Make Money Typing Emails With Troy Ericson

Welcome back to the list building lifestyle. I’m your host, Igor Kheifets and today, I’m going to tell you about a brand new career opportunity. But it’s not corporate America, it’s not starting a brick and mortar business, it’s actually quite fun. I would totally, you know, switch what I’m doing for that, because it’s one of the things I enjoy doing in life. To do it and you don’t need to convince me to do it. What I’m talking about is becoming an email list manager. Yes, it’s a real thing. And you can make a lot of money doing it, and to share with you exactly how it works. And what’s possible with this. I’ve invited the world’s number one email list manager, the guy who kind of started that whole industry or helped co-found at least, my good friend, Troy Erickson, Troy, welcome to the list building lifestyle.

00:54

Hey, what’s going on, Igor, thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it.

00:57

Yeah, I’m excited to chat about email list management, because I don’t think we spoke about on the show before, but I’ve been seeing this all over the place where people who learn how to write email, copy, but don’t have their own list or don’t want to run like a business, go on and find clients and just get paid for writing emails all day long. And then sending those emails out to other people’s lists. I mean, that’s, that’s pretty neat.

01:22

Yeah, it’s something that it’s just like a really minor tweak from writing copy, but it has huge, huge, huge results and positive consequences for both you and the client. Because if you think about copywriters, it’s like, you know, typically, they are writing copy in a Google Doc, they are, you know, hoping that the client actually uses it hoping that the client pays them, it’s like when they ship it off, they don’t know what’s gonna happen. And a lot of times, they don’t get paid up front. So they send it off. And it’s their best guess as to what happens next. But being an email list manager, you get paid upfront, you sign into the clients, ESP. So where are they sending their emails from, and you write the email there and send it for them. So it actually gets sent out, it’s like, guaranteed to get sent out. And you can see how the emails are doing, you can help them with things like email deliverability, you can just help them strategize and get so much better results. And obviously, they’ll keep paying you month after month after month. And that was a recurring service instead of just doing random one off email copy inside of Google Docs. And it’s just a huge paradigm shift for a lot of people.

02:29

No, it’s pretty crazy. When you think about it, it’s a really cool job. Like for me, somebody who made millions with email marketing, somebody who writes emails all day long, every single day. And I would assume for anyone who likes the idea of, of mailing their list or general mailing you know, I’ve always found writing to be almost like therapy, almost, I always noticed that every time I would write an email, even if it wasn’t marketing email, I would still feel a little bit better. Did you ever find that?

02:58

Yeah, 100% it’s really interesting, because, you know, growing up, I just wanted to be a baseball player. And like, that was it and I thought, like, writing in school was dumb. And I never wanted to do it, because it was too emotional. And that, like, I didn’t really have that side of me. But then, you know, after baseball ended, which was a very emotional thing for me, I kind of came more in touch with this whole side of me that was missing. And I started writing and how I was feeling and how, you know, I had failed and what I was trying to get into next, and where I wanted my life to go. And I started to realize like, hey, writing is just a form of expression for humans to talk about what they’re going through. And it’s not this thing that they talk about, you know, in fifth grade, where you have to, you know, get your Gerrans right and write proper sentences and get a good job, it can just be a form of expression. And fortunately for me, I was also able to make money from it.

03:52

Ya know, I kind of find that the dumber you make your writing sound, the more money you’ll make, like the more formal and the more corporate and the more, you know, English teacher friendly, you make your writing sound, the more boring it becomes, and the less engaging. But in my emails, I would, I would like almost on purpose, misspell words and come up with silly phrases and really play with it as if I’m not really writing, but more so um, is if I’m like talking and jamming with my buddies, and that just makes for a much more engaging email copy, I think.

04:29

Yeah, 100%. And it’s just something that more people can relate to. Because it’s like, you know, what we just talked about, like, fifth grade English turned me off, because it was too formal. And I didn’t want to be that kind of person. But then I realized that it’s actually free form, and I can just write to my friends and literally just take the things that I talked about with them, and relay them to the rest of the world and put myself out there. It’s kind of cool, and it’s a little addicting now to just write and have a group of people read it, and at first it’s a little scary, but once you do it and you realize, hey, I can say whatever I want, there’s not really going to be consequences. As long as I’m not, you know, doing anything wild. It just becomes a lot more fun that way.

05:11

Yeah. All right. Well, let’s dig into this. So I’m curious, this did not exist a couple of years ago. Like if I look at the evolution of our industry, and I would say, the digital marketing industry as a whole, it’s a pretty big industry. And there’s jobs today and career opportunities today that didn’t exist two years ago. And email list management is one of them. Like there wasn’t a bullet point on anyone’s resume saying, I was an email list manager for this company or that company. However, today, you quite literally went out. And you can find people with that experience, who kind of are almost veterans now, even though it’s only been going on for a couple of years. So I guess my first question to you is, how did you even get into this?

05:59

Yeah, for sure. And, you know, to be clear, I’m not the person who invented this, per se, I would just say that I popularized it more than anybody else, because there’s a few people that, you know, have been doing this for more than a decade. And they just didn’t really call it that. They’re just like email marketers. But the whole premise of like, how I popularized this to myself and then to a whole bunch of other people is, in 2019, I kind of alluded to like I failed as a college baseball player. And I had something called the Yips, I literally could not throw baseball anymore. And that was a pitcher. So that’s kind of your job as a pitcher. And I got cut as a senior, pretty much lost all my identity. And felt terrible, like I literally didn’t go outside for two weeks. And so I just sat inside kind of studying marketing. And you know, fortunately for me, it was a little interesting of mine. And I found out you could make money doing Facebook ads, like creating Facebook ads for clients and sending them out. I bought a little course on it and got pretty good at it. Went on Upwork and got some jobs. From some higher level people that were kind of working behind the scenes, one of them was working on a project with Gary Vee called Virtual Box, or some NFL players sponsoring it. So I got my first taste of Facebook ads there, that project fell apart, and we had a couple of other projects kind of fall apart. And what I realized is the reason they were falling apart wasn’t because I was really bad at Facebook ads, it was just, you know, we’re getting leads in the door, but we weren’t able to monetize them. Because the clients’ emails were going to spam, or they weren’t sending enough, or the emails were just awful, like we just talked about. So I was like, you know what, I have to stop this problem. Otherwise, I’m never going to be able to retain my clients. So I was literally at the point where I was being fired. And I was like, no, no, no, let me fix this. Let me sign in to your ESP, and just figure out what’s going on, figure out how we can help. So when they were sending maybe one client in particular sent in about one to two emails a week, really bad, they were going to spam. So over the course of that summer, just by like, you know, utilizing some resources that I purchased online and Googling things and a little bit of email experience from another client over the course of that summer. They went from 13k a month and email revenue to 51k. And I was like, that’s pretty good. It’s like a 4x monthly revenue almost. So I was like, Alright, maybe I should do this for my other clients, because the one guy was really happy. And now they’re paying me more and on retainer. So I thought I should do it for other people too. And then I did. And I pretty much pivoted out of Facebook, especially since things have gotten extremely difficult. They’re a pain in the butt and I don’t want to pull my hair out. I was like, Alright, let me just go work with people who have a list built already. So I don’t need to worry about that. And I’m just gonna write their emails, make them good. Send them often. Just make sure they inbox

09:00

and this is a bit of an over street cred you’ve built over the last few years is the guy who inboxes actually, I’ve worked with quite a few people in the last couple of years. Hold specializes in that. Because we, I mean, email is our bread and butter. I think 80% of the income comes from it. So we’re paying big attention and you know, really, really huge attention to that. And almost every time I would like to connect with anyone that’s like, oh, I wasn’t trained as Troy Erickson’s mastermind. Oh, yay, I work with joy. Yeah, I’m the mastermind. It’s like, Wow, interesting. Like a lot of these. There’s like a big culprit that’s leading back to you. And so you’ve also popularized the whole priority inbox or whatever it’s called the primary tab thing, where, you know, you came up with the special code on how to place your emails there, which is how I found you, I think, Rich Schefren mail the bow But, and I was like, damn it, I want it. Interesting. Let me pick your brain about that for a sec. It’s a bit of a side note, I guess. But I’ve tested this. And I noticed that even if I lend more often in the primary, my open rates would go up, obviously. But overall sales didn’t necessarily spike or anything, it seems to me almost like, if they, if they go to the promotions tab, and look up your email, it’s like they want to go and buy something, you know?

10:31

Yeah, I mean, there’s some people that say that there’s a lot of online articles about it. You know, from my own experience, and you know, doing this for over 300 clients, there’s significant increases in sales. And a lot of my case studies that are on the internet, you know, as people making extra, obviously, these are big clients, where they’re making an extra 234, or five grand and email. And you know, we see it time and time again. So I can’t really speak to situations where, you know, I wasn’t the one doing it. But yeah, in some cases, like, he’s just understanding to like, there be diminishing utility, right. So like, if your open rate goes up a lot, your click rate is not going to go up quite as much as open rate, and your sales are not going to go up quite as much as the click rate. So it’s just something to keep in mind as well. Another thing would be making sure you’re testing on a service, such as lock apps, or at least like multiple seat accounts to make sure it’s not just in boxing for you, but it’s also in boxing across the board. And then there’s also different, like aliases that you can send from me that work better than others. But yeah, there’s a lot of like, little nuances when it comes to deliverability. But, you know, getting into the primary tab is probably the most important thing. And once you get it down, it’s not overly complicated. But yeah, it’s just one of those things that you really have to play around with a little and that’s why we charge a lot of money to help people with that, because they make a lot of money. And we do all the hard work for them.

11:56

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, man. And it’s, it’s, it’s pretty incredible, just how difficult and complex the whole deliverability became, you know, back in the day just had to worry about spam words. And when I started, now, there’s like a million things you have to worry about. And no one’s safe anymore. You know, I actually heard a rumor today that Gmail and all the other ESPs are going to be inboxing. All the political emails, like almost automatically. So sometimes I wish I was political. But of course, we’re not. But anyway, back to back to this whole idea of getting paid to write and send out emails for other people, which I think yeah, I think it’s great if you’re just starting out. Or if you’re already an agency of some kind, or if you’re a copywriter or freelancer, you can easily offer that service, it’s going to be so easy for you to start making more money or making money from scratch. Now, what, what I would like to know is, what sort of potential are we talking about? Like, say, your students? I know you’ve got a program, we teach people how to do this. So what are some of the, you know, interesting success stories, you know, people making transition from a different career, perhaps, or what sort of like, results they were able to get? And we don’t have to mention any specific outcome in this specific timeframe. We want to keep FDC heavy, but it’s interesting to see what’s possible.

13:23

Yeah, totally. So going back to your point to the way that I kind of, like built up some people and decided to offer coaching was just because they saw like, you know, in 2019, I made like, basically next to no money. And 2020 just by managing less, I mean, several $100,000.20 21 turns to an agency is multiple, seven figures and kind of went from there. And I never really tried to build a coaching program, but when you know, grow really fast, people pay attention. So I was like, Alright, maybe I should coach some people. And I had liked earlier versions of my current program, but some of the people in there, you know, on my YouTube channel, they’re all over the place. But, you know, like Isaiah Eliot, he is somebody who was like a musician and like a new father and like, needed money right away, and now he’s making probably like, 15k a month. And then on the other end, we’ve got people in Nigeria that like, really weren’t making anything and now they’re making like 1500 bucks two grand a month, and now like their life has changed over there. And then we’ve got other people like Aleister Gorian sees in Cyprus, and he came to me and he was like, scared and skeptical that copywriting could work at all, and now he’s pulling like 19k months. And then we’ve got, you know, a lot of other people on the program too, that somewhere in like the low six figure range that they’re just doing this as a career and they’re happy sending a few emails a day for their clients and the rest of the day they get to hang out with their family or travel or whatever else it might be. So obviously, no results are guaranteed for anybody but those are just some results of students.

14:59

Now that’s pretty crazy too. And especially, I mean, I’m originally from Ukraine. I was born in Ukraine, but in my teens, my family moved to Israel. So I was growing up in Israel. And I wouldn’t say it’s a Third World country, but it’s pretty close. You know, like, there’s some aspects to it that are definitely not first world, I’d say it’s a second world country. But it’s still when I found out about the digital marketing space and affiliate marketing and a few other aspects, including email. I’ve always liked the idea of getting paid dollars, like US dollars, because every US Dollar was, you know, three times the size of our local currency, which is called shekels, which sounds almost like magic beans, you know. And so anytime I would make like 1000 bucks, it was like a proper full time income that people were working, you know, a full month to get it was, it was paying rent, groceries, it was really awesome. And for someone in Cyprus, for someone in Bulgaria, you know, in Nigeria, India, Peru, Taiwan, like you can there’s a million different places where people can actually speak and write and read decent English, where you can just get one client, and they can be life changing things for you. Right?

16:19

Yeah. 100 per se. I mean, it’s totally relative to the situation, right? Because it’s like some of the people we work with. They’re copywriters. And they’re stuck at four or 5k a month, and they just want more. And those are the people most primed to, you know, possibly hit six figures. And then you’ve got other people. And I’m not joking, and like, Oh, my shoes, and I grew up in Nigeria. And she’s just like, I’m so thankful that I’m making an extra like 50 $100 a month. And like her clients do, like, my favorite part is we’re just bettering the industry. It’s like, sure the students are getting good results, but their clients are getting good results. And there’s just less headaches because you don’t have to involve Google Docs and copywriters. It’s just like, so smooth, so clean. And yeah, it doesn’t take a ton of extra effort above copywriting to become an email list manager. And the people who make the leap, they put in some hard work, you know, maybe one month on the low end and six months on the high end, if they really work hard, and they can definitely not replace whatever nine to five income that they had before.

17:20

Yeah, that’s, that’s pretty cool, man. Pretty cool. So let me then let me ask you this. So let’s say somebody wants to get into it. And they have some sort of email writing or email marketing experience, like a lot of members of my E farming program. They know what an email list is, they know how to use it to get responses. And, you know, they know how to write some, some basic copy, or at least they know how to use templates, you know, to fill in the blanks for different products and services. So to those people who are considering what would you say is like the first thing you need to do, in terms of like, becoming somebody who’s hirable?

18:00

Yeah, I would say the first thing is really just not being afraid of the tech piece. And it’s not really even techie. Because ESPs these days, it’s very, like, drag and drop user friendly. But the biggest thing that holds people back, like if they already have a list, or they already write copies, they just fear that it’s going to be too hard or too complicated. But what I tell people who are new, I’m like, Hey, go to an ESP, like Active Campaign and just open an account, it’s free. And all you have to do is go on YouTube. And you can look up tutorials on how to create an email and active campaign or like how to create a welcome sequence, or how to do any of the basic things, and just get comfortable with it. So when you have a potential client approaching you, and you’re like, oh, yeah, I know, Active Campaign. So I’m not just gonna write your copy in a Google Doc, I’m just gonna set it up for you. And I’m gonna make sure it’s good to go, I’m gonna check the deliverability. And I’m gonna send it out. And then I’ll do that for you every day, or you know, four times a week, or whatever you agree to. And I can build out sequences for you. Like, that’s so much more than what a regular old copywriter is capable of doing. And if you already are a copywriter, it’s even easier. Because if you’re writing a copy for clients, be like, Hey, by the way, do you want me to like you, make you even more and save you time by signing in and sending this for you? And like managing strategy deliverability, all that it’s a complete no brainer, especially if you just do it for free for like three days, and they start making a bunch more. And they’re like, Yeah, keep doing that. Keep doing that. And you’ll have a client for a very, very long time if you do it that way. And then, as far as the people who, you know, maybe their affiliate marketers, they have their own business. It’s like, you know, 20% of the people in my coaching programs do have their own business, or they put their team through the program, because they just want to learn how they can inbox better. They want to learn like, hey, what is the exact strategy for a welcome series? Or how can I re-engage people, or what topics should I be talking about? My emails, you know, how often am I sending? What’s the best time just all these ways that you could optimize and start making more? So those are some of the things that I would do if you’re like thinking about email list management, but you’re like, gosh, I haven’t done this before.

20:15

Yeah, that sounds pretty cool. You know, the one part I do like about this as a as a potential career opportunity, or agency opportunity, is the leverage, because I would assume a copywriter who manages a list would charge some kind of a percentage of sales, or at least, you know, to the extent that that the listener is willing to pay. And the bigger the list, the more leverage. So as long as the list owner continues to grow their list, the impact you can make for them, using the exact same amount of effort, by the way, right. So if delicious, it goes from 10k, to 15k, over a course of three months. And you’re just keep doing your job, all of a sudden, the impact of your work is like it has increased by 50%, at least, which I find fascinating, because you get to really see yourself in a different light. Because a lot of people come into this, they have really low self-esteem. And if they see how their work creates this kind of impact, all of a sudden, you’re like, wait a second, I’m like a person of value. And your self-esteem keeps growing. And it sort of reinforces the whole, it becomes a self-feeding cycle. Have you found any of your clients starting out? They’re really insecure, perhaps. And then a couple of months down the road coming back and almost like flexing to show you what they were able to achieve for people.

21:45

Yeah, it’s as far as coaching students. I mean, we have that with our own clients and with our coaching students as well. So I would say, what’s really funny is when it comes to like rev sharing, and like having greater impact is I’m somebody who just really enjoys cash up front, right. Because I’m a business owner, cash flow is really important. And it’s just something that I really liked to see coming in. So we do charge cash up front, we usually have a little rev share as well. But some of my students, CR and I might be butchering his name. He’s from Ireland, I’m sorry, but I want to give him a huge shout out because he started, I think he had a month that generated like 132 grand, actually, that was over three months. And he had like a 25% rev share. So I did the math on it, he was making like 12 grand a month off that client or somewhere in that neighborhood. And I’m thinking like, holy cow, he’s making more than I am off this, and he was one of my students. So it just all comes down to like risk reward, right? So like, obviously, you can get great results for your clients. But as far as how you’re compensated, you just have to think like, Hey, do I want to do a rev share, which potentially has more upside, but I’m gonna get paid after the month and really have to make sure I trust the person I work with? Or do I want some cash up front, which either way is going to be life changing for a lot of people. So that’s one really cool story. As far as our personal clients they have, sometimes they’re skeptical at the beginning that like sending every day is a good idea, or they fear that people are going to unsubscribe, and I always remind them like, hey, the people who are applying their emails, and they tell you, you may have too much go look at their order history. I promise you, they haven’t spent a dime recently. So you should not listen to those people. And they’re like, Okay, well, whatever you say. And then a few months later, it’s like, you know, they’re making in some cases, like a best case scenario. They’re making six figures extra per month. And they’re like, Wow, yes, you are right about this. I’m like, Yeah, you know, we do a good job sending. So yeah, we have all kinds of people discovering things about themselves after a little bit of time.

23:47

Now, that’s really cool, man. I really like what you’re doing. And I’m also really excited about the industry growing because it means that there’s more and more people who have email lists, and realize the value of what they have. Because, believe it or not, like one of the things as somebody who teaches people to build a list, one of the things that I see all the time is they build it, but they don’t actually mail it. It’s the number one thing I see people building lists spending money, spending time, effort, energy, etc., thinking, you know, but they don’t mail the list. I don’t know why that is. And I understand that you work with mostly successful business owners who already like to have listed the mail, but what is your take on it? Why do you think that happens?

24:32

Yeah, it’s just life gets in the way. It’s like, you know, personal life, business life. And the funny thing is like I was at 100 million masterminds sitting in a room with people who are like, running businesses that are about 100 times bigger than mine, no joke. And these are some of the most successful people and I was talking to them about my offer, like a hot seat table. And they’re like, Hey, I think you’re going to be nitty gritty. And I was like, what do you mean? And they’re like, Yeah, you’re over here talking about algebra. Motions tab. And like all these super like granular email strategies and tactics and things, I was like, Yeah, that’s what I do. And it’s worked well. And they’re like, true. But how big is that audience? Shouldn’t you be talking about just like, hey, I’ll mail your list for you and save you time. Like, no, that’s way too simple. But then they surveyed the room. And like all the high level people in there, it’s like Nick Daniel from V shred. And like Cole, Gordon, and a couple other people. And Jesse leaves. And they were like, oh, yeah, I have a really big list. But like, oh, my gosh, I don’t send as many emails as I should I feel really guilty about it was a lightbulb moment for me, where I realized that, like, the best clients are people who are really successful, they just don’t have the time to mail their lists, or they don’t have the expertise, or they think it’s too complicated. So you step in, and you’re like, hey, I can solve that for you. And here’s a client similar to here’s how much they made. You know, worst case scenario, this is what I think I only charged this much, let’s do it. And they’re like, Yeah, sounds good to me. And like, they give you free rein. They’re not picky about the emails, they’re not asking you nitty gritty questions, they just get out of your way, let you do your job, and they make a whole bunch of extra money. So I think it’s really just that people get busy. And they’re really good at something other than email. So they focus on it. And they just kind of accidentally neglect it for a while. So that’s where we come in.

26:24

Yeah, that’s a good point. So there’s like an actual real demand in the marketplace. And, and I love it, you don’t really, I don’t think you need to be a great salesperson, either. To convince anyone that you can, you can come in and start mailing their list and make them more money either. It’s like you’re selling money at a discount, honestly, and also free time, which is something people are willing to pay for all day long. So I’m all for it. Like, if you’re listening to this, and you’re looking for either another stream of revenue, or you’re looking to get going and things just don’t seem to work out, and you like email marketing, then I would highly advise you to look into this as a potential either agency side, or even a career path. If you just like the idea of just writing emails, hitting the send button, and then going to the beach. And let everyone you know, at lead the business owners figure out their own, like, customer support and sales and via sales and all that stuff. So Troy was great to host you. And I appreciate you being able to do this while traveling. Where can people go to find out more about you, and your program teaching how to get your first email management client?

27:34

Yeah, so the link is actually really simple. MakeMoneytypingemails.com.

27:41

That’s, we need to really let it sink in to appreciate this domain name. So guys are going to find out more, you can go to MakeMoneytypingemails.com. And probably see a page with more information. And if you actually consider this, you should work with Troy because right now he’s probably one of the best when it comes to this stuff. So I’ve always been of the mindset that if I am to do something, I should probably learn from the best. So before we let you go, I want to ask you a question. So you’re really young? Probably as young as me, if not younger? I’m 34. How old are you right now? 2626. Cool. So even younger. And I was wondering, you mentioned that you had a potential for a baseball career, however that ended. And you lost, you said you lost your identity. I was wondering if you could share how you were able to regain composure after that.

28:44

Yeah, it’s, it’s tough. So starting out with like, the main problem is just, when you’re a kid, there’s some inspiration, whether it’s your parents, or you know, a hero that you see on TV, athlete, musician, movie star, whatever it is, and you have this idea in your head and like I want to do what they do, which is awesome. And I think it’s great to have a role model like that. But it’s really tough to understand at a young age that you are not your career, you are not the thing that you’re trying to do. Like, that’s great. But I’m Troy and I played baseball. I’m Troy and I’m an email marketer. I’m not truly an email marketer. And it’s really hard for people to disassociate those two things. And when they don’t do that, it just ties their self-worth in with what they do. And you just have to understand like, hey, you know, if what I had today went away, I and this is tough, it’s not something that you can like, come to right away. It takes time, but like if what I had today went away, would I be comfortable as myself? Would I be confident in myself about what I understand, like, hey, I can go do something else and I’m still worth it as a person because of my friends, because of my family, those types of things. So it’s really, really tough and A lot of times just going out and trying new things, especially next to your friends and family, you can just rediscover some things that you like to do. And then you quickly realize that those are just things and you’re you and if you can separate those and, you know, still have goals and ambitions but not tie it to yourself, then you know, it’s pretty cool and you can do that.

30:21

And well, that’s, that’s big, that’s really big. I really think the whole identity issue these days is a big one. Because people are looking to attach themselves to something and being able to recognize at such a young age that you are Troy and you know, you do other things. That’s really powerful. I admire that a lot. So thank you for sharing that. So there you go. Guys. If you want to find out more about Troy Erickson, you can go to MakeMoneytypingemails.com. I hope you enjoyed today’s interview. This is Igor Kheifets and until next time we chat. Have a good one.