Transcript
A (0:00)
You're gonna pay with some brain sweat now thinking about the right stuff, or you're gonna pay with years of struggle and screwing around that's gonna leave you poor and dumb.
B (0:13)
Yeah.
A (0:15)
And so if, if I had to just hunt, if I had to sum the whole thing up, that's it.
B (0:32)
And we're on our fourth episode, the Final Chapter. Yes. Jim, so happy again to have you here. Today is all about opt ins, which I would actually think is probably one of the more important ones of all because there's no point in having a sales letter or email sequences if you can't even get people to opt in.
A (0:53)
Well, you know, that is handy, especially if you want to sell stuff or develop lists that can turn into customer lists or communicate with people or get people to, you know, pay attention to what you're doing without having to run an ad every single time you want somebody to click. So, yes, it's quite important.
B (1:15)
So when it comes to opt ins, and I know you've been, again, you've been in this industry for many, many years and you've seen the, the version of opt ins before there were digital opt ins. Right. I'm sure there was, you know, something that was before that. Actually, let's talk about that because I don't have that experience. I want to know what was it before we had opt ins? What did people do?
A (1:35)
People subscribe to a physical mailing list. I worked in a man, I worked in a mail house in, in Newport News, Virginia, where we have, where we bought lists of people or we helped people buy lists. And you had list brokers, and that was this giant business list brokers, people that had lists of people that were buyers or had expressed interest in something and then you literally had to send them physical mail. And so one of the things that people would do would be to advertise in magazines, newspapers. That was pretty much the main way. Magazines, newspapers, and then direct mail to get people to fill out a card and send to request more information. That's how you ended up on a mailing list. And you know, you laugh, but there were people making millions of dollars doing that when a million dollars was a million bucks. I mean, a million dollars seems like a lot now, but a million dollars 35 years ago was a crap ton of money.
B (2:43)
Yeah, yeah, I would say I, I mean, I'm not an economic, like economics professor, but like in what I know and even in my life, a million dollars today, back then would be equivalent to probably 3 million, if not even more. Just the way of lifestyle if you talk about inflation, lifestyle, I mean, it's totally different lifestyle. Right. So I was laughing. You're watch. I was laughing only because I'm thinking about all the variables that you can't control in that old method. Like in terms of you got to send them a letter, that letter has to hit their mailbox, they got to walk out to that mailbox, they got to open that mailbox, they take all the mail within that mailbox, they come back in their house, they got to sort through all that mail. Hopefully, hopefully they sort through yours. Then you got to get them to actually open it up, take the letter out, read the letter, be convinced enough that it's important enough to fill out the card or call in. Yeah, I mean I can, I can play the situation out my head. That's how I think about sales. Although those steps. Right. That's how I think about funnels. And I, and that's why I was laughing. All to just get them to say, yes, I would like more information. And we're out here in the world of luxury, I'm gonna call it. It's a simple click of a button. Autumn email. Even you don't have to type your email anymore because if your email has like as auto, you know, input, Right. It just. Two clicks, you're in, you're subscribed. Like life's become a lot easier.
