 something you're going to learn when you start learning online marketing is that it's so important to build your email list and to build it you need a lead magnet. Have you heard that before? Let me explain what that means. A lead magnet is where you give away something in exchange for their email address. Well I used to do that and I no longer do. That lead magnet is also sometimes called an ethical bribe. Just as I moved more and more into authentic marketing I started seeing these things as being incredibly strange not just strange but inhumane like like ethical bribe doesn't make sense and a lead magnet doesn't see the human being behind that. Why are we trying to use magnets to attract leads? These are human beings who want to be treated with respect and with care and so instead of a lead magnet instead of trying to force somebody to give you their email address in order to give them a video or a series of videos or a series of emails whatever why don't you go ahead and publish your video on YouTube on IGTV on Facebook more people will watch it because people will be searching and they will find it. You'll make more of an impact and you'll probably get more clients instead of having an ebook that people have to give you their email address to get it why don't you publish that ebook on Amazon more people will find it people will read it you'll get more you'll have more impact you'll get more clients. Let's stop using lead magnets. I stopped doing it in 2014 and my business has gotten better every year once I stopped doing it. Why did it get better because I was getting more loyal and true subscribers so do I build an email list of course I do but I don't check this out right if you go to my website there is no pop-up saying hey draw my email newsletter blah blah blah I don't I don't annoy I don't I try not to anyway I try not to annoy you why are marketers teaching us to be annoying to other people it because they are they are desperate and they are only looking at the short term numbers they're not looking at what happens to human beings when you do this again and again you only build a short term audience they don't tend to trust you over time I've said before we can't really build a trust we can only act in a trustworthy way and the natural result is that people tend to trust us but we can't force it either so don't force people to give you their email address if you go to my website of course you can join my email list but it's not any you have to look for it yes you go to my you actually have to look for how to join my email list but my email newsletters are have a much higher open rate the industry average I used to have a lower open rate when I use lead magnets now I have a much higher open rate I have a much higher click rate I have a full waiting list I have great sales of my online courses every month because I have built trust by being trustworthy not by forcing people to look at my stuff so the next time or maybe you should make a change right now on your website take off the pop-up box if you have a pop-up box take it off right secondly if you are forcing people to give you their email address to be able to get something maybe you need to stop doing that put that stuff on like I said on YouTube or on medium.com or wherever people can find it and read it now you might say well George that do you send out an email newsletter yes but here's how I do it okay when someone comes my website and they actually want to receive ongoing emails from me they see the newsletter tab at the top it's not invisible right it's in the navigation bar so it's not like they can't find it they have to hunt no it's it's there but they have to intentionally click on it it's next to you know services next to blogs so it's like okay it's one of the tabs great they click on it and then they have a decision they can either get my email newsletter once a week which is my newest articles or once a month which is my best articles interestingly most people decide to join me once a week which again shows me that ah by doing it this way people actually are eager to read my newsletters which is also why I'm open rates are higher now what's in my email newsletters and explain it only takes me 10 to 15 minutes every week to send my email newsletter to write and send why is this taking so fast because it's so simple I just simply put the summary and not not even summary the first few paragraphs a first paragraph or two of my recent article in the newsletter and I put continue reading and they click on it they go to either LinkedIn or medium to read the article that's it and I do two I do two or three of those articles and at the bottom of my newsletter I have my upcoming offer my my my next course or my coaching or whatever but that's at the bottom they get what they came for first before I make my offer okay so so that's why it takes me so fast that's why I'm able to send email newsletters on a consistent basis the other thing I do is that I have a separate email list for my offers for when I sell my courses or my open my coaching so when people join my my normal email newsletter they get a confirmation email saying thank you for joining if you have a question I'm happy to answer it by the way I have another email newsletter if you want to know when my coaching is open or when my my next course is available if you want to join here so then they can join there if they want to that's why that email that offers email list is also very high open rates and people stay subscribed because they actually want it so the bottom line for all this is that we don't want to be annoying to people we don't want to be merely tolerated we want to be sought after you want your marketing to be something people look forward to not something people tolerate and like always feel like there's something off there no you want people to go thank you I feel like that person cares genuinely because they behave as if they care about me as a human being so anyway I want to thank you for joining me thank you so much for being part of this video for those of you who are commenting below I really appreciate it and I'm George cow authentic business coach I love talking about how to build a business actually earn real trust rather than using manipulative tactics so I'll see you in the next video thanks again