Hey guys. Today I am sitting down with Scarlett Cochran. She is an attorney as well as an expert at wealth building. But today I’m not talking to her about either one of those. I’m talking to her about building out email lists. If you guys are not building your email lists full of customers and potential clients, it is time to rethink your approach and turn your ears on full blast for today’s episode. We spend our time talking about why it’s important, what you may not  be considering, as well as the best ways to actually do it.

But before we go into this podcast, let me sidestep for a second because I created a free offer for you. So I get asked questions a lot behind the scenes. Me and my team, we get emails, we get Instagram messages, and we start seeing patterns. We see people asking the same types of questions. So I answered one of the main questions in an 18 minute video that I have for free for you guys. This is just for my podcast listeners, my Instagram followers, and people that follow me on social media.

So let me ask you this. Have you ever found yourself in a conversation with someone who is inquiring about your service, and mid-convo you realize you don’t feel super confident in how exactly to lead the conversation in a way that’s going to turn them into a paying client. Like to take this person from asking generalized questions about your service to an excited can’t wait to pay you client, right?

So it might be that you’re not sure how you should talk. Like should you talk more about yourself? Should you talk more about them? Like when do you change the subject? You don’t know the structure of how this conversation should really go, right? It might be that you don’t know how to position yourself as someone who can solve their problems. Or it might be that you just don’t feel comfortable asking for the sale. Whatever it is, no biggie. I got you.

So listen, this is what we did. I created this video in a way to teach you how to learn to communicate your service. Learning to communicate your services and your offers to people in an efficient and confident way is what brings in the bacon. Learning how to communicate in a way that makes people feel safe to buy from you. That’s the ticket.

So I put together a video for everyone that follows my podcast and Instagram that teaches you exactly how to host an initial conversation with a lead, someone who’s interested in your service, in a way that’s going to turn that lead into a paying client. This is the recipe that I use in all of my conversations and consultations. I used it when I was building Massage Strong as well as in my online company and my coaching world, and it gained me hella clients along the way.

So you can grab it over at my Instagram account. My Instagram handle is @1beccapike. Click on the link in my bio and choose the button that says Turn Your Leads Into Paying Clients. Go do that right now. Your future self will thank when you’re converting clients at double your normal rate.

Now onto episode number 56 with Scarlett Cochran. I am your host Becca Pike, and it is time for your weekly dose of Hell Yes Coaching. Let’s go.

Hey, guys. I’m Becca Pike and welcome to The Hell Yes Entrepreneur podcast, the number one show for entrepreneurs looking to create their first six-figure year. If you’ve got the drive and you know how to hustle but you’re not sure where to channel your energy, we’ve got the answers. Let’s dive into today’s show.

Becca: Hello Scarlett.

Scarlett: Hey Becca. So excited to be here with you.

Becca: I know. I am so pumped that you are here. This is so fun too because right before the show I was googling you. I was like looking at all your website and stuff. You’re a really accomplished woman. So you’re a lawyer, you’re a wealth expert, you’re a coach. Apparently you’re all over the YouTubes. I didn’t even know that.

I was googling you before this, and I was looking at all of your beautiful websites. I was just like dang. You know to me you’re just like a friend. You’re like the girl that I have coffee with, and I hang out with. I was looking at your websites and I was like damn. This girl’s legit.

Scarlett: thanks. You know if it makes you feel any better, I think of myself as just your friend and the person that you have coffee with. So.

Becca: yeah.

Scarlett: let’s not be weird right now.

Becca: no I loved it. I loved it. I’ve talked to you a lot about the backend of your business, you know. We’ve discussed business quite a bit, and I just love seeing it out there all polished and pretty all over your sights and on YouTube and everything. It’s fun.

Scarlett: I’m glad that you think so because we do everything basically in house. So a lot of what you see is still the stuff that I did myself before I even had a team. So I love the fact that we do know how to do all of these things ourselves because it really does help us show up in a polished way, but also super agile because we can do everything ourselves and it doesn’t take weeks to send something to a developer to get done.

Becca: yeah, for sure. You must have like really good attention to detail. Like do you feel like, because I was looking at it and it doesn’t look like you did it. It looks like a professional did it. I would say at this point you probably feel pretty professional if you’ve built all of this, but like that’s not just the way my brain works.

Like I am very broad thinking, and I think that that’s my superpower. Like I am extremely creative and broad thinking, but when it comes to the smaller details or making things look polished it’s almost like the opposite of perfectionism. It’s like everything is just good enough. It’s good enough. It’s good enough. Just get it out there. So I can’t imagine trying to do any of that stuff myself.

Scarlett: that’s a superpower though because I do find that I can be too meticulous. When you’re building out a team, you have to be able to let things go and say that’s good enough. Yeah, that’s not the way I would have done it, but that’s not my job. That’s their job, and they can take ownership of that area, whatever it is, that project and it is good enough.

So, you know, there are strengths. There are good things about both sides. Being the person that’s naturally on the that’s good enough side versus being the person that’s naturally on the detail oriented side. Because I know what my vision is, I can explain to them okay this is what we’re going for. This is why. Then they can take that and then make decisions and do it their way.

Becca: yeah, I like that. I think that when you’re leading staff members when you have a team, it’s like that grace has to be built in. Because, for me, like in my mind I’m like I don’t want to do these things. This is why I hired help. Like why would I be obsessing over the smaller details? Like I want them to do it their way. I want them to do it in a way that feels good for them. Obviously with my lead and with what I like as well, but it’s so much more freeing when you can say okay, other people do it differently and they might even do it better than me, but it’s still like just as good.

Scarlett: yeah.

Becca: yeah, it’s awesome. Okay so I was telling Scarlett this a little bit before we started recording, but today what I want to talk to Scarlett about isn’t probably what she gets asked about a lot because Scarlett is a wealth expert. Her main focus is talking to people about building wealth and what that looks like.

Although she can give us so much information on that, today I want to talk about list building. Like email list building. I’ll never forget the day you told me how many people are on your email list and I like shit my pants. I didn’t even understand how that is possible.

In the last year or so, I’ve started getting more curious about email list building and really just kind of navigating my own mindset about email lists. Like I’ve spent a really long time just not caring, just not thinking about my email lists. Like it’s almost been something that I just feel like I have to do. Like well, I haven’t talked to my email people in a while. Like I should totally touch base with them and chat with them. In my mind it’s like well, they’re seeing my Instagram stuff or they’re seeing my Facebook stuff or they’re seeing me out and about.

Like my mindset was just garbage when it came to email lists. Recently I’ve been taking some Amy Porterfield classes and just realizing like oh. I am thinking like crap about my list. So yeah, that’s what I would love to talk about today. I would love to just get your opinions. Like I want to know about your journey on finding important in the email list and any pointers that you can give us.

Scarlett: Yeah. So of course, well I too learned about email list building from Amy Porterfield. I think I took List Builders Lab in maybe 2018 was when I took that course, which I don’t think exists anymore. I think it’s called List Builders Society now. I’m not sure. I don’t even know how I found Amy Porterfield, but she was talking about this email list thing.

At the time I had a YouTube channel, and I was making videos on YouTube. I would not say that I had a business. I was just making videos on YouTube kind of for fun. Some of it was educational. Some of it was just pure entertainment. Just a hodgepodge of things. Like I remember some of our earlier videos, we did the spicy ramen noodle challenge and also like investing versus paying off debt, which one should you do first? So it really was just a mix of videos.

I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, what I wanted to teach, and not even really thinking that it was going to be a “business” because I was a full time lawyer. I was a banking and finance attorney. That’s what I did in my full time job. I loved my work.

So I know a lot of people who jump into entrepreneurship because they absolutely hate the work that they were doing, but I actually really, really enjoyed being a banking and finance attorney, especially on the regulatory side. So I worked for the federal government. So I had a good quality of life, really loved my work. But I was doing this YouTube thing. I’m like oh, this is fun. I started getting subscribers. Then I came across Amy Porterfield.

She’s like hey, did you know that you don’t own any of your subscribers on social media? At any point, YouTube can just decide not to serve your videos to those people and Instagram can decide not to serve your content to your followers on Instagram. Or they could just completely shut your account down and all of that hard work that you put in is gone, and those people have no way of finding you.

But with an email list, you actually own that list of people, and you can email them. You can reach out to them at any time. That made a lot of sense to me. Like, yeah, why wouldn’t I do that?

Becca: Oh my gosh. We know people together that this has happened to where they have spent years building their Instagram following and they’re up to 37,000 followers on Instagram, and it’s working really well for them. I’m thinking of one person in particular. It just guts me to think about her talking about this. I think you were in the room with us.

She has always used her Instagram to sell, and it has always worked. She has always built her business around Instagram. Then Instagram shut down her account and there was no getting it back. There was nothing. She had nothing. She hadn’t been building emails. Like ugh, I just can’t imagine. Like watching your entire audience just poof, leave, and for no “reason.” Like they just shut it down kind of on accident and then they just couldn’t get ahold of anybody to bring it back.

Scarlett: and that’s the extreme, but also really painful is just watching your posts only get shown to a small portion of your audience day after day and week after week. That’s really frustrating. Or even having to deal with the algorithm changes.

Like YouTube has always been my primary platform, and I remember when they started adding in stories, YouTube stories, to try to compete with Instagram. I’m like man, I’m not doing that. Like why am I creating stories on YouTube? Then, of course, Instagram added reels, and now they’re a video platform I hear. So they prioritize video. It’s all changing so much.

I even hear that to do really well on Instagram you basically need to serve all the different areas of Instagram. So you need to have your static posts. You need to have your sharable things. You need to be on stories. You need to make reels. That is a lot of content just geared towards serving the algorithm and not necessarily towards making your business money in the short term.

Becca: it feels like such a headache. I mean just to me, like that, to me, feels overwhelming compared to gathering and nurturing and loving people on an email list. I remember listening to someone talk about how like if you could do a reel a day for 90 days on Instagram like it would boost your algorithms or something. I thought no. Like that sounds so exhausting. But then also on a side note like I just started doing reels lately. Have you seen them? Have you been watching my reels?

Scarlett: I feel like I just did. You did, oh my gosh yes. The one where you sat down in your husband’s office, and you asked about is Krispy Kreme crispy?

Becca: yes.

Scarlett: Oh my gosh. You know what? It does have a little crunch to it though. I think like it’s getting fresh. A little crunchy, but yeah.

Becca: so when I wanted to do reels, I wanted to do them for business. Like this was like it fluttered in my mind. I was like oh, I could build and audience of entrepreneurs. Then I was like that sounds exhausting. But then recently I started using my Instagram just to be funny. Like I just did a reel on cocaine. I did a real on the Krispy Kreme donuts.

I’ve just been doing these reels that are funny to me, and now all of a sudden I could see how you could do a reel every day because I actually took away the pressure of it being like a business transaction. I was like oh, I’m just going to be funny on here. This is a blast. Then I sit in my office by myself and just laugh at my reels.

Scarlett: see you are a funny person. I am not naturally a funny person or a silly person or a dancing for fun person. No I dance, but when I dance, we’re dancing. You know what I mean? It’s not like we’re dancing for like a cheerleader dancing.

Becca: Listen, this is my theory. This is my theory on being funny. You have probably been pretty your whole life. I’m not just being humble here. I was straight busted until I was about 15. So I had to be funny. I built the best sense of humor because I was so not pretty. Then boo yah, I ended up getting pretty later in life. Joke’s on everybody else. Ended up getting a double sword. But no, I swear I laugh all the time. I’m like I’m so glad that I was so ugly when I was a kid because I really learned how to make jokes.

Scarlett: I also consider myself to be an ugly duckling. It was like after puberty and when things rearranged that it was like okay, but then that meant you spent all of like your teenage years feeling unattractive, right? So I feel like I didn’t get pretty till I was like 18 or 19. So where I went was the intellectual like smart girl. So that makes me more serious, but I focus on like knowledge, education, like being the person that was getting A’s.

Becca: Yeah.

Scarlett: That’s where I went because I just wasn’t funny.

Becca: I’m reading Viola Davis’s autobiography, and she talks about like the strong black woman overachieving stigma. Like that had never occurred to me. I didn’t know that that existed until I was reading her autobiography, and it made so much sense to me. It’s like so many of the strongest black women that I know would consider themselves like deep, deep overachievers. Overachiever is not even the word. Kind of like what you just described, yeah.

But yeah, I had literally braces for six years, a slicked back ponytail. This is a fact. I would slicked back my ponytail for like nine years. Not a single other way of wearing my hair. Ended up finding out age 15/16 I figured out what a straightener was. My acne cleared up. All this stuff like just went in for me and worked out great around your 16 so. That’s why I think some people are funny and some people aren’t. Also, I think it’s a trauma response. If you have a fucked up childhood, like you find humor. You figure it out.

Scarlett: Yeah.

Becca: Okay. Let’s get back to list building. So what is important to you when it comes to building your list and nurturing your list? Like, what are some of the things that you think about when you are getting in there and you’re just like chatting with your people?

Scarlett: You know the first thing I’m gonna say is I actually still really struggle with list building and emailing my list. I want to say that because I think that people would think that given how long I’ve been in business, given the size of my list, which to me feels modest, right?

Because we hear all these massive numbers. Like we’re looking at the people who have hundreds of thousands of people on their list. So I have 37,000 people on my list and that’s all organic. So that’s good. I know that, and I’ve been building my list now for almost four years. I do purge people from my list. So people who aren’t opening, I will remove them. But it’s still a challenge for me. It’s still not something that necessarily comes naturally. It’s something that I have to work at.

So I want people to know that. If they’re struggling, like that’s actually a normal thing. You might be doing this for years, and it still doesn’t fully click yet. If that’s you, nothing’s gone wrong.

Becca: Yeah. Well and I want to talk to the people that are like listening to these numbers and they’re like oh why would I even try? I have 40 people on my email list. It’s like no. Those 40 people, that’s still more people than what people are seeing like on your Instagram or on your Facebook probably. Like it’s a no brainer that it is going to show up in their inbox. Like you have 40 people at your fingertips. Like everyone starts somewhere.

I remember whenever I started even remotely thinking about my email list. My best thought and the thought that really served me was oh shit. Like I’ve made this much money with 400 people on my email list. Like what’s possible for me if I actually doubled that, tripled that, quadrupled that? Like I had made a half a million in coaching with literally 450 people on my email list. Like, I haven’t even tapped into that. Like, what’s possible if I do? So if you’re sitting here listening to this and you’ve got 30 people on your email list, like the world is your oyster. Go out and start getting them 10 at a time.

Scarlett: Yeah. I mean the real power of having a small list is that you can actually get to know every single one of those 40 people, which is an amazing thing. Because once you have hundreds of people on your list, it’s not as easy to build that same kind of relationship.

So I always say when your list building and your list is on the smaller side, now is the time to still do more of the more intimate things that you can do when your list is smaller. Don’t feel like you need to use the strategies of people who have big lists. Like with all the segmentation and sending a whole bunch of anonymous emails.

I mean there will be a time when you do that, when you’re just sending out mass emails, but embrace what it’s like to have a smaller email list where you can get to know people. You might even send them customized videos, customized messages to really build that relationship.

Because also those early people are the people that are going to be your biggest fans, your super supporters, because they’re going to be on the journey with you. They’re gonna say, “Wow, I remember when…” People still say I remember when you did that big chop video where you cut off all of your hair, which was my first ever YouTube video where I decided to cut off my chemically straightened hair and go natural. They’re like, “I’ve been with you since then.” That was a long time.

Becca: Yeah.

Scarlett: 2013 when I just threw this random video up there, and I didn’t start really making videos consistently until the end of 2016. But those people that subscribed in 2013, when I started making videos in 2016, they’re like yeah, I’m here for that even though I wasn’t talking about hair anymore.

Becca: Yeah. Man, I love that. I love that. It is. It’s like they’re just more emotionally invested when they’ve watched you grow. People love to come up to me and they’ll be like I remember whenever you were in the back of that dirty gym massaging people, just waddling around pregnant and sweating because there’s no air conditioning. They love bringing that up to me.

What’s funny too is like I think everyone has a place for where they started. Like when you get really successful people in a room together, what do they talk about always no matter what? It’s always like where they came from, where they started. Like I remember when I had three people on my email list, and I was hustling for my first sale, and I was broke and exhausted. Like there’s something so bittersweet about that.

I think that your audience taps into that when they know that they’re a part of it. There’s people walking around Lexington that know for sure that they had a really big part in growing Massage Strong. Like they were the first 20 clients in the door.

Scarlett: Yeah.

Becca: Yeah. That’s so fun. So let me ask you something. You just said something that piqued my interest. You said you go through your email list, and you remove people that haven’t opened? Is that because of an algorithm situation? Or is that just like a cleanup shop? What is that?

Scarlett: Yeah, so the thing about email lists is that you don’t get to completely escape the algorithm because so many people will use Gmail or any sort of service provider that separates your emails into different tabs. So like I use Gmail. So there is the main like important, the primary tab I think is what it’s called. Then there’s the promotions tab, and then there’s the, what, like updates tab? Primary, social, promotions, and yeah, updates. Yeah, so I got it right.

You want to be in the primary tab, right? Of course you can also end up in spam. Spam, that’s serious business if your emails are constantly going to spam. But in the primary tab that’s where people have their most important emails. Emails that they check most often.

So email providers they score you by your overall deliverability. So that includes things like what is inside of your email. So I’ve heard, this is just speculation, if you have a lot of graphics in your email, then they’re gonna think that you’re more of like a sales circular. Like you’re LOFT or GAP or someone just emailing about sales. So you’re gonna go to the promotions tab.

If you have spammy words, I know my email service provider checks for spammy words. Unfortunately, like wealth building, which is what I teach and financial freedom. I’m like well, that’s what I teach. So the words are gonna be in there.

But all of those things and how often people open your email and whether or not your emails get flagged as spam by people. The more people who open your emails and click links on your emails, the better you look to the email service providers. So if you have a large list but low open rates, you have a lot of inactive subscribers, then that’s going to hurt your deliverability over time.

Also, it’s expensive to have those people on your list. So for me, right now, my email list cost me $700 a month to pay for that large of an email list. So I don’t want to pay for people to stay on my list who aren’t interested in my emails and don’t open them.

Becca: Gotcha. So what do you think is a good engagement? Like what are some numbers that you look for for open, click?

Scarlett: Yeah, so the hard part with these percentages is that like it’s so person specific. Obviously, the smaller your email list is the better your open rates are going to be. So if you have just a few hundred people on your list, you might see 60/70/80% depending on how aligned the people on your list are with the thing that you teach, right?

It’s just like social media. If you’re creating content around a wide mix of things, some people are going to join for that one thing. Like follow you on social media for that one thing, and then you’re talking about something else. So then they’re like, “Well I don’t know if I’m into that.” So, for me, I like to see between 30% and 40% open rates, and I like to see 1% click rates.

Becca: Okay.

Scarlett: Like that’s good for me. You should measure against yourself.

Becca: Right.

Scarlett: See what your metrics are right now.

Becca: That’s just life advice.

Scarlett: To improve it. Exactly.

Becca: Just life advice right there. Yeah. So what would someone do if they were like oh, I don’t have—Well, I’m glad to hear that percentage by the way because I sit around 40% to 45%. I’ve never known if that’s good or not. It seems like it. Like in my mind, I’m always like yeah. If I’m talking to a room of a hundred people, 45% of them are listening to me, I must be telling a damn good story.

Scarlett: Now, of course, during a launch, I will say that the numbers decrease. So if you’re sending emails every day and you’re launching and it’s really more on the marketing heavy side versus just the teaching side, I think it’s typical to see your open rates kind of dip during a heavy promo period.

Becca: Yeah. Okay. So what would someone do if they’re like oh my engagement is really low. Like let’s say someone’s sitting at a, I don’t know, 10% or 15/20% open rate. Like what actions can they take?

Scarlett: Yeah, so the way I think about it, it’s like how can I make my emails really valuable? So that when my people see that there is an email from me, they have to open it. So that’s really going to depend on who you serve. But one of the very first things is like an attractive email subject line. Like something that is compelling them to open just based on the subject line.

Becca: Yeah, I just put a bunch of dick emojis on the subject line every time. It gets opened every time.

Scarlett: You mean eggplants.

Becca: Mm-hmm.

Scarlett: Oh, okay. Because I’m like is there an actual like…

Becca: Dick emoji?

Scarlett: Penis emoji.

Becca: A penis emoji.

Scarlett: Yes, a penis emoji.

Becca: I’m always so tore up about the subject line. I’m like what is this email about? I get way too philosophical. Like sitting there for 30 minutes. I’m like, what? How do I subject this? It’s so ridiculous. Just ways that we get in our head.

Scarlett: Yeah, so get a swipe file. So have a swipe file of subject lines that you love.

Becca: What are you saying? What is that?

Scarlett: Swipe file. So collect things that you find around the internet that you like that can help you with your marketing. So if they attract to you, like find a subject line that you like, and say oh well why do I like this?

Becca: Yeah why am I attracted to this?

Scarlett: I’m looking at my email right now. A couple that are stating a bit of interesting news. Like oh, what is it? Like I’m interested. You said it was interesting. What is it?

Becca: Yeah.

Scarlett: What’s nice about that subject line, not just the words, but it feels very personal.

Becca: Yeah.

Scarlett: Because it’s not all caps. It’s just the A that’s capitalized. A and then it’s lowercase after that. So it’s like an email that you might get from a friend, which is what caught my eye because it feels casual, relatable, like a friend sending it themselves. That makes me want to click it. Another one. Quick update plus book recommendations. It’s like oh a quick update, and you’ve got some recommendations for me?

Now, those are really simple ones like oh made you a video. That’s one of my favorites. If I made someone a video, that’s all it says. Made you a vide. Like oh, you made me a video? Click and then they’ll watch the video. So collect those. So you can just skim through them if you’re feeling stuck, and they’ll provide inspiration for your subject lines. Another thing you can do is brainstorm. I know people say write 20/30 subject line options in order to find one that’s really good. It just takes practice.

Becca: Yeah. The more we’re talking about it, the more I realize that my own mindset around emails, about receiving my emails in my inbox has so much to do with the way that I’ve been looking at sending emails. Like we just talked about it. My attention to detail is not very there. So like I’ll wake up. I’ll get to my emails. There’ll be 20 emails. I’ll scan real quick. I barely even read the subject lines. Then I just wipe them clean. Like I’ll click on the ones that might be important and then I just wipe the rest clean. I barely read my emails.

But that’s hindering my thought process because in the back of my mind I’m thinking other people do it like this as well, which isn’t true because my husband is kind of like what you’re saying. Like he goes through. He’s like oh, you got a book recommendation? Click, open. Oh, you got a video? Click. Like he really takes the time to go through his emails, which to me is so new.

Like I can’t even imagine that thought has never even occurred to me. Like it’s just all junk mail in my mind. I’m trying to change the way that I view my email list. Like I want to go through an open and see what kind of value I can get out of it and what value people are sending to me. I’m noticing that as I’m doing that more, I’m considering that more people are doing that with mine. Right? So like it makes sense in the past that I just haven’t cared as much because I’m just like oh, this is just gonna go to someone’s junk. Some random person that’s weird, like my husband, might open it.

Scarlett: Yeah, but it’s like, you’ve got to think about…The way I think about my emails is like how can I change their life with my emails? Like email is another form of content. In fact, I know people who they don’t do any social media whatsoever.

Becca: Yeah.

Scarlett: It’s like all of their nurturing happens on their email lists. What they do to get people on their email lists, that can vary. I know they might do publicity. So going on people’s podcasts or doing traditional publicity like being featured on Forbes or whatever. Or they might just go straight to ads versus creating free social media content to get people on their list. They might just list build using ad, but they don’t nurture on social media. They nurture exclusively in email.

Becca: In their email, yeah. It’s kind of like Tim Ferriss. I think of Tim Ferriss. Like his email list is humongous and he nurtures. I mean that’s all his focus goes on.

That was something that was really comforting to me too was realizing that I don’t have to have different content weekly for Instagram and for Facebook and for email and for my podcast. Like I’m realizing that I can put my efforts strongly into my podcast. I can put as much like value as possible in the podcast. Then I can use my email as a way to link people to my podcast and like go through the show notes on the email.

It seems really simple and really obvious, but that’s not the way that I was doing it. I was like here’s my podcast episode. Here’s an entirely different email content. Here’s an entirely different Instagram. So I was just creating so much content all the time. Now that I’ve simplified, I’m like oh, this feels great. Like I could do this all day. I could really nurture some people just by staying simplified.

Scarlett: Yeah. I think one of the biggest mistakes that we make as creators is thinking that everyone sees everything that we put out everywhere.

Becca: Mm-hmm.

Scarlett: That’s just not the case. Like even people who follow us on Instagram, they’re not going to see every single one of our Instagram posts, even if they have us as a, what is it, a close friend. Like the when you make it so that you tell Instagram that you actually do want to see this person’s stuff. Even still you don’t necessarily see every single post that someone makes, even when you’re a close follower of that person.

So that is why it’s important that we repeat ourselves and we reshare our content across the different platforms. But then the second thing is that we think that we always have to come up with new and interesting ideas when really we just need to say the same thing over and over and over again in different ways.

Becca: Yes, I love that. I do love that. It’s like your main philosophies. One time I wrote down my main business building philosophies, and I had like five strong philosophies, right? Like what do I really believe about building business? Like number one, anyone can be successful. Like I just believe that period. No matter where you came from, no matter what, like you can figure out how to have a version of your own success.

When I wrote down these philosophies, I remember looking at them and just being like I could talk about these five things for the rest of my life. Like I could dress them up in different outfits. I can bring them in in different angles. I can use storytelling. I can use whatever, like different tools to get this same five topics across.

Scarlett: Yeah.

Becca: Yeah. I love that.

Scarlett: Because people want to hear those things over and over and over again.

Becca: Yeah, I completely agree. Okay so just to wrap up. Pointers for list building. You use lead magnets, do you or?

Scarlett: I do. Yeah, I do use lead magnets. Now I’ve seen those people who were just like sign up for my newsletter because my newsletter’s awesome. In fact, I’m on one of those people’s email lists, James Clear.

Becca: Okay.

Scarlett: He wrote Atomic Habits.

Becca: Oh yeah.

Scarlett: Yeah. He does have a lead magnet, but he also has a “just opt into my newsletter” option as well. But I do both, but most of the people from my list, it’s lead magnets. The big thing is to make sure that whatever lead magnet it is ties into something that you actually want to help people with in terms of selling a product.

So in the past, because One Big Happy Life is eclectic because we believe that basically every problem in your life is a financial problem. So it’s important to learn how to manage your whole life if you truly want to be able to reach your financial goals. So I will talk about things like routines and organization.

I remember I did a holiday organization planner, like a holiday time organization planner, and I got a lot of people on my list from that. But I don’t even have any products related to organization even though I teach on it. So while it did grow my list, I don’t have the numbers behind how many of them ended up joining Wealth Builder Society, but generally, especially when you’re just starting out and if you have a smaller audience, it’s better to just be really targeted with your lead magnet so that you know that the people on your list are actually interested in the thing that you’re going to be selling.

Becca: Yeah, for sure. I have seen this happen before where exactly what you said. Someone puts out a lead magnet that’s totally different and then they end up with an audience that isn’t necessarily indebted into what you really want to teach and what you want to talk about. Then you see your open rates go down and unsubscribers go up.

Yeah, so have you had more success on certain lead magnets as opposed to others? Like I have a lead magnet that was a PDF that didn’t do as well as the lead magnet that was a video, right? Like do you have any stories on that?

Scarlett: Yeah, I would say that, for me, the one that has been the most popular is a budget template. It’s the one year spending plan. So I teach people how to budget for their whole year in 15 minutes. So that one has been our most popular by far.

After that, I would say the video trainings and also webinars. Because I do, in the past, have exclusively sold Wealth Builder Society using webinars. So I would promote the webinar. That would build my list. It’s a free webinar. So with a webinar, I might promote it over the course of like two or three weeks and end up getting anywhere from like 2,000 to 4,000 people.

Becca: Good lord.

Scarlett: Yeah because of that because I don’t do them that often. Right? So I’m like promoting the webinar everywhere. So webinars will build my list. Another way to build your list is a paid workshop. I really love the paid workshop option. I did that last year. I did an investing workshop, like a beginner investing workshop. It was $97, which is high, but it’s investing. It was a three hour workshop, and they did get lifetime access to the recording. Something like 370 people joined that workshop.

Becca: Yeah, love that.

Scarlett: So that’s a smaller number, but it also created like $30,000 in revenue. So that’s a way to kind of build your list and also make some money.

Becca: I have a really good idea for you. I think that a really great lead magnet for you would be the spicy noodle challenge.

Scarlett: You know what? I have gone through my YouTube channel and retired, as in like made private, a lot of those videos that have nothing to do with what I teach now. Not all of it because I want people to be able to see the journey and the transition, but I bet you probably couldn’t find not the spicy noodle challenge, not the yoga challenge. I think those I went ahead and retired.

Becca: Oh my gosh, I love that.

Scarlett: There were keto ones that did so well on YouTube, but I’m like no I’m gonna go ahead and retire those because they don’t want people asking me question about keto because I don’t even do keto anymore.

Becca: I wish we could retire like other things. Like people’s memories of us or like some of the shit that we did back in college. Like I could just like go into the files and retire those out of the brains of all the humans.

Scarlett: No one’s thinking about that stuff anymore.

Becca: I know right.

Scarlett: It’s just our brains that—

Becca: Just me when I lay awake at night thinking about all the weird shit that I’ve done. I’m like on no.

Scarlett: Yeah and also one of the things I would also say is just a start. Because you’re doing all this work to get eyeballs on you, on your business, on how you can help people. So why not capture some of that attention?

Because only a small portion of the people who sees your stuff will subscribe, even on social, and an even smaller number will take that extra step to go over and sign up for your email list and get your lead magnet. You have to really sell them on the value of the lead magnet, sell them on the value of being on your list. Sell them on the value of staying on your list, sell them on the value of opening your emails.

Becca: Yes.

Scarlett: It’s all selling.

Becca: It is. It is. It’s like I think a lot of people to underestimate how much they have to sell their lead magnet, even if the lead magnet is completely for free. It’s like you have to promote it and promote it and constantly talk about this lead magnet. Like I’m getting ready to release a new lead magnet. I’m gonna be talking about it for the next several months, like just learning.

Then going back and learning what’s not working. Like if your lead magnet isn’t working, a lot of times it’s not the actual lead magnet because they can’t get to the lead magnet until they’ve given you your email address. It’s in the selling them to even give you the email address so they can get the lead magnet, you know what I mean?

Like a lot of times it’s just the promotion of the lead magnet or the words and verbiage on the sales page of the lead magnet. Then you have to go back and tweak. Like just staying consistent with it and learning how to sell that one and not running off and just changing it and trying to find a different lead magnet.

Scarlett: Yeah in the beginning with my very first lead magnet, which was the one year spending plan budget template, I would actually spend time optimizing the landing page to increase conversions. Because sometimes people think the best thing to do is you just need to get more and more and more eyeballs.

But really if your page converts better then you will get more leads with the same amount of work. So I used to use Leadpages back then because it was easy to split test. Meaning I would have two versions of the landing page, and Leadpages would automatically send half the traffic to one and a half to the other. After like a week, it would have data to say which one converts better. So then you choose the winner and then that winner will get you maybe an extra four or five subscribers a week. But that adds up.

Becca: Yeah, it adds up. Absolutely. It does. Yeah, I love that. Okay, so great. So you’ve given really good information on gathering email addresses. Then when it comes to nurturing, to me it’s like the top things are consistency. Not just forgetting about your email list and then like rushing to go chat with them, but actual like once a week consistency, adding a ton of value, as much value as possible. Do you have any other tips and advice on actually nurturing them once they’re in your network?

Scarlett: Yeah, making offers. Like talking about your offers. Let’s just say that you aren’t actively enrolling anything, still try to find ways to talk about the fact that you have offers, that you help people, how you help people. Because that is helping them get familiar with the idea of working with you and the idea that you can actually help them solve their problem faster if they work with you versus by just consuming free content.

Becca: Yes. We have to remember too other people don’t have the same brains as us, obviously. But like not everyone is a content creator, not everybody is an email list builder. Like people are just living their life. This is what I think sometimes. I’ll have a client that comes to me and they’re like, “I’m just not selling enough. Like I want to sell more. I’m constantly writing really great content that gets lots of eyeballs. Lots of people love it.”

I’ll go and I’ll look at their, wherever they do it. Let’s say it’s on Facebook. I’ll look at their content, and it’s amazing. I mean it’s like they’re getting tons of engagement, really great content, but they’re never asking for a sale. They’re never doing a call to action. They’re not saying hey, this is how you work with me.

So you have to think about it from the audience’s mind. The people that aren’t coaches, the people that aren’t business owners, just the normal everyday people that are reading this, they literally think that my client is just having fun giving advice. They think that my client is just putting up a picture of herself and talking about weight loss or wealth building or whatever it is that she’s talking about. They actually think that this is just her hobby.

I’m like why would they know that they can give you money to change their life? Like you have not told them. To me a call to action is in literally everything. So like if I’m doing a podcast, if I’m doing an email, if I’m doing whatever, trying to make it as valuable as possible to where the person reads it, and their life is better because of it. They can go and they can change something in their life and gain traction somewhere in their life.

But at the end, there is always, always, always if you want more of this, this is where you go. This is what you do. This is how you can work with me. Right?

Scarlett: Yeah, yeah. It’s not surprising that that happens. I did that for a long time. In fact, really up until last year, last year May, I had never sold publicly before. So I had never mentioned any of my products, that they were open on social media. I sold only through email. So in order to get access to my products, my offerings were not even listed on my website.

Becca: Yeah.

Scarlett: To gain access to it you had to be on my email list, and you had to open my email during a time when I was launching something. Because I also did launch based selling, which meant that I was selling maybe four times a year, and otherwise than that I wasn’t selling.

I realized that that was problematic because people need to understand that you have offerings and what those offerings are about and what they look like, especially when you have a business like mine, which you mentioned Becca, which is I don’t serve other businesses. I serve regular people helping them with their personal finances.

So other businesses are more familiar with the idea of online business, and that you’re doing this because it is a business, and it does cost you money to send these emails and all that. It’s not just a hobby. But regular people they’re like oh. Regular people, some of them actually think that I am personally sending just them an email.

Becca: Yeah.

Scarlett: Which is mind blowing to me that they believe that in this day and age, but that just shows how new to this modern world of business, this expert online course based business, that the regular world is still very new to it.

Becca: Yes. I mean, I try to keep my mind there a lot. Like sometimes whenever I’m thinking about like Three More, for instance. Three More is my lifetime access program. To me it’s obvious and to my coach friends it’s obvious. To the coaches that are in there, they’re like oh yeah. I know what a program is. Like yeah, you pay the money, you get the videos, you learn all the things, and then you have like a community usually where you can talk to.

I have to remind myself all the time that people literally, they just don’t know what I think is something that I’ve been studying for a long time that I would consider “basic.” I’ve gotta remind myself like I need to describe what a program is. Like hey you pay this money. You’re gonna get these eight videos, you’re gonna get this support group, you’re gonna be able to come to these Zoom calls where we help you and we coach you and you can ask questions, and like really break down what it is and not just skim by the word program or the word coaching.

So many people have come to me, and they’ve said “I think that I want a business coach, but like I don’t know what this means. Like when you say one-on-one, does that mean that I get to talk to you? Does that mean that I’m watching your videos? Like is there a classroom setting where I go, and I sit down, and I watch you like a teacher? Like I’m embarrassed to even ask this?”

I’m like damn. If I have people that don’t know what it means exactly, like I haven’t taught them well enough. I haven’t said it in my verbiage well enough to like really break it down. How many people are actually scared to raise their hand and ask for help because they’re embarrassed that they don’t know what this is? Like what is coaching? What is a program? Like what is a mastermind even? Like I have no idea what a mastermind is.

I’m like I gotta get better too. We all do. As we move the needle forward in this like information selling industry that we’re in, like we have to make sure that we’re stopping and collecting all the people that aren’t sure and are too embarrassed to ask what this is because they would benefit from it as well.

Scarlett: Yeah. Which is why we normalize it in our public facing content and also in our email.

Becca: Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Okay, is there anything else that you want to add? Anything that you want to say about list building before we tell our audience how they can find you?

Scarlett: Yeah, I would say just get started. The other benefit about not having a lot of people on your list is that there aren’t a lot of eyeballs on the emails. Like the stakes are low. So just consider these early months, these early years because you’re in this for the long haul, as practice, right? These are the people that you are honing your skills on. They’re also going to be your most patient people, right?

Becca: Yeah.

Scarlett: Because you have such a strong relationship with them. They know your business is new. They’re gonna love to watch you grow. So just get started. Just start sending emails and you’ll figure it out along the way.

Becca: I love that. Last question, what would you say to people that are sad to see that people have unsubscribed?

Scarlett: Oh, that you don’t need everyone to be on your email list. Like think of it as sort of like them getting to know you and you getting to know them, right? It goes both ways. So you send out your emails and maybe you were not the right fit coach for them. That is okay. Don’t let that cause you to change any of your messaging because the right people are out there. Everyone’s not gonna like you.

You have also unsubscribed from people’s email lists too because they weren’t the right fit. Then you found the coach that was the right fit. So know that your people are out there. Be thankful that that person decided to quietly exit and make room for the right people.

Becca: Yeah, I completely agree. I think about it like this. Like if you’re at a party and you’re standing by the drink station, and you meet a girl. You guys chat, and she seems interested in what you do. You’re interested in what she does and then she walks away. Then you meet a guy and then he’s interested, and you’re interested and you’re just chatting. You meet another person. It would be really weird to leave that party and assume that they should want to follow you and get to know you and hear everything that you have to say for the rest of your life.

Scarlett: Yep.

Becca: That would be weird. Every time someone leaves you at the drink station and they walk away out of your life forever, they’re unsubscribing from you. That doesn’t mean that they don’t like you or what you’re doing isn’t worthy in the world. It doesn’t mean anything. It would be really psycho if you wanted them to white knuckle you for the rest of time. Right?

That’s the way I think about it on my email list. Like if someone unsubscribes, I genuinely think of them like just like holding up their little martini glass saying cheers, hope you do well. I’m gonna go over here and talk to this group over here. Then I have clients that are like I had three unsubscribes after that email. Like I must be doing something so wrong. Like no. What? No.

Scarlett: Yeah, I think there’s more where that came from, right.

Becca: Yeah.

Scarlett: You just need to get more subscribers. Again, that’s normal. So if you just normalize it in your mind that some people will make the decision that it’s going to be a no for them. You’re not going to get a 100% yes rate. There will be nos. It’s also a good thing that you coach the person to a decision, even if that decision is no. You actually helped them.

Becca: Yeah.

Scarlett: I love thinking of it like that. The people who unsubscribe, you help bring them a little bit closer to what’s going to work for them. Because not every coach is for every person.

Becca: Yeah, I completely agree. I just found out the other day that my husband unsubscribed from my emails. Should I leave him?

Scarlett: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Becca: In his defense, he had two email addresses receiving my emails, and he unsubscribed one of them. So I guess he’ll stay. It’s fine.

Scarlett: But I mean, you’re always talking to him anyway. So he gets the audible version of your email.

Becca: Yeah. Like he’s the most subscribed person in my life. Like he gets every thought that comes into my brain, which is kind of like my Krispy Kreme reel from Instagram the other day. Like that’s what he gets every day. All right, thank you so much. Can you please tell my audience exactly where to find you?

Scarlett: Yeah, they can find me at One Big Happy Life everywhere. So Instagram, TikTok, primarily YouTube though. We make a lot of YouTube videos so. But any one of those places, that’s where you can find us. We will teach you how to build wealth and create a balanced life that you love.

Becca: I love that. So you can find Scarlett at One Big Happy Life, and we will make sure that we have all of that linked up in the show notes so that it’s really easy for you to find her. All right. Thank you so much, Scarlett.

Scarlett: Thanks for having me. I love talking email. So this is awesome.

Becca: So fun. We’ll have to have you back soon.

Scarlett: Yes.

Becca: All right bye.

Scarlett: Bye.

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