I grew up, being bullied as a child, so I stuck to myself. I did the things I liked to do…by myself. It was rare that I’d have a friend, but when I did, we were usually inseparable. It was the one person I could trust NOT to bully me.
All my life, no one’s really cared what I had to say. All this knowledge and jewels inside of me but no one cared.
That IS…until one day, after my ex-husband was long gone and I was living in a house that was nicer than my friends (according to them and what they said).
I remember one time, a friend from church asking me what apartment # I lived in when she wanted to visit me. I said, I don’t have one. She showed up and was in awe. She was in her 50’s and was looking to buy a place like the one I had.
It was then and there that people started listening to me. They wanted to know how I, as a single mom, could afford all that I had.
After all, they said, “My husband and I make $60k/year and we don’t have no where near all that you do. How do you do all this on only $18k/year AND with two children?”
Well, I started sharing with them.
First, God put me here. HE sets me up.
Second, I spend HIS money VERY wisely. I avoid credit card debt like the plague! I don’t even OWN a credit card!
Little by little, I started talking. I started focusing on the needs of those around me. Teaching them, telling them, answering their questions.
It’s something I still do to this very day. In fact, the email title of this very post was given to me by a student.
Because of all that, I am completely honored to be asked this question.
The fact that people DO listen to me, that I have over 100k on my email list, it’s all so awe-inspiring. Sometimes, I still can’t believe it and I’m just so thankful.
So, I hear you now….
How does all this have to do with a non-pushy email to your subscribers for your shop?
Okay, rule #1:
1) Your email list isn’t about YOU, it’s about THEM
If you ask your audience what they want to know from you, they will tell you. When they do, pay close attention and if it’s within your power to do it, DO IT!
Every single request you get, represents countless more emails and communications that no one else is taking the time to ask. So, if you get a request, do it.
Be sure you’re focusing on THEM, not what YOU want. Listen, we all want money and I get that. We all want to help support our families, give our kids a better life, bring our husbands home from work. I get it.
But if you focus on other people’s needs, I promise you, if you focus on others, they will take care of you. You will never have to worry about money, because they will take GOOD care of you. Just serve, be valuable, love on them, and give, wholeheartedly. Unabashedly. Just give.
So, how DO you give?
Give them what they want. Ask them, then give it to them. Don’t worry about the sale. Don’t worry about the money, don’t focus on that, just meet their needs.
I gave a binder to my Facebook group so many years ago. They loved it, wanted more, I kept giving them binders and, look where I ended up. Making 7-figures a year selling printables, courses, and earning money through my blog.
When you give, and give generously, you ATTRACT the same TYPE of people. While it’s not to be the focus, you DO attract people who are generous, loving, sweet. They like your stuff, they share it with friends, the friends buy.
You write a generous blog post to help someone, they love it, Google finds out, GOOGLE loves it and all the sudden you’re ranking and getting traffic.
My audience is the most sweetest, caring, loving bunch you’ll ever meet. I’ve seen other people’s audiences and I have to tell you, while I don’t know everyone’s audiences, I’ve seen enough and others have told me, that I have a unicorn on my hands. My audience is unlike any other. They care. They love. They are super duper sweet. Just kind-hearted people that I get to love on all day long and walk through life WITH them. Truly, I am so blessed, which brings me to my next point…
2) Focus on the audience, not the numbers
I would rather have 100 QUALITY, good-hearted people listening to me in my newsletters than 5 billion jerks.
In fact, recently I ran Facebook ads and I had thousands of email subscribers from that. But I noticed that in my emails coming through, so many of them were just downright MEAN! They were extremely demanding of me, of my time, of my service, of my products, of my team.
I didn’t appreciate how they were treating us. I took offense to it. “There’s a way to say something and it’s not like that,” I thought over and over with each email that came through.
It was beginning to be a problem. I was beginning to feel like I didn’t want to serve. Underappreciated. Unloved. I even had a couple people tell me straight up, “Stop talking and just give me the free printables. You don’t need to tell me anything else, just shut up.”
There came a certain point where I was so miserable and HATING working my blog. Knowing it would be another day of THIS.
But these people were buying. I had made $26k my first month in Facebook ads. I was literally set to make $5 million within 9 months to a year because that’s what the ads manager was doing with others and I was right on track.
Would I REALLY walk away?
Yes! I did.
I stopped Facebook ads. The emails kept coming. Mean ones. So, I went in and deleted ALLLLLLL the Facebook ads purchasers and NOW, my email box is back to normal. Super loving and sweet people. It’s back and it feels good.
Was the stress worth $5M/year? No. Not to me. I know that what I’m building is an empire, a dynasty! I know that one day, someone (whoever puts in charge) will take over after I’m gone. This is HIS work, HIS platform, HIS life. My life is His. HE says don’t care about money. Why would i?
This brings us to #3…
3) Be willing to stand for your beliefs
In your blogging or shop career, you WILL be tested to compromise.
You have a no refunds policy on digital products that is clearly stated and someone emails in saying they want a refund. Do you do it?
If you do, you are compromising. You are playing favorites. You can’t. You have to stick to your rules.
Maybe you have a sale going on that ends on a certain date and you get an email after the date, saying a terrible story of how they were in the hospital, couldn’t make it to the sale on time, really desperately want it and can you make an exception.
While you feel bad for them, there is a huge amount of compassion there, you have to stick to rules because if you don’t, you CAN get sued! Yes, you can get sued over stuff like that. If someone finds out you didn’t break the rules for them and you broke it for someone else, you can be in some hot water. You must maintain consistency! Have a heart, love on them, but you have to set boundaries too.
You want to treat your list like…
4) Treat your list like family
You’ve heard the saying, treat your list like friends, but I say all the more to you, treat your list like FAMILY.
Would you go to your mom and sell her something? Would you say, hey mom, I made this printable, will you buy it for $20.
Your mom would be offended right?!
She’d think (or say), “I gave BIRTH to you and you can’t just GIVE it to me?”
You don’t want your list to feel like they are just a dollar sign to you. You don’t want them to feel like money, a number. Treat them like FAMILY.
5) Don’t sell
DON’T SELL! If you wanna make more money, stop selling.
You’ve heard others say, “Sell something in every email”, I say, “GIVE something in every email”.
Strive your best to GIVE something in every single email. Make that email WORTH them taking the time out of THEIR day to open it up.
Train them that if they do open up your email, they are gonna get something cool out of it.
Give them something.
So, after all that, how exactly DO you get money if you’re not selling, not focusing on money, and giving things away.
Ahhhh, NOW you’ve asked the right question! 🙂
6) How to Sell
Many people will disagree with me, though none can argue this way of doing things works. After all, who can disagree with a single mom working 10 hours a week making 7-figures a year with absolutely no paid advertising? You can’t, right.
Maybe it doesn’t work for EVERYONE, I give you that, because it depends on our hearts and personalities (a stingy person can’t give, for example or someone who needs to earn $1k by next week or they’re homeless won’t have time to build a passive money-making empire and I get that), but no one can say it DOESN’T work.
Because everything I do is based on biblical principles.
There’s a passage that talks about when you build something, consider every angle. Consider all the finances of it before you start building. Because you don’t want to build something and not be able to finish it because you ran out of money.
In this case, with Shopify, I see it all the time, people trying to cut corners and cheat. They go with Etsy, Canva, low-quality programs. They are not considering the finances and doing it proper. They aren’t following that biblical principle. CAN it work? Sometimes. But not like it will when we follow the Bible.
We are also to have faith, right. God asks us to have faith. So if He’s called you, led you, directed you, guided you to create a shop or a blog or something online like that, then do it. Don’t worry about how He will take care of finances. You are His child and He PROMISES He will!
Yes, we have to do our part. Of course, but HE is ultimately in charge.
So WHEN you sell, do not focus on yourself. Focus on them.
What are their needs? Go to their Facebook pages. See what they are talking about. Every couple of weeks or so, I’m on my audiences Facebook pages. I’m watching what’s important to THEM.
Then…I talk about it.
7) Be relevant
When your focus is on THEM, you’re being relevant to them. They will listen if you are talking about what they want.
Listen, I will not beat around the bush to say that I am NOT here to give anyone printables.
In fact, you may be absolutely shocked to learn that printables aren’t even what I focus on!
My REAL focus are my Million Dollar Shop® courses.
Why?
Because I know that my courses will help people far greater than a printable ever will.
Printables are just a way to help people have more time, get peaceful, etc. so they have TIME to pay attention to what’s really important.
And what’s really important?
God.
But they won’t listen about God, because, sadly, they are spinning their wheels and completely burned out and tired.
So my first step is to help them get time back into their busy lives. Then once they do, they can have the time to focus on Christ and make money for their families if they need to.
Printables aren’t the focus. Printables are the means to get people to listen. They can’t listen if they are drowning.
In that way, to me, Shopify isn’t something I focus on making money through. Yes, it DOES make me a boatload of money, but my REAL focus is helping people have time for Christ.
I’m not out there TRYING to sell my printables. I really don’t care if they sell or don’t. God will provide finances for me either way. But it is my hope to be an encouragement to people and you want to be to others what they need from you specifically, according to your personality.
Whatever it is that you are good at, that helps other people and they love to learn about it, do that. If it means selling a printable to get there, no problem. But the focus of our lives isn’t to live, make money, and die.
For the Christian, it’s to serve Christ. To glorify Him. To point others TO Him.
8) Focus on getting them where you want them to go, let them do the rest
With all that said, you DO want to be clever.
Bear in mind that your platform is a road map. You have to get them to go where YOU want them to go. YOU know the good stuff. Point them in the right direction.
If I give something in my email list, I think about where I want them to go.
Do I want them to go to my blog?
With my blog, I get a traffic click. I get media ads money.
Is that okay to do?
Absolutely.
But if I make more money in my shop than on a blog, or let’s say I’m trying to build my shop, then I want them to go to my shop.
Why?
Because while I get media ads money and a traffic click, that’s the end of it.
If I send them to my shop to get the free download, they go to my shop (which is connected to my blog, so I get the traffic click anyway- just not the media ads income), but the sales are far more than the media ads.
They come to my shop and they see a header bar with a sale.
Get my Valentine’s Binder for $54 off. Those people I am giving something free to, they see that and then buy it.
They tell their friends, they forward my email to their friends.
When I give something free to someone, I’m not PUSHY, but they still buy because they see a sale.
It gets them to my shop, they may go to new released items, see what’s new and buy.
Some others will use the navigation bar to look up other things and buy.
Some go to the $1 deals section and buy.
All in all, they put the freebie in their cart and many shop around. See what else is new.
I’m not pushing sales at all. This is my family. I’m just giving them a freebie and they are doing the rest.
I’m being super relevant to get their attention in the first place, so I can serve them, so I can walk through life with them being genuinely helpful.
On occasion, I do run a sale in my newsletter. Maybe instead of giving a free binder, I sell it for $3, but in the previous email, I just gave them a really cute 13 page printables pack free.
As long as you are giving 75% of the time, you absolutely CAN sell 25% of the time. But as a general rule of thumb, those are the stats I tend to try to stick to. For me personally. Everyone is different and that’s okay. But for me, I want to give more and so that’s what I do.
You CAN sell, you don’t HAVE TO BE pushy, you can be relevant and help those around you IF YOU REMEMBER, you are not here on Earth to live, sell a printable, and die.
Okay?
Your life is more than that. You matter SOOOOOOOOOOOO much!!!!! Seriously, I want to give you a big hug right now.
Just keep your focus on what it’s supposed to be on. Don’t be charmed by the world around us who are money-hungry thieves. Live IN the world, but not OF it. Don’t be like them. Make money in a different way.
A way that gives your life more meaning and purpose.
A way that changes and makes a difference in the world.
So that others around you, see the light in you and says, “HEY! There’s something different about her.”
They get to know you and they love you. So….they support you. With finances, with sharing with their friends, whatever it may be. Focus on your purpose.
If your SOLE purpose is money, you and I won’t get along very well. You might as well leave now. There’s plenty of other scoundrels out there ready and willing to teach you their ways. We are here for a different purpose. We are here to change the world. To make money in a way that is pleasing to the Lord, one that lifts Him up and glorifies Him. One that you go to bed at night, feeling proud of yourself for. THAT is how you want to sell.
It’s different for everyone, according to your own conscience. But sell according to your conscience, always. <3