, like anybody you can think of like that I believe are great at what they do. That's. I go after the best of breed. So I have got a very eclectic panel because working moms, you know, we have interest from everything from date night to running a business to actually how do I ask for a raise? I mean, I've written about how do you negotiate a raise? You know, I've, I mean, I did it with Steve Forbes. I had to negotiate when I was at Forbes, right? I mean, I did it face to face with Steve Forbes, right? So I mean, I did it with Bill Bonner and Martin, you know, Michael Masterson. So. And you know, this is a little tip. I'll just take this. I actually read Mark, you know, Mark Ford. He wrote a lot of books under Michael Masterson. And I was, I read one of his books and he was talking about negotiating salaries. And when he was offering me a position, he would say, he said, well, what is this going to cost me? And I, and I, and I quoted him, he didn't even notice at the time. He said, and I said, well, if you were going to take this position, what would you want? Which is exactly what he said in his book. And he's like, okay, whatever it is, just tell Miles I'm good. Whatever you want. Like, you know what I mean? It was so great.

So that's cool.

So I write about a lot. So like I said, it's a very eclectic newsletter because it's a lifestyle newsletter. And those, you know, are Inbox magazine, you know, so it's really the ones where you can really talk about a lifestyle. You have so much more topic and you have so much more room to bring people in, you know, I brought Tim Ferriss in to early to Rise. Before he was famous, he, you know, he had just written the first book and it was getting out there, you know what I mean? So finding experts is the great way to do that is to go onto Amazon and look at books, look at the new, newest books out there because those are the people who really want to get their name out if they've just written a book. So look in different categories of who's out there like and what, what the book is. Okay. That's a great way to find experts.

Hey man. Ellen, if you're, if you're looking for some podcast experts, I know a couple of them, them over here.

Yeah, I know we're going to talk more because I have something.

Sorry, carry on.

And, and then the other thing is people think they don't. They can't write. And this is the trick. I just want to tell everybody about. People think they can't write. But here's the deal. You don't have to be a writer if you've got expertise that you want to share, just record it. Just talk into your iPhone, record it, send it to be transcribed. If you don't want to edit it, hire somebody in Fiverr to edit it for you. It's so easy, it's so cheap. And here's the key, you only have to talk for five minutes. Five minutes.

So cool.

Yeah, five minutes will fill your inbox issue.

That's perfect. I mean, there's an app that we use called Otter is. It's amazing iPhone app. I actually was talking to Mike Koenigs just today on it and yeah, he just voiced it out. I think he was on a plane. And it had pork. Perfect transcription and it was like a five minute thing. I didn't count the words, but it's exactly what you said. I'm like, don't need to be a writer anymore.

Like Mike. Mike's been in Working moms only and CEOs Edge. He's a good friend, right? And it's so funny, right? Like birds and feather flock together.

So that's all you need to do. And then the other thing is like you're looking for content. Set up Google alerts, set them up on your topics and then you'll see. And then guess what, you know, then you'll find experts, you'll find content, you'll find ideas there. And then the last thing, which a lot of people didn't like and I didn't used to like it, but I'm going to tell you, it's gotten really much better over the years, which is plr. Right. Which label? Resale.

Yep.

Right. And it's really gotten so much better. And the nice thing about that is you can literally go to a site like. And this is the only site like, I like this site. It's Master Resell Rights. Go to a site like that, you can look up anything, say. Say you're writing a special report or an issue. Because we're talking about special reports in a minute, too, on homeschooling. And you just don't have to start with a blank canvas, like, literally. And you can go and buy a report for like. Like $5. And then you can any way you want to use it. Right. And so I've never, ever used one as is, but I've. I've used them as idea starters. I've. You know what I mean? So there's things in there that you can do, and it's really cheap. So when people are like, oh, I can't. I'm not a writer. But you don't have to be. You see, there's all these things that you could do.

Yeah. And I'll piggyback on that really quick. I had a whole business on that where we were creating a lot of books with. And a lot of ideas came from. I think it was that exact website, actually. Master Resell Rights. And it was interesting because it kind of allows you to do the market research.

Right.

Right there. Because they're only gonna publish those things and actually sell them if there's some interest already out there. So it kind of shortcuts that whole thing too.

Right, right. So there is a lot more detail. What I'm trying to give you guys, you know, is the meat. So that everybody, like, again, take something, walk away with something, you know. Here.

Thank you.

The fifth step that I'd like to talk about are, like, you obviously have to get folks to subscribe. Right. That's, you know.

Yeah. I feel like people are, like, really, really stingy with emails. So, like, these days, I feel like it's harder and harder to get somebody to give up an email that's actually a legit email. You know, most. Most people use, like, fake emails or emails that'll go to, like, a different inbox and not see it. So I'm really kind of curious to hear how. How the growth happens. And, you know, they're actually legit people that are going to pay attention.

Yes. Okay, well, good. So let's talk about the things you need before you even go out to get. Get that email, right? The two things that you have to have for this Inbox magazine business model is a landing page and a lead mag. So let's talk about the landing page first. Right? Well, let's talk about the lead mag first because that's going to. You're going to do your landing page around that. But you. So your lead magnet for folks. You know, I use the word lead mag, but lead magnet is basically something you're giving away, something valuable in exchange for someone's email. Email address. Okay. And it can be a special report, it can be a resource guide, it can be a video, it can be an audio. The key here, your lead magnet, you need to think of as the ambassador for your company. The lead magnet is going to. They're going to get a lead mag before they ever get an issue from you of your inbox magazine. So your lead mag has to be really special and it has to solve a problem. Okay. And it's not so much against, again, about the format, but what you're giving them, that's going to help them and that's again going back to why you have to know who your market is and what their biggest challenge is. Right. Where you say to them, I can help you. Okay. So that's like the first thing that you're going to, that you need because then your landing page is going to essentially revolve around the lead. And this is a huge mistake people make with landing pages. They put it on their website or they think it's the opt in box of your website. A lead mag is not a page on your web. I mean, I'm sorry, a landing page is not a page on your site. It has no navigation. The only thing that a person can do with this landing page is essentially put their name and email. You do not want it on as a page of your site. Where they go looking at, oh, who's your experts? What are your testimonials? Oh, what are your resources here? And then the phone rings and they never come back. Right. So page only has essentially the, you know, a headline, a picture of your lead mag and then bullet points. Right. That's all it needs. And then choose places to opt in. And that's all it needs. Yep. Okay.

And above the fold, preferably.

Yeah. The funny thing is we were massive, massive split testers and we've tested all sorts of variations. And hands down, for the last 10 years, the one that's always worked the best is a headline, a kind of a picture to the left of kind of what you're giving away some bullet points to the right and then an opt in box. And that's it.

Boom, boom, boom. That's it, that's it, that's it. And then what? So people just make the biggest mistake and they want to explain, explain and go on and on and on. Less is more. You know, it's Those, it's those 50 bullet points. It's, you know, that's going to catch them.

And it doesn't need to be fancy looking either. Usually like the plain Jane, opt in pages are the best.

Oh yeah. The more we design them, typically the lower the conversion goes.

Right?

Exactly. Exactly. And you know, it's the same thing. It was the same thing in direct mail. And that's, you know, why I did so well online because I've done direct mail. You know, I was like, you know, mailing, you know, 100 million pieces of mail when I was at, you know, a year at, you know, timesmere magazines or Forbes or any of those places. And so. And the same thing was true with the mail, right? It wasn't fancy envelopes. It was, you know, I mean, it was bullet points. It was, you know, and that's why something like a subject line is so important. You know, essentially that was your envelope copy that got them to open it. That's right. So yeah, these are little side things.

But so I have a question on like the landing page. So that lives obviously independent from the website. That can't, you know, so how do folks find that landing page? Do you have a few main ways to attract folks to those?

Yes. Okay, so now you guys are like the traffic genius. But I'm going to talk first about again, kind of going back to a book I want to talk about at the very end. But everything you do in business matters, every single person you talk to matters. And I remember when I, you know, started working moms only. What. And I didn't have a list, right? So I didn't have any. And I wasn't, I didn't have agora anymore behind me. So I didn't, I couldn't offer up early to rise as an exchange, right? So. Well, what I did is I wrote to everybody I knew and told them what I was doing and I said to them, look, if you mail for me to this lead mag, so I'm going to get names, I will either mail for you when I have the names and I'll mail 25% more or I will offer you any service that you want, whether it's a webinar, speaking at your Conference, like teaching, you know, coming to your office, whatever it is. And because I'd always honored my promises in the years in business, you know, I had people like Jeff Walker say, you don't have to mail for me. Don't worry about it. I'm mailing for you. Right. I had, you know, I had Bill Glaser say, great, you're speaking at Glazer Kennedy. You know what I mean? So that was, you know, what I, you know, and I did, I knew people, so. But I had, within 24 hours, I had 5,000 names that were golden.

I freaking love that. That's like everyone has their own network and people they can call upon or if they don't, they can definitely figure out some kind of win win trade to just give value and then, you know, a lot of people will reciprocate. It's just asking. Yeah.

Based on my math, That's a between 2,500 and $5,000 per month business that was built in 24 hours.

Exactly, exactly. Right, exactly. So and so. And so what I do now is I, when I, you know, when I, when I teach this, I literally said to people, I want you to make two lists. One list is of direct competitors and the other list of is indirect competitors. And the difference there is a direct competitor is essentially a person who sells what you sell and have the same people. And then an indirect competitor is someone who has the same audience as you, but sell something a little different. Right. So once you have those, because this is a numbers game, when you're starting out to get names. Right. Then you simply write to them and you say, hey, I just wrote this incredible lead magnet that I know your audience is going to love and I'd love to share it with them. And most people see it like you build it as added value to them, to that publisher.

Right.

And guess what? They mail for you because they believe it's going to help their audience. So people who have a real advocacy for their community will help you.

Yep. And it helps even more if you can probably feature them in that magazine as well.

Exactly.

So there's a lot of value adds there for exposure.

Yes. There's so much to bargain with. And really, you know, that's how I, you know, I always go with, you know, I do a lot of teaching of paid. A paid media buying. Right. Like old, old school media buying. And that's once you've got some money coming in the door. But literally there are so many ways between social media and joint venturing and just pulling together your Resources to get that what I like to call your first 1000 without putting out any money. Right, but you have to, but again, you have to commit to it and you have to work at it.

You do. And so would you recommend that kind of as a first launch strategy and do you have a system for getting new people in all the time or other mechanisms? I know it sounded like you're on tv, you have PR and all these other multi channels. Yes.

I mean, basically I always start there. But the thing is too, this is the beautiful thing about an Inbox magazine is the amount of effort it takes you to put one together. Exactly the same whether you've got a thousand subscribers or 100,000 subscribers. So your effort really does need to go into building that community. Right. Because it's going to take you the exact same amount of work. Why not get the biggest bang for your buck? Right. So it's, it's not anything that you ever stop. Right. And then, so once you're in this, this actually, this is actually a very nice segue because the next step, step six of this is making money. Okay. And so once you, you, you have like, you have that first 1,000 and you've got some. And then it's, and it's, I'm going to tell you that the next, like after that first 1,000, the next 5,000, 10,000, they come so much easier because you've got, you've got your system down and you know, and it's dependent too if you're working by a loan or if you've got some help. And that's all, again, it comes down to the making money part where once you've got, you know, a community, you can start selling some advertising. Right. You put that right up on your site and the rates, like I have literally had people advertise in working moms only that were not like any kind of Internet marketers health, anything but like people selling decorative Thanksgiving, Christmas decorations. Right. Because it's just another great place. Like they've got busy working moms, right? So better, like what's a better list to sell, like holiday decorations? You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So like you've got to start thinking out of the box. Like, don't just think about all these people who maybe that you're reading, you know, online. Think about what your audience needs. My working moms, they're busy, they're working moms. Right. And if I say, and if again if I show them a picture of this kind of like I had at one point this beautiful bowl that had, like, these Thanksgiving decorations in it. And I took a picture on my dining room table and, you know, and I said, this is my dining room table. I love it. What do you think? You know? And so I literally sold that spot within working moms only.

See, there we go. And that's where. Because we're actually starting to do this a lot more with our podcast, our website, and then also in our newsletter. Our physical newsletter is. That's all opportunity. They're all buckets of attention with our community. And there's opportunities for sponsorships, relevant offers in there. And we are starting to get approached by relevant folks, software companies, mainly in the marketing space. And it's cool because it's kind of found money at that point. You work to build the audience and obviously build the trust in that relationship. And being strategic with your offers are definitely important. Important for sponsorships as well. Never accepting everybody. Right. But yeah, if you could set up your buckets of attention, these audiences, then it's just like, there's so many ways to monetize from there and still get value.

And then there's things like, you know, like, we talked about affiliate and joint venture promos. That's always a big money maker. But like I said, it's a 75, 25 rule. Most people go out there with that mentality of, oh, okay, I'll split it with you, but you're, you know, 75, 25. So I've just made everybody here 25% more. You know what I mean? Because that's what you ask for again. And then sometimes, you know, depending on the partnership, you know, and depending on the cost of goods on their end, you know, it might be 60, 40 or 65, 35, whatever it is. But no, it doesn't have to just be a 50, 50.

True. Yeah. That's like a very Internet marketing thing. I feel like the whole 50, 50 thing. Yeah, I tell that to a lot of other business owners. And other than they're like, holy shit, you're getting 50% off of it. I'm like, yeah, like, wow.

But what it has to be, it has to be 50, 50 value. Right? So the value has to be 50, 50. That's what it has to be. Not the, like the division of dollars.

Right.

So that people understand that. Okay, that's good. Yeah. And then really what I like. And then you can actually rent your list. And most people don't know this, that there are people that. That are called list managers out there. Right. And they will take your list. Now you've Got to have a significant size community, right? You've got to have at least like 50,000, 80,000 people on your list. But guess what? They'll go out there and they'll rent that list to people. So they're doing your work. And of course they're going to get like, 20% of that whatever. But again, if you do that once a week and say that list is worth $10,000, and that's just once a week that's coming in now, okay? So that's what people. And that's what people don't get. And then guess what else you can do if you have buyers, you can rent the. The actual physical address of that list.

And that's what we're toying with as well. We haven't done that yet, but, yeah, we thought about that. We're like, ooh.

It'S worth so much money. I had a guy, that student, and he started Inbox magazine. He got up to 80,000 subscribers in no time in the financial newsletter market. You know how much those names are worth?

Jeez, A lot.

Those are about 150 to $200. One thousand.

Oh, my God.

Okay, that's. Rent that for. And if he just did that because you don't want to, like. I don't want to pimp out your list. I don't want to just be vulgar. But you don't want to pimp it out. So if you did that once a week and if you had 80,000 names and you got. We'll just do the math. Eight, $100, 1,000, $8,000.

There you go.

But if it was $200. A thousand, that's $16,000. A week.

A week. And what did you have to do? Oh, nothing. Because you. I'm assuming the renter, the broker, you know, you filter and make sure it's high quality.

The only thing you do, the only thing you always do is you look at the promotion that's going at the door, right? That's what you do. You make sure that it's something that you're comfortable with, your community. Again, because it's not a list. It's your community of folks that you're an advocate for, that it's useful to them.

Right?

Right.

Yeah. This is such a concept that we try to hammer home so much, too, is this. This concept of build the audience even before you know how to monetize it, you know, dig the well before you're thirsty kind of thing. Because so many people don't understand why we've been podcasting for the last nine years without even having. I mean we have sponsors now, but for the first, like forever, we didn't.

Yeah, right. It was on the list.

Right.

Right. So and that's like when I tell you how many. And again, this kind of continue to my next seven. The step seven, which is last step is continue to grow is by like now you're an expert that people want, right? So like when you have an Inbox magazine, it just builds your expertise and credibility. So when I was writing my second book, which was Reinventing the entrepreneur Wiley, they don't really give big advances anymore. Gave me a nice big advance. Guess why? Because I had an inbox magazine in a list.

Heck yeah. They want publishers, want your audience.

Oh yeah. They know you're gonna do most of the marketing heavy lifting for them.

Exactly, exactly. In the old days, Wiley was great at marketing. Like when I wrote the first book with you know, change the channel, but the second one, they did nothing. I did it all.

Wow. And I think that's pretty common from what we've heard many New York Times best selling authors on here is like, yeah, no, don't expect them to do any marketing for you.

Don't expect an advance unless you have an audience.

Right. Wow.

Okay, so, and like I said when I was on Lifetime on in fact the shows that was actually called the Balancing act and morning like woman show, they came to me, you know what I mean? Like, so that's what your Inbox magazine, that's how you continue to grow. So and then once you're there and you're getting, you know, your name out there, either as a publisher, you know, or an expert, that the one thing that you have to know, and I call it the KTDO number, right?

Keep the door open number, you need to know exactly what that is. Okay. And what that means. Because you do have costs. They're not high cost, but you have costs. With an Inbox magazine, you need to have, you know, a CRM, right. Whether it's aweber or infusion or whatever it is, right. You know, you have certain costs and that, and this is what most people do wrong, wrong, wrong all the time, is they're like, okay, I won't pay myself. I'll just wait till like money comes in the door, put a salary in there, put all your fixed costs in there, divide it by 365 like or, you know, 365 and know exactly how much money you need to bring in the door every single day to keep your dog. Door is open.

I like that. That's very simple.

Yeah, that's.

I don't think I've ever heard it explained that way, but that, yeah, that's good for any size. Business doesn't even matter.

Any size. Any size.

Yeah.

You know, and I, and it's so funny you said that because I always say my whole message method is kiss, keep it simple, sweetie. Right.

Like I love it.

You know, and so you just need to do that. And then once you have that money and once you're making, you know, kind of like that $15,000 a month mark, now you can start hiring people because again, it doesn't matter if you have one Inbox magazine, you know, Gora has at this point probably 300 inbox magazines.

Jesus.

Billion dollar company. A billion dollar company. Right. Started with early to rise. Like, you know, like that was, you know, was that was the baby that, that business model that everyone took. So it doesn't matter if you're like a solopreneur or a billion dollar a year information marketing company. Right. It's the Inbox magazine business model.

Yeah.

And. And what you need when you're at this point is you have to have SOPs. You have to have SOPs, and that stands for standard operating procedures. Because everything you do with the Inbox magazine business model is repeatable. Everything you do is a repeatable function. So you have SOP so that nothing goes wrong. Because.

When nothing goes wrong, the more money you make when you make that mistake and you forget and you pick the wrong list in infusion or the email doesn't go out the door. It's not like, oh, I'll just send it tomorrow. That's bs, right? You have something else that needs to go tomorrow. If the email was supposed to go today, it goes today. And you do that by having SOPs. And you need how you build your company. You start acting like professional. I mean, when I started working moms only and I was home for the very first time, I set an alarm every day. I had my to do list the night before. Like, like you have to remain in that mentality that you are a service provider to somebody.

Yeah. There's so many people relying on that message and expecting it from you.

Yeah. I have a couple more questions, but before I do, I want to, I want to ask how you're doing on time because I know we're approaching the hour mark here, so.

I'm good. I'm good.

You okay, cool. So I had a question about, about email open rates because, you know, we send a lot of emails as well. But I have noticed over the years just getting our opens and clicks on those emails has really declined. Have you seen that? And if you have, how have you sort of combated that?

Okay, so when I started working moms only, I literally my open rates were like 50, 55%. So now, yes, they've declined and they're more in their 30%. Right. And that's just because the list, the community has been growing and because of saturation. So really the only thing I do is I keep, you know, list hygiene is a must and you have to constantly put new people on. Like you just, you can't again, you can't just let it ride. You've got to constantly doing it. And I have like I wrote an entire report once on just subject lines, like what are the best subject lines? And that curiosity subject line. Like, you know, really. And the other thing that's really important about Opens is keeping your from consistent. Right. So the from is not, you know, is it was never, you know, it's always from Mary Ellen Triby.

Right? Yeah. And we always do that as well, which is good.

Keeping that consistent. And then, and just watching. And then I, and again reports, like I'm really big on metrics reports and all those things and I was just talking to somebody else in the office, you know, right before this on Skype about reports and that. I'm so anal about looking at open rates based on subject line and like, and analyzing like the outliers or the anomalies and saying, wow, why is, you know, if our average, you know, open rate is this, why is this so much higher or why is it this, you know, and so what did we reference and noticing whether it was, you know, that, that holiday thing or the sale thing or just the curiosity thing, you know, the curiosity ones for especially for working moms only like the really raw ones. What a lot of people may not know is I'm the CEO of Centerpoint, which is a company that's been around for 30 years. And really the ones there are again are, you know, it's a personal development kind of company. So the ones that kind of go to that like, like why aren't you making progress? Kind of kind of subject line works there, you know, why is it you're not making progress, you know, kind of thing.

Ye.

So again it goes back to understanding that audience, that market.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. I've also sort of noticed with our list, maybe you've seen the same that it's not a sort of static formula either. It seems like an email will work really, really well once, and then I can use the exact same formula in two months and not get anywhere near the same results. It kind of feels like your market will sort of become savvy to certain types of emails and subjects lines, and then they're less effective, but then a different one is more effective now. And it's not as static as I think a lot of people make it out to be.

No, it's not. And I've also found relevancy and timing. So, you know, being one of the first, you know, one of the earlier adapters on a certain news cycle and referencing that and building that into the start story, part of the. Of the email.

Gotcha now. So the only other question I have right now is with the actual growth of the newsletter today. I know you mentioned in the beginning you had a lot of connections that sort of helped jumpstart it. How is most of the traffic, the new subscribers coming in today? As of July 2019, a lot of.

It is paid media. And then really I have certain partners that we just do reciprocals for.

Yeah, yeah. So you're leveraging your network and.

Yep, absolutely. Absolutely.

Seems like this would be prime for referrals, too. You know, it's just having a nice little. Some kind of referral call to action on the bottom of each one of these things.

Yeah.

And I like, especially again, like, with working moms, I'd be like, hey, tell your girlfriends, you know, and if you get three or more, then you get this prize.

Yeah, whatever. Yeah. We've actually been debating about experimenting with just kind of a CPA model for list growth where we just go and tell people, hey, for everybody you put on our list, you know, we'll pay you $3 per subscriber you help us find.

I think that's awesome. I think that's. I think that's fabulous.

Yeah. We haven't tried it yet, but we use a tool called Wicked reports to keep our eyes on the numbers. And we know the value of every single person on our list over the lifetime of them being on our list. And it's roughly around $30 per person on our list. So, you know, three to five dollars to get somebody on our list is a drop in the bucket.

Sure.

That's awesome. Yep. We use it too. Wicked, so that's interesting. We're going to talk about that.

Oh, yeah, Wicked's amazing. Awesome. Mary Ellen. And I know you have, like, a freebie here for the folks that want to dive deeper in all this stuff. What's the how can they find that?

Oh, great. Just go to maryellentribbey.com evergreen and really what it is, it's a special report of kind of everything we just talked about, only much more detailed. So I was trying to give a broad. But you'll really get really, really how to's in there. So I really hope you go to maryellentribbey.com evergreen perfect.

And you've been kind of hinting at a book a couple times through this episode as a book that you highly recommend for people. So do you want to touch on that real quick?

I do, because this book, like, to this day, I read it, God, 15 years ago, and it's one of those books I read every year. A lot of people don't know it. It's called the Slight Edge by Jeff Olson.

The Slight Edge, okay.

The Slight Edge. And I will tell you this, that I have gotten, literally, thank you notes from people that I've recommended this book to. And I have no affiliation with him. I had never met him. I'd love to meet him at one point because it's a fabulous book. But it really, again, it's very profound for me because it really was like this kind of like my philosophy on how I was, how I always dealt with my life. And it was really. And he went so much further in this book. And it really is, though, that compound effect of everything you do, everything you do, it matters. It matters. And so it's just a wonderful book. So I highly recommend it.

What was the name of the author again?

Jeff Olson.

Jeff Olson.

Yeah.

Cool.

We gotta make that, make that happen. That intro or that meetup between the two of you. If he's had this big of an impact.

Do you know him?

I don't know, but we're gonna make it a point to know him.

Yeah, we're pretty good at networking.

I don't think people realize this fact, but when we ask people for book references at the end of our show, yes, it's sort of an affiliate marketing play, but also we're trying to find cool new people to go and find and have cool discussions with.

Great. He's great.

Awesome. Well, Mary Ellen, this is super cool. Yeah. So we're going to link definitely that freebie there in the show notes of this podcast. Anywhere else that you want people to go before or I guess after listening, go there.

And if, you know, for working moms, if you go to workingmomsonly.com, please subscribe because I'd love to meet you and have you on the community. And then CEO's Edge. If you go to Mary Ellentribbey.com, you'll see the CEO's Edge there as well, which is, you know. So those are the two inbox magazines that I put out every single week.

Awesome. And at a minimum, they're great case studies for people to kind of see what's working best.

Great.

That's awesome. Thank you very much for your time here.

Oh, my pleasure. Thank you guys so much. Have a great, great week, and I'll talk to you soon.

All right. Bye. Bye.

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