A couple days ago I was talking to @Kevin Hood and he asked: "What are your criteria for offers that you're looking to help promote?" My criteria for affiliate offers are pretty damn simple: 1. A real problem that people on my list have 2. A sexy new solution 3. Proof Those 3 points pay off the (*) in my headline above. And now that I think about it, you can add to them a fourth point: 4. A price/proposition that a) makes it likely my audience will actually want to buy and b) makes it worth my while to promote (Put all those four points together and you happen to get the Bencivenga Persuasion Equation.) The trouble is, it's been almost impossible for me to find affiliate offers that really satisfy all 4 of these criteria, or at least to find as many as my audience has an appetite for. I've tried to fix this in various ways, the most effective of which have been: 1. Networking like a beagle at the dog park 2. Starting a community of list and offer owners with the explicit purpose of finding new affiliate offers to promote (ie. starting my own dog park) 3. Working with offer owners on repackaging and repositioning their offers in a way that I know my audience will respond better to (err... I've run out of dog analogies) But once again, too little, too rarely. So I'm curious: Have you promoted an affiliate offer that worked out great for you? If so, where/how did you find the offer?

I've been recommending list swaps as a way to grow your email list. The #1 objection I hear is: "My list is too small to make it worth anybody's while." How small is too small? 4 people? 100 people? 200 people? I was recently on a call with a list owner who has a list of 1,500 entrepreneurs. He said he's worried his list is too small to do list swaps! That dude asked for my advice about approaching people for list swaps. What I told him is: 1. A fantastic lead magnet and solid emails will go a long way. Right now, I'm doing a list swap with somebody who has a list of 150 people... because he's willing to custom create a lead magnet I know my audience will get value from. Plus his emails are solid. 2. You can always offer to make things right. If somebody's list is bigger than yours, you can offer to promote them multiple times, now and then again in 6 months or in a year etc. (In the end, that's the deal I ended up striking with the guy in point 1.) 3. Money can plug the gap. You can always offer to both promote the other person AND to pay them something to make the exchange more equitable. So? Are you convinced now? Are you gonna rush out and start doing list swaps? I hope so. But if not, I gotta tell you my dark-psychology conclusion here: I don't think list size is really what's holding people back from doing list swaps. Rather, I think it's the same old culprit that holds back pretty much everybody, pretty much all the time: Fear of rejection. Putting yourself out there... and having somebody tell you no or ignore you... and feeling so small and worthless because of it. If that's your situation, then I'd suggest, in the words of business coach Rich Schefren, that you put your business goals ahead of your personal development goals. It would be great to not care about being rejected, or to just do stuff in spite of this fear. But while you work on that, it can make sense to look for alternate routes to achieve your business goals. I'd like to point you to an opportunity to do so right now.

No, I'm not offering to do it for you. But I am curious. Are you planning to sell something unique to your list in March? And to have a deadline? And to send people a bunch of emails before the deadline expires?

The last few days, I've sent emails to my list offering to help people run a 36-hour promo. A few specific requirements for that promo: 1. An offer you've promoted often, and your list knows about and wants, but hasn't pulled the trigger on 2. A price of $300+ It was surprising to me how many people who raised their hands only had offers in the $27-$57 range. If you want to make more money with your email list, an easy thing you can do today is to raise your prices, because: 1. If the top thing you sell is $27 instead of, say, $297, it takes 11 more buyers to make the same money 2. Selling a $297 product is NOT 11x more difficult than a $27 product, and in many cases it can actually be easier 3. Your overall positioning is way better if you offer something at $297+ rather than if you simply sell $27 offers On that last point: Imagine paying somebody $2k/month for coaching if they only sell a $27 offer. It's possible you might decide to do so, but to me at least, the price disparity immediately puts questions in my mind. On the other hand, imagine paying somebody $2k/month for coaching if they repeatedly sell a $500 course. $2k in this case immediately sounds affordable, and if anything, I'd be willing to pay more and I'd still feel like it's a good deal. So how do you raise your prices and reap the benefits? As with everything else, you start with what you've already got. In other words, simply raise the prices of an offer you already have. You don't have to go to $27 to $297. Any kind of a meaningful increase is likely to make you sales during the promo, and be good for business long term. So lemme ask you: Do you want to run a price increase promo this month? And not feel alone, not feel like you're going to screw things up, not wonder what to do? Vote away below. If we get enough people a-voting, we can make a challenge out of it and run it together.