how to be the Taylor Swift of email

HEADS UP Sandra Booker of SidekickCOO is launching The 627 Advisory Board this Thursday, a membership for businesses who are doing $200K+ in topline revenue but have plateaued and need broader support to get to the next level. I’ll be promoting it in January, as well as supporting her students in the membership. Sound like you? Click here for a sneak peek. Not you? Click here to turn this promo off.

 

Wouldn’t it be awesome if every month were as alive with possibility as January?

Every month you could be a whole new you if you wanted. 

Every month would be a chance to become the you who works out daily and reads important books instead of just buying them and scattering them around your house to look smart. (Just me? )

I’ve been up early and working late on some gritty issues in my business (promise I’ll tell you more soon), drinking my AG1 daily, and flipping tires at the gym three times a week—something that was already an established habit, to be fair. 

I fkcn love January. 

I could write 45 emails this month. 

I could crank out emails like Taylor Swift cranks out albums, except my subscribers might be like

So instead how about you borrow some of my January email ideas, in case your 2024 goals include “email my list more consistently” or “send less boring emails” or even “write more often.”

Or (dream scenario) maybe your goal is “make 2024 the year of email.”

Here are some prompts we used in my membership this week (plus a few bonus ideas)—

Something I said I would do last year but changed my mind about…

This year I will say “yes” when…

Three personal (or business) habits I want to cultivate in 2024…

A secret wish for 2024…

Where I see my industry headed this year…

A goal everyone seems to have but I don’t…

What happened to my “word of the year” last year…

Look at all those ellipses, geez. You know my opinion on those if you read this email which was internally titled “drugs and grammar.” (Sorry to the Gen X’ers on this list. I know now how much you love ellipses. We can still be friends but unfortunately, we can never be lovers.)

The best thing about January is that it’s a free pass to start over at something you’ve historically not been good at. 

Like, dunno just guessing here, but maybe, emailing your list more consistently?

For a lot of people (like service providers or businesses who only take a handful of clients a year), once or twice a month might be enough. For businesses like mine that need a lot of small transactions consistently in order to be viable, I recommend once a week. 

Remember, consistency inspires confidence. 

If you want people to trust you, show up when you said you were going to show up. My long-term subscribers have seen me in their inboxes every Tuesday 50 weeks per year for nearly 7 years—barring any weird tagging errors, which, admittedly, we’ve had to troubleshoot a lot of since migrating back to ConvertKit (not ConvertKit’s fault). 

That’s a lot of history and a lot of trust. 

It’s paid off in revenue and reputation. (My favourite Taylor Swift album!)

And PS it doesn’t have to take a lot of time. Not every email has to be mindblowingly amazing. This isn’t The Eras Tour, it’s just an email. As Taylor would say, you need to calm down. Your email schedule could look something like this:

Tuesday: 

Set a time for 45 minutes and draft a 250-500 word email in a Google Doc 

Wednesday: 

Read through the email, touch it up before handing it off to be proofread and loaded (a simple task that can be inexpensively outsourced)

Friday: 

Spend some time reading replies, which you’ll get if your emails are interesting (and if they aren’t, I have a program for that, obviously, it’s called Email Stars and it’s enrolling in Feb. Click here to be added to the waitlist.)

So that’s MY goal for you. 

But what’s YOUR goal for you? 

Hit “reply” and loop me in. 

XOT

P.S. 

In case you missed these emails…

• ​​Seggs, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll (a fan favourite from December)
• ​Not the email you were hoping for (this subject line killed it)
• New inbox rules, and what you need to know (Part 1 of 2)

P.P.S.

OMG! I used “re:” in my subject line! If you were one of the lucky recipients of that subject line, DO YOU HATE ME NOW? 

 P.P.P.S 

(saving the best for last!)

Don’t forget to register for Sandra Booker’s Collective Growth Summit if you want to get fresh strategies for 2024. Stuff like…

—> how to stay cool when your schedule is overwhelming (Sandra is SO smart about this, and has saved my bacon a million times)

—> personal habits that make a better leader, lessons learned along the way, and how to keep the fires of creativity and innovation burning

—> what to do to keep yourself and your business agile and adaptable and how to address upcoming changes in the industry

Registration page right this way