what subscribers (actually) want

After Eight Years Of Weekly Emails, Here’s What I Know Subscribers Really Want

The response to last week’s self-proclaimed “very B-” newsletter was surprisingly wonderful and goes to show we are our own worst enemies when it comes to judging the quality of our creations. 

Subscribers said things like—

“Your way works for me! Don’t change a thing.”

“You’re the ONLY person in my inbox whose name I search and read over and over again.”

“Please send me something utterly frivolous every day.”

Thank you for saying those nice things I also like when you put your words in a Google review nudge nudge wink wink. 

For the month of August, I’ll be reissuing some of my all-time favourite emails, both mine and yours, going all the way back to 2016. 

Reviewing 8 years of emails was an emotional roller coaster, let me tell you, a parade of unforgettable moments.

….putting the sign up at my first office, then taking it down two years later

….an unexpected pregnancy just as my business was taking off

…my first speaking gig at an Amy Porterfield event in 2018, a relationship that sparked my career but went pear-shaped three years later, an outcome for which we are jointly responsible

…getting Lasik only to discover I couldn’t see underwater like I’d always imagined I would—actually, I never wrote about that but now you know 😉 

…buying my first home in 2017, then signing it over to my husband five years later, along with most of our assets

…all the replies after coming out about having a boyfriend and a girlfriend (the photo in that email hurt my heart it was so beautiful)

…announcing I was letting go of the team and dismantling my empire

Moments upon moments upon moments. 

I cried reading them all. 

It was shocking to see how I could turn almost anything into a sales pitch. Sometimes I thought, “Christ on a bike, Tarzan! Why couldn’t you just finish the story? Did all roads have to lead back to ‘buy my program’”? 

Reading those emails had me reliving many tough moments. Like the day my 3-year-old son brought my Christmas stocking over to the house I rented after separating from my husband. Only my stocking. What the hell was I going to do with that? Celebrate Christmas alone?

It’s been 8 years of hockey-stick-curve growth, easy money and hard money, relentless change and fumbling for the way forward.

One thing I learned about myself? 

I was 100% Tarzan, even before I knew who Tarzan was. Cool as fuck, right from the get-go. I didn’t just write about showing up authentically, I’ve been demonstrating what that looks like in practice, in nearly every single email for eight years straight.

I shared unflattering pictures and opened up about the things I failed at. 

I talked about what was hard and what was easy. 

I apologized when I made mistakes (<- infamous podcast interview on that topic), and shared how I planned to make change.

I changed my mind about who I promote, how I promote, and what strategies I will and won’t use, then changed my mind again. 

I shared raw numbers about my salary and business revenue, sometimes with context and sometimes not.

I teased the hell out of my subscribers, who are still waiting for me to name the coach I worked with who later went to jail—still no plans to name her, though a few subscribers did some detective work and figured it out. 

I planted hundreds of jokes knowing only a handful of people would get them. Someone always wrote me to say, “I got it!” (Thank you for getting my Notting Hill joke from last week’s email, Maegan. I’m so glad it was you.)

I learned what it means to be a leader. 

This email would be more fitting as a 10th anniversary celebration, not just some random Tuesday in July. But another one of my strengths is showing you how almost any moment of your life can be epic, if you look at it from the right angle.

An old friend used to call this “turning your diamond.” 

To find the sparkle, get it?

Not a single person replied to last week’s email saying, “I’d prefer you send more emails about text box formatting or setting up consent tick boxes.” Don’t worry, I’ll still do that. 

But in the meantime, thank you for reminding me you are here for the stories. 

I can’t say if this is the ultimate way of selling. But after eight years of weekly emails, I can definitely say that storytelling is the best way of creating connection and bringing meaning to our work, which is what I am in this for at the end of the day. Well, that and money, of course. Writing you these stories week after week has also earned me a generous salary.  

Your time and attention is a gift, and one of the things in my life I am most grateful for.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Tarzan “Diamond Inspector” Kalryzian