Video Transcript
Hi this is Marisa Murgatroyd, founder of Live Your Message. I’m here to tell you today why having a small list is a good thing and why the money isn’t necessarily in the list, it’s in the relationship. It’s in the connection.
So I’ve been told my entire career in internet marketing and online business to build a list, to build a list, to build an email list. And if you don’t have an email list, you’re dead in the water.
But what I’m seeing today is that the big players are having a harder and harder time getting into people’s inboxes as Gmail makes it harder, as all the different e-mail service providers are making it harder to get your mail read. So what do you do when you have a 100,000 person list and you can’t get your e-mails delivered and read? It because it’s not about the relationship anymore it’s about the number.
So if you’re just starting out, you’ve got the advantage that nobody else has. For you, it’s still about the relationship.
Kevin Kelly the founder of Wired Magazine says that a creator only needs to have just a thousand true fans to make a great living in this world, in this age. So if you want to raise your sales of the flatline, he said, all you need to do is acquire a thousand true sounds. In other words turn lesser fans into true fans.
So I think so many people think it’s about playing this gigantic numbers game. But what if you could build a small list that loves you, that adores you, that’s willing to buy anything and everything you have to offer, because you’ve changed their life and you continue to change their life every single day by the value that you bring?
So I want you to stop thinking about needing to have this big list or not being able to build your business because you don’t have the list.
Cause these days, a small list, a small really engaged list is so much more powerful than the gigantic list where the e-mails aren’t even getting delivered and people aren’t opening and they’re not clicking through and they’re definitely not reading and engaging.
So here’s the thing: If you can forget about the numbers and start treating every single person as a real human being. And communicate to them one person at a time. Making that heart-to-heart connection.
Then you’ve got all the advantage in the world to build your business beyond your dreams. So think about that, before you go have list envy. Maybe you don’t need list envy.
I’ve always had this expression at Live Your Message that, “Before you can make money while you sleep, first you’re got to be able to make money while you’re awake.”
And that’s about creating that connection with a single person. Think about it: If you can’t enroll a single person into working with you and getting excited about your business, what makes you think you’re going to enroll hundreds or even thousands of people?
So it starts with that connection, one person to another. And if you can do that once, then you can do it again, two times, three times four times, five and onwards. And that’s how you build your business: one person at a time. Starting with a small list of followers and expanding from there, but keeping the pulse of that tribe and of that community and never losing connection with what that is all about.
Because here’s the thing that I see with the people who’s got the big lists sometimes: is they’ve lost that connection, they’ve lost that center. They’re no longer grounded. They don’t have their ears to the ground listening to what people really want. Having that everyday conversation with your tribe. But when you build those true fans, you don’t need a lot of them, you need just a few. And that’s your business.
So I’m here to tell you: forget about the big list. Forget about it. It may happen some day, it may not, but it doesn’t really matter.
What matters is the relationship you’ve got with the small list of people who really adore you and want to work with you. And that small list will bring more people, who bring more people, who bring more people, and that’s how your business organically grows.
I really bought into the dream of the big list, hook, line and sinker for a long time. We’ve got 80K people on our list and I’ve watched over the last year, along with everyone in our industry, that it’s getting harder and harder for people to even get these e-mails in their inbox. They’re not getting delivered. They’re not getting seen.
So all of those numbers doesn’t really matter, but luckily I never lost sight of the connection. I never forgot to nurture that relationship with every individual person on my list.
So here we are face-to-face, doing a video, connecting, and that’s what it’s all about. That’s what your business is about.
One person at a time, you’re going to build the business you desire. I promise you that. Remember, It’s about the heart-to-heart connection. And your connection is way more important than the size of your list.
The moment you start treating people as numbers — game over.
Sales funnels is not this mechanistic thing, it’s about the humanistic connection.
So remember that: No go out there, Live Your Message, one person at a time. Change the world from your living room.
If you’d like to learn how to grow your tribe and connect more deeply with your audience, join us at Message to Money Live in February!
We only do this event once a year and it’s coming up soon… see you in LA!