Cait
Welcome to the Born to rise podcast, the show that celebrates the limitless power of women who say yes to their gifts and use them to build extraordinary lives and businesses. Each month I’ll be interviewing world class women thought leaders, entrepreneurs and visionaries to uncover their expert tools, tips and wisdom on what it takes to claim your vision. Boldly go after it and elevate into your highest potential. I’m your host Kate Scouter, reminding you gorgeous that you were born to rise. How Hello and welcome to today’s episode of The Born to rise podcast guys, I can hardly contain my excitement even reading her bio. Tarzan is one of the most badass interesting, authentic, brilliant, extraordinary women that I have ever met. She is legit like an 11 out of 10 in every category and I’m so excited for you to listen to this conversation because hearing Tarzan speak, reading her writing it is just a gift to humanity. So here we go. Tarzan que is a former copywriter for hire who specializes in emails that are fun to read and more addictive than Netflix like literally. That’s me saying like literally. Her online courses teach us how to write story based copy and make consistent sales from a small email this without using fear or FOMO. Her company’s mission is to make high integrity marketing the new status quo for online business and a previous life Tarzan was a music major and once did a three year stint in law school in French. When t boss isn’t writing emails, you’ll find her taking midday dunks in an ice bath or paying playing Billy Joel’s greatest hits on the piano. Tarzan and her family live in Ontario, Canada. Guys, I just I literally don’t even know how to possibly do justice to an introduction to Tarzan because she is absolutely brilliant this conversation on email marketing, writing through email, the power of leveraging email in as a marketing tool. And just authentic expression and releasing your story is just a must listen. I hope you listen to this episode multiple times. Sign up for Tarzan’s email list because it is one of the most entertaining places to be on the internet and so informative as well. So without further ado, guys, here is the conversation with Tarzan. If you can take a minute and send me a DM after this episode to let me know your biggest takeaway. I would love to hear it. screenshot it. Let us know that you listen to the episode. And take a brief moment if you would after listening to leave us a review on iTunes guys, it makes such a big difference for us. It lets us keep bringing incredible women onto the show and keeps the Holborn to rise party going. So take a moment and do that. And I would be so grateful. Without further ado, here is my conversation with Tarzan Kay. Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of The borns rise podcast. I’m your host Kate scoter, and I am so excited to welcome our badass amazing guests for today. Tarzan, Kay, thank you so much for being here.

Tarzan
Thanks for having me, Kate. It’s been a long time coming.

Cait
I know. It’s so good. I know. I think we booked this out months ago, I’ve been so pumped to have this chat. And to be having this conversation which I feel like, honestly, is one that we’ve been having in bits and pieces for months now. But just to sit down and like have it in one solid go. I just feel so good Tarzan. For our listeners and viewers who don’t know you yet who maybe live under a rock and haven’t heard your name in this industry. Tell us a little bit more about you and what you do.

Tarzan
I’m Tarzan Kay. I’m an email marketer. I’m crazy for email, I just I just joined LinkedIn. And I think I’m so smart and funny. Sometimes. I was like, I’m an email nerd. Conditional Formatting is my love language. I really like to geek out on email. And I have programs that teach copywriting and email marketing skills to online course creators, online service providers, product based businesses. I’m crazy about email. I realized a couple years ago that email can be a really fun, really creative space. Especially for people who love to write. And even for people who don’t when I’m out in the real world, among people who are not in online business, and they asked me what do I do I get to say I’m a writer, which feels really good. But then they asked me what sort of writing I do and I say I write emails and people think it’s really weird. But I have a really satisfying wonderful career writing emails and teaching others how to write emails. Yeah,

Cait
I’d so amazing and I love that this is your thing because I feel for especially in the online business world that email is one of those like last the write about things. I mean, I’ll be the first to admit that for me like, when I think about writing, I think about writing social captions. I think about writing, you know, more for social than I do for email. And we just kind of like repurpose stuff for email, which I’m sure I and so many of us do. And it’s so cool to see not only have you built like a super successful business, through email alone, but you teach other people how to leverage the platform not only for like storytelling and expression as a creative outlet, but truly as a vehicle to grow your audience grow your momentum, like sell your programs and do it in a way that really connects you to people. So I’m curious for you, God, there’s like a zillion things I want to ask you. But I’m curious for you, like what made you fall in love with email more than writing for social like from a strategic perspective from a creative perspective? Because your brain I mean, you are and I’ve had the pleasure of like knowing you and being with you in person, like you are a unicorn Tarzan, like somebody who is the most like creative and prolific and expressive people that I’ve ever met. And also like so fucking knowledgeable about marketing and about optimizing open rates and click through rates and tweaking like you’ve got like the strategy, business brains so down, and also this just like unparalleled artistry and your way of expressing and I’m curious for you how email, like how you found emails like your medium and knew that that was the thing that you really wanted to double down on.

How Tarzan found email as her medium

Tarzan
Okay, so I fell into it in like a really weird way. In my first year in business, I was a copywriter for hire, and I was writing sales pages. And I was like, kind of trying to specialize in the digital course, industry. So I was writing sales pages, like all sorts of landing pages and emails. And there was this contest. This is so weird, but it had such an impact on my career. Someone ran this contest like these three copywriters or it was the software company and then two other copywriters that ran this contest about E now, and I joined this contest, I was like six months into my business, like I didn’t know what to do with my time. And but I had 40 hours a week to work. So I was like, I’ll do this contest. And a couple one or two days in, I was like, Oh, I think I could win this contest. I think I see how the game is playing. Right. So I won this contest. And then these some industry people, like, for me, it was a lot of people in reality, it was probably 100 or 200, people were in this contest and saw that I was like the winner. I was the expert, I was someone who was really good at email. And I was like, Okay, people think I’m good at email, I think I am good at email. I really love doing email. And I think I’m going to make that my specialty. So I did early on and out of that contest, like I picked up a few clients. Also right away, like, as soon as I started my business, I started emailing my list, when I had 37 subscribers, I was like, This is gonna be my thing. I people say you have to do this, I’m gonna do this, I committed to emailing my list bi weekly. And I was emailing these 37 people. And after a year, it was like a few 100 people. And now people think I’m an email marketing expert. So I should really become more committed to this. And over the years, I’ve just like really fallen in love with this medium. I used to when I used to, like pre pandemic, I used to travel around and speak on stages and like go to email conferences and things and tell people, which was true at the time. I only do email, like I didn’t do webinars, I didn’t do social media, I just had like a really lean business for the first four years, it was just me. And my online business manager, we were just reflecting recently, like, whoa, we did a lot when it was just the two of us. And that’s because we kept things really simple. Like I didn’t even use Instagram. And I was like, I really don’t even know how to use Instagram, I still feel like I’m getting my head around it. As you can see, like I just spoke for five minutes with my microphone off like amateur hour here. So I just really leaned into it because it really felt simple. And it felt like like I could see I have just natural ability. I also really love to write like when I’m writing Instagram captions, it’s a bit of a struggle for me because, like I want to write 500 words like every single time at minimum. So I’m actually not like a long distance writer. I like the length of email which is like 500 to 1000 words. That’s like a real sweet spot for me. And I find like it’s a that’s a good length of time to tell an interesting story and segue into like a lesson about business and ask for sale or whatever the call to action is. And the last thing I just want to say that I really love about email is i i like it is a really in submit space like, I know we have DMS. And yes, I have also experienced conversations in my DMs. However, there’s just something unique about my subscribers, when they hit reply on one of my emails and start a conversation like that is a one on one conversation. And I do have a history of like being a little bit polarizing and tackling topics that are like maybe hard or maybe nuanced. And it’s like, I think it’s actually a bit of a safer place than social media, like certainly saved for them. The comments on a social media caption, and I have so many interesting conversations going on in my inbox, then that’s another reason where I just like really lean into it just two weeks ago, or think just last week I had a couple of weeks ago, rather, I had this idea that had come to me that I really wanted to noodle around with about how grammar is often used as a tool of white supremacy. And I had been thinking about it and reading a little bit about it. And I decided to write an email about it and asked my email list what they thought about it. So I wrote this email. And I was expecting like, anytime you, I mean, anytime you even just the word white supremacy is obviously can be like triggering and loaded. So when I went to read those replies, I was like, okay, like, let’s see, what’s going on in my inbox. Like, here we go. This is probably I’m gonna learn some things. And I might find I was wrong about certain things. And, you know, I’m like, I’m used to getting critical feedback, helpful feedback, like, I’ve gotten a lot of it over the years. But I went into my inbox, and I spent several hours just like reading these replies that people had sent to me like, I don’t always say, please hit reply, and tell me what you think about this. But in that case, with that particular email I did, and my subscribers like really came through, like, they didn’t just say, like, interesting conversation, I will pawn this off, you know, I’ll think about this, where they really like wanted me to know their thoughts. They really shared their expertise. Like there were a number of linguists who had some specific training on that topic, like, I learned so much. And also I was like, able to have like a really intimate and beautiful conversation. And something like that, like, especially that topic. And the quality of those replied, is from my subscribers. I could also tell like that is years of trust building in the inbox like yours, many of my subscribers are like lifers. I had a call just to catch up with this client of mine, who Funny enough, had found me through that email copywriting competition all of those years ago. Yeah, Ronnie was he 1:30pm. In the OGS has.

He probably was like, maybe first, like, first 300 For sure. His name is Dawn and He’s the inventor of the original app roller. And he, he messaged me, like, or he hit reply on one of my emails, and he was like, are you really getting divorced? Like, Hey, do you want to talk and I was like, Oh, my God, don’t like this guy has been on my email list for five years. And he hasn’t been like a passive subscriber or like, he’s still reading after five years. And that right there like that is what I treasure about email marketing that I don’t think you get anywhere.

Cait
Oh my God, so many gems there. I love that story so much. And you’re so right. I mean, especially with social, it’s so much more fast paced, like short attention span, getting it out. And it’s not to say that we can build, you know, deep and meaningful relationships and connections through social media. But I totally hear you that with email, there’s just a depth and a longevity, especially when you are consistent with emailing your list and telling intimate stories and like letting people in to see you and inviting the space. And as you said, it doesn’t have to be for every single email but inviting the back and forth and writing the dialogue and what I think is such a testament to what you’re sharing as well Tarzan is like, you don’t just invite on you know your people to reply, you actually sit down and take hours to read their responses and to engage back and forth and I think that that depth is so valuable not just as a marketer, but as a human and as a storyteller and I imagine like you get so much fodder for what you write from engaging with people at that level of depth and not just like you know, seeing them as another number on your list and someone to just like you know, think is there but actually someone to build a relationship with one of the other things you said that I love so much is how you started with like 37 subscribers but committed to emailing them bi weekly and then grew that you any year wasn’t like overnight to 300. And now have what like well over 10,000 subscribers, and are this like, industry expert in email marketing? And I think everybody wants a quick fix, right? I’m sure you get that in your programs and like, how do I get my email is faster? How do I get, you know, the Don’s of the world on my list who are emailing me back with everything or, you know, stay for years? And I’m curious what you would say for them, but to them, but I feel like you’ve already sort of spoken to that a bit of like the consistency piece and being willing to be open and vulnerable and sharing stories. But I’m yeah, I’m curious how you address that when people come to you and are like, alright, Tarzan emails my gap. What do I do to like, get a list like you?

Tips for building a highly engaged email list

Tarzan
Yeah, good question. And I feel like I need to say, list building is not my strong suit. Like, it’s funny, because I’m really great at email marketing, and like, I don’t rock at list building. And I do know what works. Because we’ve done my actually my, my team, they always remind me like, No, you’re actually good at list building, like we do. Something that we do in our email marketing system is we have a constant list scrub going. So if you’re not opening my emails consistently, then you know, after 90 days, it will trigger a reengagement sequence. And then if you don’t reengage them, we’re going to delete you. So that’s running all the time, 24/7 365 days a year, which means every day people are getting scrubbed from my email list. So it often feels like I’m struggling just to like add as many people as are leaving, but it is just part of the game with email marketing people come and go, What I have found has really worked the best for me in terms of organic growth, because we’ve run like, I’ve run paid ads pretty consistently for about three years, I’m gonna say, but with organic lead, grow with PR, like speaking on people’s podcasts. And speaking on stages, like pre pandemic, I used to travel a lot and speak on stages. Now I’m doing a lot of that same, I’m doing that same work except virtually. But like those organic subscribers, they are so much more motivated. If you think about the level of motivation to click a Facebook ad. And sign up for your thing is very, very low. It’s kind of like, like, let’s see if I don’t hate this bitch, like, Okay, fine. And then and then you really have to win them over. However, if someone has spent an hour like watching an IG live or listening to a podcast, and then proactively goes to join your email list, I think those organic subscribers are probably like your customer value, like the lifetime value of that subscriber is probably about 10 times higher than those Oh, come through otally paid ads. Yeah, so I do think it’s really like thinking about Waldie over quantity that seems almost cliche. However, I know, people who have far more profitable businesses than mine who have 1/3 the subscribers I do. And I remember, in my early days, before I had my own products, I used to promote other people’s products a lot. And when you promote as an affiliate, there’s often like a leaderboard. And there’s a Facebook group. And you can see like other people who are promoting that program, how they’re doing. And I was like, this little like the littlest guy in the room. And year after year, I’d be like, there is my name like number two affiliate after other friend of mine who has 100,000 1000 email subscribers, and here’s me with like, my little list of 3000 subscribers. And that is like, to me, that’s what I love about email marketing, doing email marketing in this way, where it’s really intimate, and like really tasty, like, I don’t like I spent two hours reading those replies last week. However, that’s very rare for me, like for the most part, I have a team member who reads replies and she forwards me the ones that she thinks really deserve a reply from me, however, like really spending that time to actually build relationships. Like I think people forget, we’re used to hearing people referred to as leads, right, and that’s fine. I refer to people as leads to however, I think what I like really what I am here to do is bring the humanity back to email marketing, like those are leads, and they’re also humans who have the same hopes and dreams that I do. And when you think about it that way, it just like there’s just like, bringing the humanity backs email marketing, treating people as humans, and also realizing like, it is such a gift Like, I get to be a writer, like I get to go to dinner parties and meet people and tell them, I’m a writer, because of these incredible humans who signed up to my email list, who gave me their name and email, whose inboxes are already so busy, there’s already like 1000 things in there that they don’t even want. And they said yes to me. And I just feel like every time I send an email, it’s a chance for me to say thank you for them giving me that gift. However, I also want to say I inexperienced, and that is a lot of pressure to put on your emails. So we’re launching our program, email stars in June. And so I’m updating one of the lessons and I just was creating a lesson about consistency. And so I just also want to bring it back to like, every email doesn’t have to be rewarding the gift of your subscribers email address, like it’s important to value them. However, if you put like too much emphasis on every single email, it’s hard to create that consistency. I’ve been emailing twice a week for several years, once weekly for several years before that. So I’m like, I really like I can sit down and knock it out really easily. However, when you’re just starting to create that consistency, it’s like, you gotta go a little bit easier on yourself and just like be willing to put out b minus work, like, part of how you get better at it is by doing it. And if you put that much pressure on every email to be a gift to your subscribers, like you might never send a single wad totally prioritized, is better than perfect. was awesome enough. Yeah, right, exactly.

Cait
It’s so good. There’s so many gems there, I want to just like circle back and highlight what you talked about at the beginning of that of, you know, you’re so interesting, because I think whether it’s you know, oh, you can be on my summit, but only if you have 5000 email subscribers, or, you know, we associate bigger and people do this for social as well, right. The more followers you have, the more money you must make, the more email subscribers you have, the more money you must make, and it’s just so not correspondent or there’s a relationship, but it’s not causal, necessarily. And I love that you gave that example of like, you know, the person with 200,000 subscribers as the number one affiliate and you with 3000 at the time, but being like number two, because you built that depth, that intimacy, that connection, and it just goes to show like, it’s not that numbers can be deceiving. And I think another thing that you mentioned, which is, you know, maybe a bit more techy, and some people might not understand what like list scrubbing is, and I think you probably teach about that inside of known stars. But you know, because you’re in that constant process of hydroponics and keeping it up in order to keep your open rate higher, and your click through rates higher and all of that, it might look on paper, like you are on the screen, like you don’t have as many people but in reality, like you’re you are just constantly in the process of pruning and culling and in keeping the quality of life of the people that you are in relationship with super high. So I just think that’s like such an important nugget. Because I think a lot of marketers, coaches, entrepreneurs, we think like it’s just about value, when in reality, it’s about quality and depth of relationship, which you are so obviously, a master at which leads me to the next thing that I want to touch on and ask you about because you alluded to, you know, coming into people’s inbox and telling us stories, and Tarzan you are like, far and away in a lead, you’re all your old, like the most interesting, eloquent, just beautiful storyteller that I’ve ever met in my entire life. And you’ve obviously mastered like bringing that dynamism into people’s inboxes. And doing it in a, you know, I know you just wrote a sequence and you are such an open book with your list talking about your divorce, talking about growing up in a cult, you know, the way that you tell stories that are so personal and also relate it back to, to the heartbeat and the humanity of your people in such a relatable way, even if someone isn’t going through the same thing or hasn’t gone through the same thing like, talk to us about email marketing as the art of storytelling.

Why email marketing is the art of storytelling

Tarzan
So thanks for asking, because I definitely feel like this is I don’t know where my career is going. I love teaching, thinking about email. And I know we’ll continue to teach about email. But I also know that like storytelling is the biggest and most important thing. And I also think that stories are one of the most powerful ways that we can heal ourselves is by telling our own stories. And I also think it’s how we can heal the world by listening to each other’s stories and understanding each other. So I’m just I just have only in the past year, like really leaned into that storytelling side of me. And so I just want to give your listeners a little bit of backdrop on our experience together as I’m in a mastermind with Kate Northrup. And so I’ve been going through this divorce for a while now, since we joined this mastermind, and as master minds go, like we usually, you have a hot seat and you sit down and you talk to the group about a business problem. And our first on our first retreat, it might have been, I think, on our first retreat, I actually had a hot seat. But by the second retreat, I was like, freshly separated on sabbatical is like, the last thing I actually cared to talk about right now is like, email marketing funnels, like I don’t care. Talk to me about anything else. So as part of my hot seat, I, like sang a song and told the story. And it felt so beautiful. I just enjoyed that. So much like hearing people listen to my story, and being and hearing like, what parts of that story were interesting. And that was just so rewarding. So then, before the final retreat, I just like spent months thinking about like, what story I was going to tell them. And I came to that hot seat to tell the story. And also because I had this weird little idea. For my next promotion that I was going to write an entire series of promo emails, that would just be one continuous story. And I had been like going through this really big experience of

like, processing my childhood growing up in a cult, and then having like, hired a cult leader to be my coach. And also like being in a threat bowl and getting divorced. And like all these things, and I wanted to like weave them into a story. So I told the story. And our mastermind, which was like beautiful and so special and became like, telling the story of me telling the story also ended up in the written part of the story that I eventually told funny enough. So then I went home and started writing down the story as as this promo sequence and like, the process of writing that story was like one of the most healing experiences of my entire life. Like I put together so many pieces, there were like so many, just like things that I remembered. And like all this whole, I don’t really like the word personal development, because it kind of seems like we’re saying people are underdeveloped. And I don’t believe that, but there was like this whole evolution and development like within myself, and telling that story. And I’ve experienced it before. And I just think like, there’s something about sharing our stories that is so powerful. And it wasn’t just powerful for me, like, so many of my subscribers also hit reply on those emails and said, I grew up in a cult too. And like here’s or shared their experiences in online business that were like cult ish. And I even had someone email me last week that said, Tarzan, I also grew up in a cult, and I love Kanye. And I used to be in trouble, right? I was like, why does that happen? Like this is credible, like to develop those sorts of connections, like in me sharing my story. I like everybody that I tell it to gets the lessons from that story. And it also creates this beautiful open space for people to share their stories. And I feel like that, to me is so much more interesting than just like sharing, like, three tips for how to do email marketing better, like, okay, like, how can it be more fun, I think the story part of it makes it more fun. But also, like when we people think about email, we often talk about giving value giving value your emails to be valuable. So when we think about value, then the something that often happens is you stick to like three tips for whatever. But people get value in so many different ways. And I think one of the biggest, like I’m pretty clear on the value for my email newsletter, and I think this is important and something I teach in email stars, but the value there’s a few ways that I give value one is like they’re highly entertaining. They’re, they’re often funny, and also there’s like it’s a point of connection and let it be what you really want connection and feeling like that’s something that I can uniquely offer. That doesn’t mean it has to be everyone who does email marketing like you can have your own thing but that is my thing. And that is really why it works. So

Cait
I love this and I love that you’re bringing up like the re imagining and asking ourselves like what does value mean because you’re so right this is one of those like, almost like trophy industry jargony things of like make sure you’re giving value giving value and we assume giving value is being this like perky expert at the top of the pyramid like providing the tips to the people down the line and it’s like no like value is Being a point of connection, being a voice of authenticity, like sharing with a really open heart and making somebody feel less alone or entertained or laughing in the middle of their workday, or whatever the thing is, they’re able to actually drop in and feel, feel something. And that alone is so, so valuable. And I think that, you know, from like, a sales psychology standpoint, as well, and not that, you know, you’re talking about the depth of healing that on a personal level for you as a writer, but also the depth of healing that that brings to your audience of feeling less alone feeling more emboldened to share their stories, if they’re like, Wow, Tarzan just emailed her entire list about this, like, they might feel a sense of permission to be able to free their voices a little bit more, but also from, you know, a sales perspective, like, I mean, I know just thinking about myself personally, and who I buy from, or purchase from, whether that’s like a smaller product program, or a super high ticket offer. I buy from somebody that I feel emotionally connected to, I buy from somebody that I feel a sense of, like intimacy and trust with I buy from somebody not that just like, you know, is this guru expert on a mountain with all of the tips and tricks to save me like, actually, I don’t buy from those people I buy from the people that sure are like, clearly experts at what they do. But that provide a level of depths and intimate emotional intimacy that makes me feel like I want to learn from this person. And I want to walk with this person. And I think that it’s so beautiful the way that you talk about storytelling and weaving that into email and redefining this and what value even is because we not only undergo that, like huge healing process, but we also get to build those deeper connections, which ultimately lead to more sales and more like ethical way.

Tarzan
Yeah, I would agree. III, like there’s a lot of email marketing programs out there. There are a lot of copywriting programs out there. And a lot of what I teach is like, this is how to do email marketing. It’s like not, it’s, I mean, yes, it can be highly complex. However, it’s like, you know, you can learn it anywhere. But people that come Yeah, they do want to learn it from me, because there’s a connection there. And also, they know that it’s going to be like a safe place for them to learn. And, like I don’t think it’s for me to say like, Hey, I’m safe. However, that is what I’m doing is like inviting people in, and trying to cultivate a safe place for them. And in online business, which is the industry that I’m in, like our people are service providers, their course creators, some have product based businesses like we do serve a wide variety of people. However, those that came in through the online business world, like there’s just so many of them have been burned, like so many times before, they bought into these huge promises, and have felt like horribly let down. So that’s another like, that’s another way like, it is just such a big job in these roles that we are in to actually cultivate trust. I mean, for me, like it’s not even only about telling people and how do I show people that I’m trustworthy, but also like learning how to be trustworthy. Like I used to make such big promises. And it was all like six figure this seven figure that and I really edited that language a lot. And also focus like something that I always feel really good saying when we promote email services like this is long game. Like this is what business owners who have long game need to do. And yes, like, we can talk about how to knock out like a 48 hour flash promo. And that is important to know, like, if you need some quick cash, that you can do that with your email list. However, you can’t do that with an email list that is not nurtured that you haven’t spoken with in six months. So like it does, like you can use email for short game when you just like need to make some sales to fund your next promotion or your next payroll or whatever. But fundamentally, like it’s a long game strategy, like this is about building real relationships.

Cait
Yes, so beautiful. And I love that you talk about you know, being a safe space and safe language. And this is another thing that I wanted to talk with you about because I know it’s something you’re so passionate about. It’s something that is such a it’s there’s so much there’s so much beauty in the online space and online industry. I love this industry so much and there’s also a shadow and there’s also an underbelly. And there’s also you know, just like with anything magical and awesome that provides the ability to quantum leap in all these spaces. There’s also a really dark shadow side of that and a lot of that is, you know, manipulation and tactics that are just about a sale and not about a real as friendship not about an experience and I know that this is something that you have been so intentional about in your own company and really like pioneering as a voice and leadership model for what does it look like to use language and this is what I’m really curious for you and like how you’re exploring this edge in your own marketing and also in how you’re teaching others in email stars and in other programs that you run in and other offerings that you have is like, how do we be compelling without coercion? How do we truly like inspire and use our language to not harp on a sense of false scarcity or have this like scarcity or fear ridden underbelly, which again, like, I remember the first email course that I ever took, it was all about like, I can’t even remember it was like, fear logic gain or something but like fear as a tactic, like fear was explicitly taught as a tactic. And this was more in like, the bro marketing stage, but I feel like we’re just in this like renaissance of like, blush marketing, like boss pitch marketing is like the new bro marketing, and but it’s a lot of the same genius. So I’m so curious for you like how you are personally, you know, modifying either your language or just being cognizant of the power of words, because I mean, in this whole conversation, you’re obviously so tuned into the power of our words to move people to action to make people feel, obviously, as a cult survivor, like, you know, the power of people’s words to be very persuasive. Like, persuasion itself isn’t wrong or bad. It’s like communication, but like, how do we wield our power and the power of our words with benevolence and with stewardship?

How to wield the power of your words with benevolence

Tarzan
So that’s a big question. And it’s something that I’m still unpacking myself, like, I started out as a copywriter, copywriters deal and persuasion like that is our job. And so I’ve been trying to unpack this for a few years, because initially, like I got into the business, and I was like, okay, persuasion like scarcity, urgency, reciprocity, authenticity, like all these, all the that’s not one of them, sorry. But like all these things, I’m just like, figuring out how I can like maximum, Mum, layer them all on. And I remember thinking in my like, second or third year in business, like I could sell anything to anyone, like I have gotten this, I will say, I don’t think that those strategies are working as well as they once did. I agree. But at the time, I was using all of the strategies like every expiring thing, like every countdown timer, every bit of pressure I could layer on, like, that’s just what I did. And nobody ever even posed the question like about the ethics of it? And does this align with your value is, it was just what everybody is doing. So like, yeah, the bro marketing space just became the boss pitch stage, because all the boss pitches learn from the bro marketers, and we’re just doing the same things. And I think a lot of people come into this space, and they’re like, they either just naturally rock at it and know how to do it. They’re like, that’s what people are doing, I’ll do that. And then there’s this whole other category of people that are like, if that’s marketing, like, I don’t want to do it and, and those people for, I feel like, in the beginning, when I started my business, like, those people were getting shamed for having mindset issues for this being like, a problem that you feel bad making money, or you feel bad selling. But I think a lot of those same people, like they just saw what was going on. And maybe they couldn’t explain it, but they intuitively saw like, I don’t want to do that. And I had like a really eye opening experience in that like earn in my early days.

Like maybe my second year in business, my best friends bought program from like one of the top bro marketer guys. And this is like a super famous program that, you know, so many people have been through and people are teaching his program and their students are teaching the program. Anyway, so she got in this guy’s world. And she was really excited. And so was I was like, Great, I’ll look at that program. And like, we went to his events. And we went to his events. And then she joined his, like, $10,000 upsell program. And I saw like, I remember being in the room because she joined she got to like bring her friends to like the lunches for the people who are joining. And I was looking around the room and I was like, there’s a lot of people joining this program that do not even have a business yet. They don’t have any idea what they’re doing. But they got caught up in this machine and just laid out $10,000 That they They probably didn’t even have. And I didn’t really think anything of it, I just was like, that’s pretty weird. Like, I kind of felt like, it was my fault. Like, I wasn’t understanding the model. But then like, over the course of the next year, I just saw my best friend get chewed up and spit out by this machine. And, like, again, like, I didn’t get it right away, I just was like, something’s weird about that. Maybe that guy’s a bad guy, maybe he’s just doing it in like an unethical way. But then I just saw that happening in like program after program. And like when there’s something that most business owners know about, even if they don’t know about it, but it’s escalation of commitment. So if I take your $2,000 program, whether or not I see success with it, I am pretty like, I’m much more likely to take your $10,000 program. And often the way that $10,000 program is sold is like, Oh, let me help you do the things that I said I was going to help you do in this $2,000 program. But we’ll do it more intimately and personally, in the $10,000 thing, and I’m like, Okay, well, I already spent two. So now I may as well spend 10. Yeah, and on and on and on it goes. And then in the meantime, you probably introduce me to your colleague over here, like, you know, she teaches email marketing, and you need to learn how to do that, too. So follow my affiliate link, I don’t have a problem with affiliate marketing on we’re actually running an affiliate program for email stores. However, it’s just like this call web like this big spider web, that it’s really easy to get stuck in. And I think like it took me six years to actually see the spider web and say like, Okay, here’s what I will do differently in order that my customers who already have gotten caught in that spiderweb before, like, I don’t want to push them into it or get them like further in mash. So some things that we have that we do differently. For one thing, like there are like six fundamentals of persuasion. And we are which I won’t go over them today, we have really significantly dialed back the layers of persuasion, like, the more you use them all like if you have a countdown timer with your expiring bonus. And you’re also saying this net Berg, like you’re never going to see this offer again. And also like this famous person that you already bought from says like, this is the best program on the market. And you also bought my other things, this goes really well with it. That’s like adding layers and layers and layers of pressure. And then actually what happens is, people can no longer think think critically, and when they can’t think critically, they can’t actually make a decision about whether or not your program is a good fit. So we’ve dialed back the persuasion, we also give people way more time, like we will say like, like, you know, sometimes months ahead, like email stars is opening this June it cost $1,500 We have a payment plan available with no markup. I wish I could remember what that is, I guess $250 for six months, like we give people the details, so they have time to think about it. And if we’re doing something that’s limited time, I might say like, Hey, if you come to our webinar, smallest big profit, like we’re gonna have a fast action bonus. So like be ready to buy. So we try and give people more time to think about things because that is probably one of the biggest things. And just like for people in this who are in the online business industry who have been harmed before. They like it’s really easy for them to get trigger word. And it’s also really easy for them to just like hit the buy button to make the pain go away. So dialing back all that urgency is a really big one. Like we still have pretty tight launch windows like for email stars. I think we’re open for 14 days, like that’s the longest we’ve ever done. And I do find like just holding the energy of a launch is a pretty big job. And so like there’s a lot of factors there to consider too. Like it’s not like we do have to consider ourselves and in some cases like we like people do need to be incentivized to make a purchasing decision for sure. So we need to use persuasion just be like intentional about how many layers of persuasion we’re putting in there because at a certain point it does take away a person’s critical thinking ability.

Cait
That’s such an important reminder Tarzan and I love that you spoke about you know there’s different layers and being aware of what we’re leaning on and also the piece about like understanding that people will buy to take away pain but like moving from what I’m hearing is like moving more from like pain point marketing and pressure at persuasion heavy with all of the six wedding layer cake of persuasion tactics like moving more from that into more like spacious and nervous system regulate and giving people a certain amount of time and almost like desire, like marketing. And I think there’s like a whole way that desire lead marketing is again more just like paid marketing, but wrapped up in like laundry. But that’s a whole other conversation. But what I’m really hearing is like, the more the more people have a heads up, the more people know, like, Hey, this is coming. It’s just it’s like you were talking about in being in that dialogue and being in that conversation in your email inbox. It’s like, how are we doing that in the way that we’re launching and selling? Are we being transparent? Are we saying, Hey, this is coming. And I ultimately imagine that that gives when, when our people are buying from a more regulated nervous system, and they are buying from a place of oh, I’m not being like, pushed in, you know, and squeezed to like, do something right now, even if I’m not sure if it’s for me, they’re ultimately going to be I mean, you were talking earlier about the lifetime value of a customer, they’re ultimately going to have a better experience, they’re ultimately going to be able to receive the benefit of whatever the program is, and they’re so much more likely to stay not from, I can’t remember what you called it before, but like 2000 10,000, I might as well just keep going not from like a guilt or I’m, you know, let me cut my losses and just keep going kind of a way. But from a place of wow, I’m I’m I’ve gotten depth and value here. And I feel safe, and I want to keep deepening that relationship.

Tarzan
Yeah, definitely like those customers who buy from a place that feeling triggered that they’re also not going to be the best customers like they’re probably going to create customer service issues for you, you’re going to be like chasing up those payment plans. And also just general like Ill Will out there, which is really not nice. Like you want to be creating brand ambassadors every time you sell your program. And if you’re coercing people, they will not be the best customers, they’re not going to send you their friends. And they’re just not going to get results if you want those people joining from a place of being like motivated and excited. And I think like back to your point about desire points and pain points. Like I do use both of those things. Something that I learned from Kelli deals, who’s like a really great resource on like justice centered copywriting and business in general, is about having, instead of pain points having a shared vision. And I think that’s really what I’m doing. When I talk about email from the perspective of like, this can be really fun. This can be like a beautiful space for you to tell stories for our own healing. Like that is that’s me communicate, eating not just like, my desires, your desires is like something that we can share, like how this will be. This could be beautiful and profitable for both of us. And I like that. I like that sort of approach. It feels like we’re in it together.

Cait
It’s beautiful. This shared vision as opposed to pain point. That’s so beautiful. I love that so much, Tarzan, this is so good. I feel like we could literally have like a three hour like massive binge says right now it’s so good. But I know we’re coming up on time, tell our listeners where they can find you follow along with you. And most importantly, what you have coming up right now I think you mentioned email stars is coming up, tell us all about it. And where we can find more information.

Tarzan
For those of you on Instagram, just follow me this is the only social media channel that I use. And I tend to be like pretty active around my promotions and not so much other times of the year. But I do something that I really I did in our last promotion, which I loved was like I told this beautiful story and then supplemented it with like pictures and like this whole visual experience for the promotion. So I’m having a fun time playing with like how social media can support what we’re doing with email in like a really interesting way that I don’t see anyone else doing. But in terms of email, but we’ve got going on email stars opens on June, the ninth this year, June the ninth, and we have a series of workshops, I’m going to teach about storytelling and emails. I’m going to teach about just how to write newsletter emails, there’s a whole series of topics. And they’re workshops like they’re actually live. And there’s no slides. It’s actually like you come and we hang out and I’m going to teach from a Google doc it’s like just really informal and fun. I do it once a year and I’ll make sure that you get a link to put in the show notes and send to your subscribers. It’s my favorite thing that we do. It goes on the workshops go on for three about three weeks and then we’ll open email stars until June the 23rd

Cait
Amazing oh my god so good. Well, if I don’t already have a newborn, my due date is June 18. I am coming to that because I always love learning from you and you’re just incredible. So we will definitely put those links in the show notes. Guys, if you are listening on the podcast, make sure you go there to check it out. And we’ll include your Instagram handle here. And what about Your website, how can we get on your email list and follow along with your amazing stories so we can all be your next on?

Tarzan
Oh my god, I can’t believe I forgot to ask jeez, Louise. So if you go to turnkey.com/join, you will find a very clear and concise argument for why you should join my email list. But I’ll give you some good reasons. For one thing, they’re entertaining, and they’re fun. And there’s like fun lessons about business that are humane and will make you feel good about yourself and not like a loser who needs to work harder. And also, we have an audio version of my emails, which is something we added, I think last year, there’s already over 100 episodes. And so I actually read my emails every week. And you can listen to them from your favorite podcast app, like as a private podcast. So if you join the list, you’ll see how to do that right away. And you can just upload them to your phone. And I read them. It’s fun. We’re doing like lots of interesting experiments with email because we just like to geek out on doing it the fun way. And so you know, there’s freebies, all over my website, we have a audio series called The Seven scrubs for high end tech 30 Copy that converts, and that’s all in my link tree on Instagram as well. But I would say just like join my email list at Tarzan k.com/join Because we’re just doing interesting things. And these are like, People tell me all the time. Like Tarzan, I read your emails, and I read this one other person and like that’s it. So I want to be the one in your inbox. But trust me, I’m gonna be the one.

Cait
Yes, so good. I love it so much. We will also put that link in the show notes. So good to her then and I love that you do the podcast as well. So innovative and amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation and just share with us I always love to end the podcast with you know, if you had one word of advice to give to our listeners who are entrepreneurs, visionaries wanting to create something big in the world and you know, scale their businesses. What would that one soundbite be?

Tarzan
My brother is also a business owner. And he told me something that always stayed with me which and he didn’t realize he was dropping this bit of wisdom. But he was like, you know, I reckon that people who are successful in business are just the ones who were able to stick it out long enough. So I feel like if I’m giving general advice to all all business owners, it’s like just don’t quit like keep going. We’ve been through some hard fucking moments in the last year. And I’ve wanted to quit a million times and every time I get through something hard, it things are always like so much better. And I enjoy my work so much more. So I think that’s advice for everyone. Just keep keep going.

Cait
Oh, beautiful Tarzan. Thank you so much. Thanks for tuning in, guys. See you next time. Bye.