Listing Building 101: What You Need To Know To Get Started And Do It Right

This is one of the single most important marketing assets you should have for your business - Your List. Today we’re going to dig into what you need to know to get started and how to do it right with our special guest - Jennie Wright who is a list build and lead generation strategist.

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Listing Building 101: What You Need To Know To Get Started And Do It Right

Tim Fitzpatrick: This is one of the single most important assets you should have for your business, and it's your list. Today, we're going to dig into we've got a special guest with us. We're going to dig into everything list building, how to get started, how to do it right. I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing, where we believe marketing shouldn't be difficult. All you need is the right plan. I am super excited to have with me Jennie Wright, who is a list build and lead generation strategist. Jenny, thanks for joining me here.

Jennie Wright: Absolutely. I'm so happy to be on this. It's going to be great. We're going to talk about some really great stuff. Really excited.

Tim Fitzpatrick: I've been looking forward to it. Sorry, I got a sound issue here. There we go. Can you hear me OK?

Jennie Wright: I can hear you just fine.

Tim Fitzpatrick: OK, awesome. Yes, I've been looking forward to this because a lot of people, you know, they talk about this building, but they struggle to really get things going. So I know you have some awesome stuff to share with us today. Before we do that, I've got some rapid-fire questions for you just to help us get to know you a little bit better. Are you good to go?

Jennie Wright: I am absolutely good to go. I am sharing this in a couple of places and I can multitask like nobody else.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Awesome. I love it. So when you're not working, how do you like to spend your time?

Jennie Wright: I love reading, a little bit of Netflix cooking, baking and playing with my plants.

Tim Fitzpatrick: OK, I love it. What's your hidden talent?

Jennie Wright: I can learn languages really, really quick. And I'm really bad at telling jokes, that's also hidden talent.

Tim Fitzpatrick: So how many languages are you fluent in?

Jennie Wright: I'm fluent in two languages, English and French. I can get away and get around speaking Spanish pretty good. I can understand Italian and I'm trying to teach myself German.

Tim Fitzpatrick: OK. I always thought that, like, there were a lot of similarities with Italian and Spanish.

Jennie Wright: And French. So they all have the same super grandparent language that they all kind of come from. So I love languages and it's just it's really easy to learn once you learn the one.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. So there are some. So once you learn that that one, you can start to pick up on some of the other similar languages a lot quicker.

Jennie Wright: Absolutely.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Cool. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Jennie Wright: Stop selling. Shut up, listen.

Tim Fitzpatrick: OK, what's the one thing about you that surprises people?

Jennie Wright: That one down makes me pause with something about me that that surprises people. I don't know, I think it would possibly be that I can be funny, but in the very, very many little ways sarcastically.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Do you have a dry sense of humor?

Jennie Wright: Do.

Tim Fitzpatrick: OK. Yeah, I kind of pick up on that from you. I have a very dry sense of humor. Sometimes people are like, dude, is he serious? Like, no, I'm joking. What does success mean to you?

Jennie Wright: The people around me are comfortable, happy, and I'm OK, and lights later on, food, the fridge.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Where's your happy place?

Jennie Wright: Right where I'm at, actually, anywhere where the people that I love are around me and that I have a nice kitchen. That's my happy place.

Tim Fitzpatrick: OK, that's awesome. Nice kitchens make it comfortable to cook.

Jennie Wright: My second happy place, though, I have to say is usually on a scale that would be my second most happy place.

Tim Fitzpatrick: OK, what's your favorite ski resort?

Jennie Wright: That's easy. That's Mont Tremblant in Quebec, Canada.

Tim Fitzpatrick: OK, cool. What qualities do you value in the people with whom you spend time?

Jennie Wright: Honesty, sincerity, big hearts.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Those are all good qualities, thank you for sharing. I now have a little bit more insight. Before we get into things, tell us a little bit more about what you're doing and how you're helping business owners, the type of people you're typically working with.

Jennie Wright: I'm really lucky. I'm working with some really great people. I usually work with either brand spanking new entrepreneurs that are just coming into the field trying to figure out this whole marketing thing, the list building thing, the funnel thing, or I'm working with some pretty established people who've been around for a while and have done multiple launches, are already seeing some success, but they want to take it to the next level. I like helping both because I get to sort of stretch my marketing sort of talent in different areas. The new people need a certain set of skills and the advanced people need a completely different set of skills. So I sort of like playing and dipping into both ponds there. There's just it just keeps me really active and engaged.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah, I love it. So let's define list building. Just to make sure we're all on the same page. When when you talk about this building, what does that mean to you?

Jennie Wright: List building is the acquiring of people's email addresses and putting them into your own, like CRM, like your email marketing provider, such as MailChimp, Active Campaign, Convert Kit, and having a list of potentially and hopefully buyers, people who are interested in what it is that you're doing so that you can email them.

Jennie Wright: We're all on these social media platforms, but we don't own these things. And if you were on Facebook at all yesterday, it went down multiple times. Right. And I tried going live yesterday and couldn't on Instagram and Facebook because they were all down. Even WhatsApp was down at one point. We can't be reliant just on our social media profiles at all to be able to reach our ideal client. And because it is such a completely saturated market on social media, having an email list as that key thing that you really need to build a business that can make money at two o'clock in the morning when you can't access Facebook.

Jennie Wright: So it's basically it's a list of email addresses of your potential client, preferably completely niched in and not a vanity number. This doesn't mean we don't have to look at this and think I need five thousand on my email list before I can do anything. It's just a list of hopeful people that want what you do.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yes. And you have to start somewhere.

Jennie Wright: Yep. Everybody start somewhere. I started with three people on my list and one of them was a relative.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. So I want to pull something out here that you said that I think is really important that people may have not picked up on. You touched on and I talked about this actually in a podcast episode last week about owning versus renting different channels with our marketing. Social media, we are renting. We do not control that. Our email list, our website. Those are channels that we own, and so for all intents and purposes, when we talk about this building, we're talking about building your email list.

Tim Fitzpatrick: You own that. I don't care if you get shut down by your email marketing provider, you still on the list. You can take that and move it somewhere else. Your list is a huge, huge asset and you should be building it from day one.

Jennie Wright: Absolutely.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Awesome. So I want to build my list. How do I get started?

Jennie Wright: There's so many ways to start with list building. It actually depends a little bit on what you do and how you serve. So let me break it down for you in this particular way. This is the way that usually makes the most sense. I want you to think about the end goal in mind. So if you're selling physical products, then the way that you're going to list build is going to be a little bit different. It might be enter your name and email in the box on this page and I'll send you 10 percent coupon for a future purchase off of XYZ product.

Jennie Wright: OK, so that's building like a newsletter list of potential buyers. If you're selling coaching, then you would probably have what we call a lead magnet. That would be something that in return for the name and email address, we're sending something of value. Perhaps it's an on demand video training. It could be a white paper, it could be a PDF checklist, an ebook. But I will tell you that these ebooks and things like that are a one way conversation.

Jennie Wright: And I'll come back to that in a little bit. It's important to note, if you're a freelancer or a copywriter, let's just say, then most likely you're going to create something that is a template styled most people in that if they want to work with you, it's because they want to stop doing the stuff themselves, building a funnel, writing copy, etc. and having a template that you provide as a lead magnet shows them that your chops. I'm really good at doing X.

Jennie Wright: Here's a little taste. If you want more, hire me. And then there's other ways of building a list that create a ton of connection. And this is where I want to come back to the point that I was making earlier. So one-way communication or less builds means enter your name and email. I'll send you the thing, have a nice day. But it doesn't necessarily convert them into a paying client. It's a lower, there's a lower interaction rate.

Jennie Wright: The higher interaction rate list builds, take more time, effort, a little bit of money to make them happen. But they create a better list in terms of engagement and potential sales. Those would be online challenges that you run for five days, say, and every single day you're leading them through a process to get to an end goal. At the end, you make your offer to a program, product or service or something along the lines of webinars, which you can make into a two-way conversation.

Jennie Wright: And those are great for selling coaching programs, products and services. And then the last one are online summits. Online summits are usually a three, a five or a 10-day summit, something along those lines. And you're utilizing the power of other people's lists. So you have twenty or twenty-five other experts that you pre-interview and get all these interviews all done ahead of time. Release it at a certain date and all of your experts promote it on your behalf, saying I'm an expert on Tim's event, come check it out. And so you get to grow your reach. All list builds are not built the same. They don't all have the same outcome. And you need to pick the right thing that sort of fits for you.

Tim Fitzpatrick: When you do things like summits, are you sharing that list filled with all the people that are involved or as they've got it? So you're you're bringing it all together and you're building your list in and of itself?

Jennie Wright: Correct. It's actually against the law to share the list with all the other experts. So there are privacy laws and you're not allowed to do that. A lot of people do it, but it is actually not something that you should be doing and you can be fined in Canada. The fine, I believe, is twenty two hundred dollars. It's not something you want to mess with. So I wouldn't recommend it. But what the trade off when you're doing a summit is.

Jennie Wright: I'm an expert on your summit. Tim's the host. I'm the expert. Tim's going to put in all the work to host the event. I am the expert and I get a ton of exposure as a result of being a participant in the event or an expert in the event. And so as a result of emailing my list, I'm going to get in front of all of these other people and potentially grow my renown, my expertize, and also get some people on my list as well from offering a free gift.

Jennie Wright: So there's this great collaboration. So you really have to look at the right list build for you. If you love collaborating, do a summit. If you're a little bit of a lone wolf, but you like being on video, do a challenge. If being on video scares the everloving what out of you then start with something like a checklist or an ebook or templates along that line. And then as you get better and more comfortable in the space, then move your way into the more connection based list building activities.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Got it. So this leads us into kind of I think we've touched on some of these, but it does lead into kind of this next question of. So I want to start building my list. I've got to have something to offer that's a value that people are going to want to exchange their name and their email for. First and foremost, what are the top three to five list building tactics that are working best right now?

Jennie Wright: The best ones are the ones that create connection and build a relationship. Nobody is interested in downloading your ebook and then having no reciprocal relationship. I can't tell you how many times people download these things. They just end up on your desktop or in a folder on your Google Drive, and nobody ever looks at them ever again. Trust me, ask me how I know. What, that happens that way. So you have to build something that has connection and relationship, right?

Jennie Wright: People want that personal connection and want that availability to you. So they absolutely have to be something along those lines. So you can build that in if you're doing checklists and templates by doing a follow-up sequence in the emails. OK, so that's very important. And if you want to do a checklist, great. Do a checklist. Make sure that there's a follow-up sequence of emails that arrives after they've opted in over and over a period of seven days or so that lets them know who you are, how you help and what you do and how you're going to serve them going forward.

Jennie Wright: Start building that relationship, lead them into a Facebook group. Facebook groups are still a thing. They're great. They still create that connection. I love pulling people into a Facebook group after they've registered for my thing and start connecting with them more deeply. Being live is still a huge component of this building. So going live on a Facebook group and then making a call to action to, hey, if you want the thing that I'm talking about, head on over to blah blah, blah, dot com forward, slash whatever and go and download it.

Jennie Wright: And let's get you started on your journey to X. So those are some really good methods. Build in the connection, make it high touch. People really want that. I know you may not want to be on video. Trust me I get it. But part of the job, when we're building our businesses, is to be the frontman getting out there and creating those high-touch things. And then the last thing that's working really well right now is podcasting.

Jennie Wright: I know it's a little meta because we're kind of talking about it and being on one at the same time, being on a podcast is really important. You create a podcast. It's fantastic. You're creating this long-term long play opportunity where you appear on it in April of such and such year. And there's still listens happening and downloads that are happening on that podcast if it's still open and alive basically for years. So I know people that are still getting leads from a podcast they were on a couple of years ago.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah, it's a very evergreen content. So it's I mean, in some way, shape or form. Once people are on your list, you have to have a plan of how you're going to continue to interact, serve those people and continue to build that relationship.

Jennie Wright: 100 percent, if you don't, then congratulations, you've built a list that you can now lose, because if you're not staying front of mind, if you're not the person that's providing them with the support and information that they need on their customer journey, then they're going to go and find the next person that will. So once they're on your list, they're yours to lose. So make it a point to create that consistency so that they stay with you. Right. And provide stuff that they need. So don't just get into e-mail box with promotes. Don't lure them in with a really cool download and then just promo the crap out of them. Serve and help. Give them lots of good tips. Make the occasional ask.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Nobody wants to be sold to. Right? So OK, so we've talked about your lead magnet it your checklist if you want higher interaction and engagement. We're looking at online challenges or webinars or summits. One of the other tactics I've seen people use are contests. How do you feel about contests?

Jennie Wright: I love contests, but contests. We have to be a little bit careful with contests. Sometimes they can feel a little bit disingenuous and it can feel like a little bit of an email grab. Right. So if you're like enter your name and email and you'll be put into a prize pool or a genuine email and be put into a drawer, know you might have three or five hundred people sign up for that and you're giving one prize that you got to watch out for stuff like that.

Jennie Wright: And you have to make sure that what you're signing up for is actually what you're going to receive. Read the fine print. As somebody who would be hosting that, I love quizzes. I think quizzes are a much better way to create a more niched in potential list build. If you're just doing a contest, I'm going to tell my sister-in-law, my brother, my this and that, and everybody's going to sign up so we can possibly win a prize.

Jennie Wright: It doesn't mean my sister-in-law or my brother or other people or even in your niche and the right people that should be on your list. So be more targeted by doing something more like a quiz where throughout the quiz they can self-identify as potential leads and you're breaking them into lead components. You break them down into segmentation where you're like, OK, this person answered this question this way. Therefore, they're interested in this. This person answers the question this way. They're interested in that. So, yes, do a contest if you want to, but understand that once it's done and you start emailing them on a regular basis, you're going to see some crazy unsubscribes.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yes. So if I hear the undertone in what you just said, you can use contests, but they may not be the best way to build a very engaged email list.

Jennie Wright: Correct. They're great if you want numbers. They don't necessarily mean that you'll have niched in leads, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you'll have great engagement afterwards if you do it right. Sure. If you're very, very clear, enter your name and email, if you want this thing that's going to help you achieve X and win a prize that will help you achieve this. But just be careful of the blanket, almost like the carpet bombing that could happen where people like, oh, there's a really cool prize. I want all of my friends to go register for it. And then if I get it, I'll share it with you.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. Got it. It makes perfect sense. So one of the things you touched on earlier was about the size of somebody's email list. Is there any, like, general number where it's like, hey, how many people do I need for things to start cooking here? And I know this is a loaded question, so.

Jennie Wright: It's totally loaded question. I love this question and I'm going to answer it with complete and utter transparency. OK, so the old adage of if you have five thousand people on your list, then you can make a six-figure income is complete hogwash. OK, I was able to create a six-figure income off of three hundred and fifty six people on my list because they were my right people. OK. My list has grown since then obviously. But it doesn't mean that if you have X amount you achieve X amount of revenue. If you have a nation list right from the get go and you spend the time understanding who your ideal client is and you work backwards from your goal and build your list in an intuitive way, then it quite honestly does not matter about the size matters about the people in it.

Jennie Wright: And that's what's going to be the the the thing that's going to show itself as the factor that's going to help you make money. Right. And that's more important in my eye. I know people with lists. I once had a client. Start working with me. She had a list of over ten thousand people. She was making less than forty grand a year and you would think the opposite. Right. But she had various lists, she had got them from various areas, none of them were really her ideal client should a very small open right.

Jennie Wright: Like under five percent open rate, really small clickthrough rate. When we cleaned her list out over like a span of, I think three or four months, we ended up with a list of somewhere in the range of thirty-four hundred. So we really wiped a lot of it out because they were just dead emails, people not opening them, nobody was interested. And then we started rebuilding very consciously and then she was able to see some changes and then she was starting to see some income.

Jennie Wright: So my recommendation is to this incredibly loaded question is make sure that your people or your people give them lots of opportunity to leave. Make it very easy for them to leave your list. I have the unsubscribe button right along the top of every single email. Don't like this anymore. No problem. I wish you all the best. There's the button. Yeah. If you're here, you're here for a reason. And you like what I say, you like what I'm doing. And I'm here to, like, connect with you on a deeper level, right?

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yes, I love that. So I actually joined a list from a copywriter. This is probably a month ago and I mean, he literally begged people to unsubscribe from the list and he was super upfront because the guy emails daily. So it's like, look, if this is not a good fit, you just get out, do what you need to do. I'm not going to take any offense to it. I mean, he just. I've never seen somebody be that upfront about it, so I do I love that because, look, why hide it if they don't want it to point? And frankly, if they stay on your list, you're just going to be paying more to have people on your list that don't need to be there.

Jennie Wright: Absolutely. I don't want to pay for people that don't want to be there.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. So what's the point? You touched on something just a minute ago about open rates. What type of open rates should we be looking for? You know what, or if we're getting certain types of open rates is that telling us something about the quality of our list?

Jennie Wright: Absolutely it is. Now, this is going to depend on the size of your list. If you have one hundred and fifty thousand people on your list because you're running a SaaS company as an example, then you're open rate might be a little bit lower and you can expect something between. I mean, I've recently talked to the CEO of the SaaS company and he's open rate was twenty-two percent, which is great for him. One hundred and fifty thousand people.

Jennie Wright: Twenty two percent. I think that's awesome. If you have a smaller list and it's like five hundred people, I'd love to see an open rate of like 40 percent. If you're seeing your open rates drop consistently every time, every time you send an email. Then you're seeing the biggest like it's like the canary in the mine, you're seeing something happening, you're seeing a disinterest, and you're going to need to start doing some real clinical looking at what the problem is.

Jennie Wright: But, yes, open rates are like a diagnostic tool. You have to look at these things. Everybody needs to kind of know their numbers. Right. And I know nobody likes to really dove into the numbers. I like it. I kind of geek out on it. But you have to know it's like a diagnostic tool. It's the health of your list. Right. Because your list, you have to think of your list like almost like a living, breathing sort of entity.

Jennie Wright: And if you mistreat it, it's going to get pissed off and take off and feel neglected, etc. If you take care of it and nurture it, it's going to respond better. Right. So you really want to look at the open rates? Depending on who I email on my list because I have different segments, some of my segments will open at 30 percent. I have one segment that I'm just like they're just not connecting with me because I love being transparent, telling the truth. Their open rate on that one is about 10 percent. I'm like, OK, I don't think we really have much of a relationship happening here, so I'm about to send them a breakup email.

Tim Fitzpatrick: OK, so this is leading into your like reading my mind here, you're seeing that things aren't working on this list. That next step that you recommend is the breakup email. Can we dig into this a little bit?

Jennie Wright: We can. We absolutely can now, I can't take credit for this email, because this is something that Alyson Lex, who's my co-host for The System to Thrive podcast is more in tune with, but she's been so generous as to give it to me. So the breakup email, the structure of this is, you know, are we interested in being friends anymore? Like, are you interested in being here anymore? And if you aren't, that's totally OK. I totally understand it.

Jennie Wright: And if you have like if you want to go, I totally get it. Here's the unsubscribe button. But if you want to stay and you're interested, here's what I'm going to be talking about going forward. And we use I use Active Campaign and Active Campaign, we can create a one click automation. So I love using one click and it's like, hey, if you want to stay and you want to hear about X, click here and you'll automatically like you'll be taken care of, will move you into the right spot.

Jennie Wright: And if I don't hear from you at all, then I wish you well kind of thing. And eventually those people like I will remove them from the list eventually. Right. So there is a cleanup process so you can create a breakup series where it's a couple of emails to kind of be like, OK, it's obviously not working for us. All right, here's the options that we have in front of us, and I wish you well.

Tim Fitzpatrick: So you're sending that message specifically to people that haven't opened in. Do you usually look at a time like if they haven't opened in the last three months or six months?

Jennie Wright: It is a little bit different. So I know somebody that is like if they haven't opened my email in a month, but then I am one of those longer people, like I'm more of like a six-month kind of person, because I'll be honest about this. I had and this happens to me a lot, I'll have somebody on my list who's been dormant for ages and then all of a sudden they perk up and they hire me. So I'm a little reticent to get rid of people who are like three months because you know what? Life happens. They could be sick. They're they could have COVID. They could all of these things could be happening. Three months feels very arbitrary to me. And it also feels a little bit limiting because like I said, life happens now, six months.

Jennie Wright: That to me feels about right, because in that time, you know, they could have come back, that kind of thing. So I'm a little bit more on that angle. I know everybody else has a different level. Some people are totally different, and that's totally fine. You do what you think is best for your business, but I look at it more on the six-month trend and I create automations in Active Campaign and I have tags.

Jennie Wright: So if people if people haven't opened an email in a very long time, they get tagged. If they open but don't click, they go into a different automation. They get a different tag. If they are rapid link, I call them link clickers. If the rapid link clickers, they get that tag. And then I know that these people like open my stuff and click the stuff. Right. So I use my automation's wisely so that I can get these people tagged and then I can send my breakup email sequence. And then if it's there's still no response, they get another tag. Breakup sequence was sent, but now it's like, OK, we're ready to break up and then I clean them off.

Tim Fitzpatrick: So is your breakup sequence going out automatically based on the automations you've set?

Jennie Wright: Yes.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Got it. I love it.

Jennie Wright: Yeah, make it make it as much automation, make everything as automated as you possibly can, that way you don't have it happening for you in the background. Yes, eventually you have to go into Active Campaign and clean out. Right. You have to hit the button to get them cleaned out. You just removed. I think it was to take it two days ago. I just removed, like, two hundred people from my list that we're at the cleanup stage.

Jennie Wright: Right. And that just happens on a consistent basis. And you check it out every month or two months when those people get to that point and you just clean up. Right. And as long as you're replacing it, as long as you're replacing those email addresses with new people by doing your list building activities on a continual and constant and consistent basis, you're never going to get to zero. Right. And you should be outpacing. Outpacing the people that are leaving. So that's a really important thing to consider.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Got it. I'm going to ask you another loaded question. How often should I be sending email?

Jennie Wright: You just love these, OK. Thanks, Tim. I love being put on the spot. These are actually really good questions. And again, I'm not trying to be evasive on the answer of this, but it depends. So there's some marketers out there that email every day, like the person that you mentioned before. Again, your list is a living, breathing entity. OK, give them a name if you want. Write some lists can handle.

Jennie Wright: They have different thresholds. My list cannot handle an everyday email. They will go berserk. Some lists can. Some lists only get an email once a week. Mine gets an email but twice a week that's about the threshold. Now when I'm in promo they're going to get a little bit more and I actually warn them. I actually send a warning email to my list and I'll be like, you guys are going to see a whole ton of me for the next four weeks.

Jennie Wright: And if that's not your thing, then go ahead and disregard me for the next four weeks until this is all said and done. And then I'll give you a I'm done email and then we can get back on track. But if you want to check out what I'm doing, here's what's going to happen over the next four weeks. I'm really upfront about it. I even put a post on my Facebook page saying the next four weeks are going to be nuts.

Jennie Wright: Don't leave me, just love me and meet me for now and I'll see you in a little bit, right. But most people find it funny and then they check out what I'm doing anyways. All right. So some people send emails every day. Some people, you know, once, once a week. I love Seth Godin. Seth Godin emails every single day with this little mini-blog. That's something to look forward to. Other people send once a week and I look forward to those. So it really does depend on what you're trying to do.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Do you think it's also a matter of setting the expectation upfront?

Jennie Wright: Absolutely. There's in your email sequences, when somebody registers for your thing, whatever that thing is, there should always be a get to know me email.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yes. Here's what to expect.

Jennie Wright: Exactly. Here's how I'm going to serve you. I'm going to email you. This is how often I'm going to be in your inbox. This is how often I'm going to be helping you. This is how often I'm going to be doing this. Here's all the ways that we can connect, set up those expectations early and then be consistent.

Jennie Wright: Don't tell somebody you're going to email them once a week and then email them five times a week. But don't tell them you're going to email them once every single day and then do nothing for three months. And tattoo the test to the tattoo is going to say consistency, I don't know where to put it yet, but that's the word.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Consistency is important in a lot of things. You've been dropping some serious value bombs here. Let's talk about mistakes and pitfalls because we all make them if we can communicate some of these things upfront, will help people avoid it. What are the most common mistakes or pitfalls you're seeing people making with list building?

Jennie Wright: The biggest pitfalls that people make are not planning the process, there's too many people who are willing to do this willy nilly without any planning and just hoping for the best. And then when it's done and it didn't go to plan going, oh, that didn't work for me. And then never trying it again. Right. So the biggest that's the biggest mistake. So the thing that people need to be doing is saying, OK, I'm going to run a webinar.

Jennie Wright: It's not that I'm going to run a webinar a week from today. It's I'm going to run a webinar in three weeks. I'm going to make my page or my landing page or I'm going to get my VA to take care of my landing page in the next couple of days. Right. I've got all my content ready, everything like that. And then I'm going to promo for 10 days and then I'm going to do my webinar and then I'm going to do a three day replay.

Jennie Wright: So if you if you don't do the right steps, then you're missing out. You're literally removing opportunities. It's like the person who says, I'm going to go on Facebook live every single day in my business group. And there's only three people in the group and then they go, nobody showed up. This sucks. Facebook lives don't work and then they stop doing them. Well, think further out, build the group, then do the live right.

Jennie Wright: So people aren't doing enough planning, they're not putting enough thought and they're not thinking about the end goal in mind. I worked with somebody who did an entire summit before they met me, wasn't with me this entire summit before they met me on losing weight. OK, now this particular person was a coach who only dealt with raw food, that was the whole diet. They tell their clients to eat raw vegan meals, but they did a summit about all types of meals.

Jennie Wright: So we had people who were carnivores, omnivores, vegetarians, keto, and everything. And this person, when the summit was over, they got a big list. But when the summit was over and they sent the first email about eating a vegan diet, they lost half their list. Everybody unsubscribed. So they weren't planning ahead. They were looking at the end goal because if they had, they would have made the summit around how to create a lifestyle eating a raw vegan diet.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah, they did not keep their ideal clients or their target market top of mind.

Jennie Wright: They didn't niche in. They weren't niched in enough. And that's the next big mistake that people make that I have to talk about, because if I don't, I'm really going to be not speaking the truth here. People don't niche in enough at all. So they'll do a summit like I want everybody who wants the widget or I want everybody who wants to build a business. No, you don't. You can't serve all the people because if you try it, you're going to get nothing. You're going to get these you're just going to get a whole bunch of willing people that are not actually your ideal client.

Jennie Wright: The way that you serve clients is completely different than the way I serve clients, even though we're not too far off the fact that we're in the same niche technically. But how you deal with clients is different than I do. I would never approach my clients the way that you do because it wouldn't be authentic to me. Right. So my niche and my summits and my list builds are all really, really super tight so that I'm only speaking to the person that I need to so that I can serve them the way that I will eventually serve them.

Jennie Wright: That's the important thing. So go like super niched in. People are so scared when they do that because they think they're only going to get two hundred people to sign up for their thing. No, they won't. They'll get more because there's actually a lot more people in that little niche than you think.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Yeah. You're preaching to the choir on that one. So you've shared some awesome information with us. Jenny, what do you have any last minute words of wisdom or parting thoughts you want to leave with us?

Jennie Wright: I have too many I could get back up my soapbox any second now, but I really want to share that people need to be really focusing on their list building. If they're not, then they're robbing themselves of those consistent leads that consistent list building machine.

Jennie Wright: And the other thing my last thing is don't do the start and stop method. Create consistency in your business. Again, I need that tattoo. Create that consistency in your business where you're constantly doing something, even if it's a game of inches, as my mentor tells me. And even if you just do one little thing a day, it's going to make a big difference. So make sure you do that one thing and just keep moving it forward bit by bit.

Jennie Wright: Your list is the biggest asset in your business. Hands down. It is the biggest thing. It has more value than the computer you're working on. It has more value than the headphones you're wearing, whatever. It's the biggest asset that you own. So don't mess around.

Tim Fitzpatrick: Awesome. So. People love it, they know they need help with their list building, you obviously know what the heck you're talking about and I really appreciate all the information that you've shared. You've been very open. Where can people learn more about you?

Jennie Wright: Well, right now, I'd love for them to go check out jenniewright.com/event. I'm actually running an event right now that might be helpful to the listeners here right now. So you can go and check it out. It is called Grow & Profit Online, and it's worth two seconds of your time, your consideration to go and see if it's something that's a good fit. And on top of that, if at the time that you're listening to this, that event is closed and that's totally fine. Go to systemtothrive.com and check out the podcast that I do with my co-host, Alyson Lex.

Tim Fitzpatrick: So it's Jennie Wright. jenniewright.com/event. Jenny, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. I really appreciate it. And thank you for those of you that are tuning in, listening, watching. Again, I'm Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing. If you want to gain clarity on where to focus your marketing efforts right now. Hop on over to our website rialtomarketing.com. That's R-I-A-L-T-O marketing.com and just click on the get a free consultation button. Guarantee you'll get a ton of value from that call and walk away having some clarity on where you need to focus your efforts right now. Till next time take care.

Connect With Jennie Wright

• Linkedin

Links From The Episode

• The Grow & Profit Online Virtual Summit
• System to Thrive Podcast

About the Host Tim Fitzpatrick

Tim Fitzpatrick is the President of Rialto Marketing. At Rialto Marketing, we help service businesses simplify marketing so they can grow with less stress. We do this by creating and implementing a plan to communicate the right message to the right people. Marketing shouldn't be difficult. All you need is the RIGHT plan.