Listen Now:

If you have an email list… you have the opportunity for sales. You just have to know how to use it right. (And if you don’t have an email list, check the show notes for a link to our best list building episodes.)

In this episode, Alyson will break down her 6-step book a call email sequence designed specifically to get those subscribers on the phone and ready to buy.

Learn More about the nine-word email by Dean Jackson

Want help generating sales calls from your list? Let's talk.

Don’t have a list yet? We've got you covered.

Alyson Lex  0:04  

We have all experienced those moments when you are like, Hey, I do not have sales calls coming up, I would really like to get some sales booked for the month, or the week, or whatever. And so maybe you post on social media or you start reaching out to past clients or something to get some sales calls booked on the dang calendar. But the truth is the real asset that you have. And if you've listened to Jenny, and I talk at all, since we started this podcast or our businesses, the real opportunity is in your email list. If you're not already building lists, stop listening to this episode, go listen to our plethora of list-building strategy episodes. But if you have an email list, you can use it to get calls on your calendar, we're going to break that down in today's episode, I'm really excited about this one.

Jennie Wright  1:06  

I also am incredibly excited for this one. I'm kidding, I'm just joking. You know, I'm, I'm excited this for this episode, for the simple fact that this actually works. And the method that you're going to share with people has helped me go from the peaks and valleys of having nobody and then having, you know, 1015 calls and then having nobody and then 10 or 15 calls. Whereas I think it's much more productive to be really like to have that consistency. And I think this system that you're going to share is really helpful and one getting the calls, but to just making it more clear on a consistent basis.

Alyson Lex  1:42  

I think that's the key to is anything that you do needs to be done with consistency, whether that's, you know, posting on social or doing live streams or emailing your list. This is something that Jennie has been hammering into my brain for seven years now. And it's finally taking hold that consistency is a big deal. Alright, so what we're going to talk about is what I call the book of call emails, the book of call email sequence, that kind of thing. There are a few rules about them, we're going to go over. But I want to tell you a story really quick about someone that we all know and love. And she's on this podcast with me. She used this very recently. And she was very timely. So when at the time that we're recording this episode, the big Facebook Instagram WhatsApp outage has just happened, right, Jenny?

Jennie Wright  2:43  

Yeah. And it was big. It was long, it was all day long. Nobody had any idea what's going on.

Alyson Lex  2:48  

And in my inbox was a super surprise email that she didn't even tell me she was writing. The talked about it. Jenny, can you tell us kind of the gist of that email real quick?

Jennie Wright  3:00  

Sure. The email that I wrote was really timely, it was within two hours of the outage happening. And it basically just said, Hey, here's what to do while we're sitting and twiddling our thumbs waiting for Facebook to come back online. Because everybody, when Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp went down, they were flooding to other apps. But they were also like there was downtime, there was people who weren't doing anything. So the gist of the email was you're not, you know, you're probably checking your inbox right now. And guess who else is your ideal client. And you should be sending an email. And even if Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp are down, you could be using your email list to connect with your ideal client to sell programs, products and services, you can still do that. And then I gave him some tips on what to do. And I said, email them today. If you haven't in a while, don't worry about it, just get back into it. And I gave them a couple other tips. And at the end is said if you'd like more strategies on list building, just click this link and let's talk for 30 minutes and I said it was a no pitch

Alyson Lex  4:01  

call. And you booked calls. you booked a lot of calls? It did. It did. And some of those calls. I know it was really recent. So you haven't even had all those calls yet? Not yet. But you all have already made money from it. I have Yeah,

Jennie Wright  4:17  

absolutely. So I did no pitch. And at the end of the calls, several people have said what would it look look like for you to do the thing that we talked about? And I told them on the call what it would look like I basically offer you know made an offer on the call. And I've had several people say yes and take advantage of it.

Alyson Lex  4:37  

That is a whole nother episodes worth of strategy as far as leveraging the no pitch discovery call. And that might give me an idea. Maybe we should record that one next. But what I want to talk about is the is a couple of things from Jenny's story that really stick out and the first one is she was the first one in my inbox. Alright In the days that followed, I have still seen social posts. I have seen emails, I have seen stuff. But it all was like, well, Jenny was the first one. And I actually, before this recording, I went back and checked to make sure that it wasn't just a personal friend bias that she was just the first one I saw. No, she was the first one and it was fast. So speed to implementation.

Jennie Wright  5:24  

I even got an email, after I signed it from somebody who said, I knew you would be the first email in my inbox about this.

Alyson Lex  5:31  

Exactly. Right. So when you're taking advantage of timely events, and we're going to talk about the other times when you can do this, but when you're taking advantage of something timely. Take advantage of it in time. Otherwise, you're going to just be kind of late to the game. And it's not going to have the effect. Alright, the second thing that Jenny did, right is she gave value first, which is really important. It genuinely helped her people. And then she offered to help them more big deal. And the third thing is she told them what to expect no pitch call. If you're going to offer a pitch call, that's fine. But just tell them, Hey, we're going to talk about XYZ and then what it would look like to work together. That's all you have to say. But it lets them know what to expect from you. So you, it reduces the anxiety of what does this look like? Okay, so I like to use a six step book a call sequence. And it can be used in timely situations like this, where the first email is that fast, and then you have follow ups. But there are other times when you can use it. When you have finished a list build event, like a summit or challenge or a webinar, when you have an email to your list, and while you need to reactivate them all from a no pitch discovery call. If they are at some specific point in your automated sequence, right, maybe they've hit they've been with you for two months. And you can say, hey, we've been hanging out for a couple months, and I want to make sure things are clicking for you. Right, we'll talk about the individual emails in a couple minutes. You can also use it as a last ditch before you scrub your list. So maybe they haven't opened anything in three to six months, or whatever it is that you're you're saying hey, I'm going to move you over to disengaged, try and get them on a call and see if you can re engage them, see if you can sell them into something. Or when you need to generate some quick clients send up a call sequence. Alright, the only time not to use it is too soon after you've just used that. That's it. Really, it's a very cool, cool little sequence of put together.

Jennie Wright  8:09  

What I also like about it is it works no matter the size of your list. We have a client that we're working on with a project and he's just starting his list building I think he has 194 people on his list. Allison wrote a book called sequence which will be turned into an automation right now it's we went mode manually got it's gonna get turned into an automation so that whenever anybody registers for their lead magnet, they'll receive this automation. When we sent it manually to his 194 contacts, he booked several calls from it. So it's not necessarily about your list size, I don't want you to think oh, well, I only have X amount of people on my list, this isn't gonna work for me, it works for every size of list. It works best when your list is highly niched in. So it'll work better than but you absolutely can make this work for any size of list no matter what. So don't. What I don't want you to do is put forward excuses. When Elsa and I share stuff like this, these different methods. I know what happens in your heads, sometimes. One of the first things that people say is Oh, that won't work for me, or, oh, here's this barrier, and it keeps you from doing it. And sometimes, you know, this could be something to do with your own feelings. You know, I don't want to I don't want to diagnose people in their businesses. But if it's me, I'm gonna say that it was like fear of insecurity that used to come up for me a lot. I didn't want to send a book a call sequence because I was afraid people would say no to me, I was afraid it would piss off my list. And Allison, here's my question for you. If we send a book a call sequence, are we going to tick off like are we gonna make the list unhappy? But are we going to see a bunch of unsubscribes are people gonna turn around and not like us anymore? I know what I know what you're going to say. But I want to hear you say

Alyson Lex  9:56  

it's very possible that people will unsubscribe The harsh truth is that people are going to unsubscribe, almost every time you make an offer. That's just how it is you're going to get one or two unsubscribes. And the reason is that they realize you're going to ask them for stuff. So you know, there are strategies to get around that. One of them is to train your list from the beginning to expect offers from you. You don't ever give without an ask, even if the ask is something as simple as click reply. And let me know what you think. And that way, it's not out of left field, I'll tell you about my email list, they typically don't unsubscribe when I send an offer. Because from the beginning, I've been making offers, it's not, they know to expect that for me, and they're okay with it. Some people will, and I'm okay with that, too. Because if you're not going to buy from me, at this point, I'm going to get sassy for a second, at this point, you are a drain on my resources. I appreciate you as a person, and I want to see you successful. But if you're going to unsubscribe, because I've offered a free, no pitch call, you're not the kind of person I want in my world. Because you're not an action taker, you're just a taker. And that's really harsh, right. But I don't have patience anymore. For all of the people who want to just take and take and take and never give anything back who have this expectation that you are just going to deliver all of these this value, and never ask for anything. I'm not forcing you to take action, I'm asking you to take action. And if there's, if in your mind, there is not a difference between that then you and I are not going to get along and I'm okay with that. So I'm going to end my rant there because I could probably keep going, but I won't.

Jennie Wright  12:10  

Like the SAS bring it I mean, it's the we got to be we got to be honest, you know, let's not sugarcoat it. This is not the sugar coated podcast of flowers and frickin rainbows and unicorns and jumping off of clouds. This is real business. And real business involves emotions and leveling up. The amount of leveling up that Allison and I've done in the past 18 months is bananas, both individually and also working together on this podcast and working with clients. And we're just telling you how it is. So take that information and use it. I mean, we're not going to pad people's egos and tell you Oh yeah, you send us with a call to sequence and everything's going to be rosy and nobody's gonna leave your list, people are gonna leave your list. Your job should be that you're always outpacing

Alyson Lex  12:58  

the loss. Yes, I love that.

Jennie Wright  13:02  

Always should be outpacing any of the unsubscribes. If you send an email and you get if you send an email once per week, and you're getting seven to 10 unsubscribes. Your job is to outpace that with your list growth. It doesn't mean you have to get seven to 10 subscribers per day, it means that you should be appearing with enough consistency on podcasts and other opportunities that you're outpacing the people who are leaving. And that's going to help keep your list replenished because there is a little bit of a freakout level when you see your list to go from whatever number it is because you've grown it you've done the list builder you've been working on it, and then you send it an email and you see X amount of people leave there is a little bit of a holy crap what just happened moment, but you kind of get used to it and you you need to adopt or try and adopt the the attitude that Allison has. The first time I sent out my book a call sequence. Oh lordy. Did I ever freak out? Because Allison's like, No, I just send it just send it. And I sent it and I did have unsubscribed. I even had somebody report me a spam saying I didn't ask for these emails. I'm like, Yeah, dude, you did. You're on my list and you've been on my list. You know what I mean? Like, I was just like, okay, whatever. But you are gonna get you have to mentally say exactly what Alyson said like you're not my people and I'm okay with that. You know, go with peace. Have a nice life. Wish you all the best. Whenever that's going to be and Jenny's rant

Alyson Lex  14:30  

here. No, I really I remember that. And you were freaking and I was like, dude, they weren't gonna buy from you. Anyway. Let that lovingly let them go. Alright, so we've been teasing it. It's a book a call sequence. It has six emails in it. Why six? Why not one. Don't ever just send one. Guys don't ever just send one.

Jennie Wright  14:53  

Oh, you mean like we saw yesterday and a potential? Yeah. Mm

Alyson Lex  14:57  

hmm. We have a potential client. literally want to know. Yep. And is wondering why nobody's buying? Look, not everybody's gonna see it promote inboxes are full promotions tabs are full. Not everybody's going to see every email and that's okay. It's just like with social, they don't see every social post either.

Jennie Wright  15:16  

Okay, but why six? Why not? Five? Why not? Four? Why six?

Alyson Lex  15:21  

Because that's how many I mapped out.

Jennie Wright  15:28  

Okay, got it. I'm just wondering if there's like a magical I'm asking for the audience's sake, I'm wondering, I'm just wondering if there's a magical reason why it's six and not five, or, you know, is three, too little is five, just almost right is six, like the perfect Goldilocks, and is seven too many.

Alyson Lex  15:45  

So seven is not too many if you have the content for it, but I'm gonna talk about our little hack to get more people's eyes on your emails. And that's going to actually make this feel more like more emails. Okay. So the first email is the introduction to the idea that they're currently doing something alone. And they don't need to do that. If they have help, it's going to be easier, better, faster. Okay, so for instance, Jenny's email about growing your list, here's what you could achieve. If you had a list, you could send them an email, you could stay in contact with them, you wouldn't be as freaked out about marketing your business, you would blah, blah, blah, if you have a list. If you don't, I can help you with that. Right? That was a really good example of email number one, it was heavy on the value light on the ask. Alright, it's super chill, super relaxed, then we're going to go to email to, we're going to talk about the idea that they're gonna want help to reach their goal. So if I was writing an email to for Jenny's list, I would say something like, hey, Facebook, and Instagram are up now. But that doesn't mean, you should be letting go of your list building goals, because you never know when this is going to happen again. So why don't we hop on the phone, and we'll make a plan for you to get that done. No pitch, no pressure. But this is what you're going to want to do. So let me help you do it. Now you're not really gently asking, you're now stepping into that expert like, this is what you want to do. So let's talk about how we can do that. You're just kind of inserting yourself onto their team. Okay, in email three, now is where we're going to give them more information about what's going to happen on that call. Because some people aren't going to book if they don't know what it's going to look like. They want to make sure that it's not going to be a waste of their time, because how many times have you? How many times have you signed up for the most incredible webinar ever? To find out, it's 53 minutes of, of fluff and two minutes of content

Jennie Wright  18:39  

billions of times, hundreds of times, tons of times, tons of times, and sometimes together and then sat there and go to what the actual are we looking at?

Alyson Lex  18:49  

And so think your ideal client has been burned like that. So show them what it's going to look like, tell them what it's going to look like, Hey, we're gonna start with this. And then, you know, we'll talk about XYZ. And then, if it's, you know, if you want, if you ask me, I'll share how I can help you. If it's a no pitch thing, okay? Even if you're saying it's no pitch, you can say, by the way, feel free to ask how I can help. You can plant that idea in their mind. Right? They're not stupid, they're gonna figure out that you want clients from us. In fact, for some book a call sequences I have said, why I'm doing this is because a small portion of the people receiving this and booking are going to want to hire me. So I'm doing that. But for the rest of you, you're getting a ton of value. I'm fully transparent, and it works in your house. It works okay in your favor. Then we have email for Okay, this is where you can give them a story, a case study or some testimonial about someone else you've helped. We're kind of doing that here on the podcast by sharing Jenny's emails, or what she's done. We've told you about other clients, I tell you what I do. Here's why that's working. If you want me to help you build something like that for you, let's talk. You see how it all flows together? Right? So if I was writing email for for myself, I might talk about my copy review service. And my client, Nick, who had this, this campaign running, and it was, it was successful until it wasn't. And it was approaching the end date. And he thought it had run its course. But he thought, hey, let me just get it reviewed by Allison, I made some tweaks, he implemented an ad of 25 to $30,000 to his bottom line in that campaign. Like, do you want something like that, let's talk let's see, if, if I'm the copywriter for you, we'll build you a plan, right? Like, very again, chill, you don't have to be super hard about this. Email five. Now we're setting a deadline. So it's been up until now kind of an open ended offer, you can put a deadline in there like, for the next couple weeks, I'm booking some calls. But now we're going to close it out. We're going to say, I've been booking so many great calls. I'm loving everything that we're talking about. But I'm going to have to go ahead and close this down because I'm getting busy again. So I'm going to leave my calendar open until Friday, grab your spot before then if you're interested. deadline, easy. Email six. And this, I'm gonna have to give credit where credit's due. This is actually a strategy from Dean Jackson. And you can google the nine word email, I will try to grab a link to a post about it and put it in our show notes. Because I think it's really powerful. We're going to utilize the nine word email. Alright, this email is super simple. Their first name only goes in the subject line. So if I was sending it to Jenny, it would literally just say, Jenny, in the subject line. And then the text of the email is are you still interested in blank? And you're going to fill in what they want to achieve? Are you still interested in getting your copy finished? Are you still interested in growing your email list? Are you still interested in losing 10 pounds finding Mr. Right rebranding your business, I don't care what it is straightening your teeth. You're not going to sign it. You're no footers, except what's required by email, right? The little photo that you have to have with the unsubscribe stuff, put some space in between the text and that you want it to be super simple. The goal of that email is to invite the reply. There's no button, there's no link, they're going to reply to that. And that's almost like a reactivation. So that email is why it's not five, it's six, because I used to have a five and I threw that in and started seeing the success rates improve. And then that is your book a call sequence and you're going to space them out. You're not going to send one each day, you're going to space it out. But that's going to depend on what your list will tolerate. Because not everybody's list is going to tolerate email every day.

Alyson Lex  23:42  

So if your people will unsubscribe in droves, if you send to a week, then you need to send one of these a week and have it be a six week sequence. If they can tolerate an email every day, do it. Make it a six day see, right? It's fine. But that is the super fast teach of the six step book a call sequence.

Jennie Wright  24:05  

There's actually as you said it was super fast, but you actually give a lot of value in there as well. as huge as per huge. You gave it to charge as huge. You did, which was great. I'm I'm always impressed by how that sequence works. I'm always impressed by the result. And I am really incredibly fortunate. Sometimes when I use this, I think it's really important to us. So you know, let's talk about let's talk about the hack of sending to an opens. So you know when you send an email out to your list, and it says that 30% of your email list opened which means 90% of your email lists not even my godness Wow, how did I do that? 170 70% of your list didn't open it. Wow, that was awesome that yay Thank you grade 10 math, okay. Anyways, um, the the thing about sending to unopened is, is that you can send it to people in your email marketing provider, you can send to the unopened so that they can get it, you can change the subject line highlight to like, Hey, did you see this and resend the actual email out to them. So that you can get more opens. You know, when we're doing this with a book a call sequencer for doing this for any type of sales emails, what we end up seeing as we see a bump in the open rate. And we see a bump in the, you know, the book a call, I mean, you can use this and other emails too, like sales, emails, etc. and you should see a bump in what you're doing. So don't forget to send to the unopened, wait like a day or two before you do it, but I recommend it. And then, the other thing that we want to mention is the apple update the new iOS update. So the newest iOS update, if you're, if you're in email marketing is that there's a brand new opportunity for people who are on Apple devices to opt out of the tracking that we get on emails. So when we send an email from our email marketing provider, like Active Campaign, there's a cookie. And what it does is when you open it on your device, or on your whatever you're on your laptop, your iPad, whatever that cookie says, Allison opened the email at 11:52am. And it records her IP and where she's located in what device she's on. So Allison opened it at 11:52am, you know, from Baltimore, Maryland, on a whatever iPad, or Google phone or whatever she's on, right, I just know, she's not on an Apple phone. And that information gets stored in my email marketing provider. And I can go back under my reports, and I can see it, I can see that Allison open at 11:52am. The newest iOS update now allows people to opt out of that. So there's no tracking. So we don't, we're gonna see a weirdness in the open rates, we're not going to know if people open the email, we're not going to know if they clicked on a link, we're not going to know because Apple's new privacy laws allow us to block that. And now it's going to play weirdly, with what's going on in our email marketing. So it's so important now, that yes, you can still send to quote unquote, on opens. And you should go ahead and think about doing that. But in addition, it makes every email important, which means you want to work on your subject lines, which means you want to make sure the content is right, which means you want to send the right thing to the right people on your list, which is why we talk about segmentation and our lists your book a call sequence on how to find Mr. Right? shouldn't go to your list that talks about a different subject, right? So making sure that you have that segmentation on your email list. And I could go on and on and on getting a little off topic, but it does play into the book a call sequence because we just don't want to send this book a call sequence to anybody. It should be really tailored and to you know, maybe it's people who watched a webinar that you recently had, maybe it's people that participated in a challenge that you did be very specific about the use of it, you'll get better results from it.

Alyson Lex  28:13  

1,000% Yes, segmentation is key, I know we've done some episodes on that, we'll go ahead and put that in the show notes. Because I think it might be helpful as you're thinking about these specific campaigns to include in your overall marketing, and sending them to the right people at the right time is going to be a key. So I would love to hear what Jenny has four takeaways.

Jennie Wright  28:44  

I have all the takeaways, my friends, all the takeaways. I love my first one is basically using a book called sequence can really help you create consistent sales calls. So like that potential client where we got some access to their email marketing provider this week, I and Allison and I had the opportunity to see that this person has a massive following a massive list, but they're not getting a ton of sales off of that list. Well, we were able to see quite quickly when we were in there, that that person, you know, it's like enter your name and email and download my thing. But then they received only one email saying hey, here's the thing, there was no follow up. So in that instance, it could be you could use a book a call sequence to make sure that you're creating consistent calls and consistent sales. By having it automatically happen as an automation when somebody registers for your thing, whatever that thing is.

Alyson Lex  29:40  

One thing that I want to point out, too, and it came up so I'm gonna use this as my takeaway, because it was my system so I don't know that I can really do takeaways without being little. Hey, look at me. But you mentioned earlier in the episode and just now like including it as an automation when we create Did a book a call for one of our clients, it went out manually, like Jenny said, and then we're, we're including it as part of the follow up process. So this is kind of global, but also specific. These work in both spots. And you should use book a call sequences in both spots manually, timely, and automated. But also, don't just use your copy once and throw it away. And this is this is where the global thing comes in. Repurpose everything you can, especially if it works, especially if it works. Okay, that's and rent.

Jennie Wright  30:45  

Allison and the rants today, I'm loving. And actually I love her rants, they're actually fun rants. So mine is that a book called sequence will always work no matter what your size of your list. Never worry about the size of your list, you guys, I remember and I tell this story frequently that I was able to create a six figure income off of 356 people on my list 356 people, I mean, you put that in a stadium, where you put that in a room, you know, you put it by, I mean that was silly, and you put it in a stadium doesn't look like much but put that you know standing outside in your parking lot. 356 people's a lot of people and you can absolutely connect those people. And using a book of course sequence is an incredible way of actually connecting with them. So don't worry about your list size, get up there, put the stuff out, get some calls on the on the on the calendar.

Alyson Lex  31:34  

And before we wrap up, I just want to again, encourage everyone to stop freaking out over unsubscribes. All right, you're so Bernie, look, there are some times when you can use them as a metric. If I write an email for Jenny's lists, and it doesn't land, right, she'll get some unsubscribes. And I use that as a metric to help learn what the what the list as an entity will or will not like, but onesie twosie unsubscribes, it's just not that serious. So don't try to cater so hard to your list to avoid those unsubscribes that you end up not getting sales. It's okay for people to unsubscribe, you need to lovingly let them go. And also train your list to accept getting offers from you.

Jennie Wright  32:26  

I love the train the list idea. I also, if you're getting a ton of unsubscribes, you need to talk to Alyson and I because if you're getting a ton of unsubscribes that means you might be sending emails to the wrong portion of your list. Or that your whatever it is, whatever way or method they got into your list is not congruent with the way that you're now connected with them. So I'm absolutely going to recommend that you get in touch with us tonight. If you're if you're not feeling like things are flowing properly in your in your own email list, if things aren't properly working properly, even in your own marketing in terms of like how people are getting into your list, and then are you getting any calls like the client that we spoke to yesterday had no idea she's like, I have, you know, x 1000 amount of people coming into my list, but I'm not getting the kind of calls that I should be getting. It took Alison and I about 10 minutes to see the problem and diagnose it and provide a solution. And Alice and I are happy to do that for you. It's completely no pitch, we are not going to pitch you on anything, we're just going to help you solve a problem. And if it makes sense, and you want to hear about what it's like to work with us, we'll tell you, but you know, we're not going to pitch you on anything. And you can go to the work with us page on a System to thrive.com website, you'll see that link there and go and book that call we'll be happy to chat with you fill out all the information and when you book the call, it gives us a little bit more information about you. And then we'll be able to see more. So this has been fun. Allison, thanks for sharing your secrets about your book a call sequence. This is one of your huge, like not secrets, but it's one of your it's one of your really great things that you're so good at that people know you for. And I'm really glad that you were able to share it.

Alyson Lex  34:06  

One of my things, man, thanks. I had fun teaching it. And I'm looking forward to connecting with people who are listening and need some help.

Jennie Wright  34:16  

Yeah, well we practice what we preach. So if we're talking about a no pitch call, we actually do a no pitch call. So don't worry, it's not going to be some secret little covert thing where we're actually going to like you know, try and put you into something. So come and talk to us. We're happy to help. On that note, make sure that you are following us wherever it is that you're listening to podcast episodes and you're catching up on any past episodes. You can hit us up on any of the networks where you are listening to episodes, podcasts, where you can go to System to THRIVE, calm, everything is there for you all our past episodes, all our show notes, and all of our cool freebies. So go and check that out. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back again soon answering another big question.