LIST BUILDING LIVE: Finding Freebie Swaps (That You’ll Actually Commit To) with Allyn Miller

LIST BUILDING LIVE: Finding Freebie Swaps (That You’ll Actually Commit To) with Allyn Miller

Pat Flynn: Hey, it’s Pat Flynn, and you’re listening to List Building Live, our first ever virtual audio summit right here on the SPI Podcast, where each day we release about six mini episodes to help you grow your email list. Why? Because you don’t own social media, but you should own your audience. So each day for three days in a row, we are bringing you people directly from Liz’s and my communities to share what’s working to grow your email list today.

That’s right, no quote, unquote experts or eight-figure entrepreneurs talking about what worked for them years ago. Just regular creators like you who are working towards making a living online. Enough talking. Let’s get into it

Liz Wilcox: Okay, Allyn, I’m really excited about this one. Tell us, how have you been growing your email list in the last six to 12 months?

Allyn Miller: Oh, I’m really glad to be here. It’s funny, the way I’ve been growing my list in the last few months is actually something that I tried five years ago when I started my parent coaching business. And the reason it didn’t work in the beginning, and I actually… I think it was because I listened to you, and I was like, “Yeah, let’s do some list building. Let’s do list swaps. That sounds doable. I love talking to people. I wanna be all about relationships because that’s what my work is all about, helping parents be the relational safe space for their children.” And I got started, and then just nothing happened. And I thought, “Well, okay, that doesn’t work. Gotta find the next thing.” And then, of course, I found all the next things, and none of those really worked either. So now, five years later, I am back to leaning into list swaps as my primary list growth activity, and now it is working. And I will say that the biggest change is I, like, put on my big girl business pants and, like, decided to raise my hand and ask for help, and paid to get help with what I really needed, which was sticking with the really boring actions on a regular basis and not just giving up when it doesn’t give you that dopamine hit and that validation of, like, posting on social and seeing some sort of activity and checking and analyzing.

Like, that can keep you really busy, but I did that for five years, and it didn’t make a dent in growing my business. So I’m like, “Meh.” So now I’ve realized with list swaps, my, like, conviction in my purpose in creating an impact to reach more families that I can help really outweighs the imposter syndrome that I still feel.

“Hi, I only have 313 people on my list. Hee hee hee.” It’s so cute. And it, it still outweighs a term that I learned, like rejection sensitivity. I didn’t even know that was a thing, but I would struggle to even draft an email to send to somebody to say, “Hey, could we work together? We could help each other.” I couldn’t even draft that email because, um, I already had all the stories of why they would say no and why I was bothering them and why I would just…

You know, it’s better if I don’t do that. So I’ve gotten the help to stick with the action plan, make it systematic, and just not worry when there’s not a response. Like, all right, on to the next. It’s not because of me. Life happens. People are busy. And I’ve sent a lot of, like, cold pitches, and nobody has written back and said, “You’re crazy. Your stuff sucks. Get out of here.”

Liz Wilcox: Boo. No one’s throwing tomatoes, y’all. You heard it here first.

Allyn Miller: Yeah, turn- and the most interesting reply of no that I got was, “I’m not running that business anymore.” And I thought, “Oh, okay. Well, too bad. That sounded really great, but all right.” So yeah, list swaps are definitely feeling much better, and it actually is the perfect fit for my business because my business is built around relationships.

So rather than creating a bunch of content to appease the algorithm that’s gonna disappear in hours, I’m now building relationships, and it’s already showing up where, hey, I reach out, we decide to do a freebie swap. That’s awesome. I really like you. You do amazing things. You’re… and you’re just so cool. A few months later, I could circle back and say, “Hey, now I’m doing this workshop. Would you be open to telling your people about it again, or inviting just one or two people?” And so that feels a lot better than, like, being on the content hamster wheel and, like, just throwing stuff out to the void. Now, I have this growing kind of roster of people that know me, that I know, that we can continue supporting each other as it makes sense.

And just this week, I sent out 16 of those emails to say, “Hey, I’ve got this thing coming up at the end of August. Do you have anybody you might be able to tell about it?” And several people wrote back and even said, “Oh yeah, and I’m gonna do this holiday thing in the fall. Would you wanna tell your people about that?”

Yes. So it’s like an beautiful cumulative snowball of people helping people in very real and really fun and inspiring ways.

Liz Wilcox: Okay, I love this so much, but I wanna… I’ve got a few questions. I would just wanna back it up for you listening, if you’re not sure what a freebie swap is, right? That’s basically I share your freebie to my email list, you share mine to your email list, right?

And what Allyn is saying is that has led to so many more collaborations because we’re not just doing one freebie swap. Now we are in contact with each other. You can say, “Hey, I’m hosting this event. I’m doing this. I’m having a launch,” and staying in contact. I lo- I love the snowball analogy. It’s so true because now we’re, like, off to the races, and that’s exactly what happened with Pat and myself.

So how the heck am I on the Smart Passive Income podcast right now? Well Funny you should ask. I was interviewed. I made sure to make a good impression, right? Just like when Allyn is doing her freebie swap, she’s gonna write a great email. She’s gonna make that person look really good. I tried to do that for Pat.

I tried to have a good episode, and so people would email him and say, “Wow, I really liked that episode.” And we kept in contact. We ended up meeting in person and, you know, reaching out, just like Allyn said, of like, “Hey, man, do you need some help over here? I need some help with promoting, you know, my voice, my credibility.

You look like you need some help, you know, with some content over on the SPI side,” and it’s just worked out. So you never know, the small, small thing, like getting on a podcast or doing a freebie swap, can lead to some really amazing, amazing stuff. So Allyn, something popped out to me, though, that you said.

You said you reached out to 17 people this month. Is that, is that what I heard?

Allyn Miller: Oh, on Monday.

Liz Wilcox: On Monday. It’s Wednesday at the time of this recording, y’all. So where the heck are you finding these freebie swaps, and how are you sending these emails? Are they cold? Are you warming them on, on social media?

Like, what is the process? You find me online. You wanna reach out. Like, what are you doing?

Allyn Miller: Okay. So I, I do wanna say it’s a blend. So the people that I reached out to just this week, they’re people that I’ve already known in some way. My kid’s chiropractor, the college, you know, counselor person that I met at a chamber of commerce meeting a year ago.

So some of it’s local and in-person networking, and then several of them were other business owners that I met at a speaking event or by doing cold reach out and already doing a swap. So the first, like, swaps that I started doing back in March, it was, like, internet research supported by Claude. Hey, these are my people.

I’m looking for moms with multiple young children. Where are other kind of online business owners that do have a newsletter that are helping parents, families, and children in other ways? So I was connecting with doulas and, um, nutrition experts, functional health people, other chiropractors. And so Claude, like, sent me out in a bunch of different directions, which was really fun and interesting, and just sending the email to say, “Hey, I’ve got this, you know, guide for, you know, parents to build a healthy relationship with their children.

Would this be of interest?” And that’s it. Are you interested? And then if they’re interested… Oh, not and then they’re interested, and then follow up once, follow up again, follow up a third time. That is the missing piece, I think, with almost any strategy, the follow-up, and I’ve heard that before, and I’m like, “Oh, yeah.”

No, it’s true. A lot of people don’t reply until the second or third follow-up, and it’s usually, “Oh, thank you so much. I saw this, and I got distracted. I’m so glad you came… You brought it back.” So then, yeah, are you interested? And then I wonder what’s possible. So for some people that do have a dedicated email list, it’s really easy.

“Oh yeah, I have a resource on this. You have a resource on that. Let’s share each other’s stuff.” Other people, like one doula said, “Well, I have a Facebook group, and, um, we do monthly, like, guest speaker workshops. Do you wanna join one of those?” Heck, yeah. And I did one. Also, I showed up 20 minutes late because we got our time zones mixed up.

They were all there waiting for me, and I showed up anyway. And at the end, she’s like, “Hey, in a couple of months we’re gonna do it again, but with our prenatal group instead of our postpartum group. You wanna come back?” Yes, please. So good old internet research, and there is a free tool. It’s also part of the program that I joined, but it is a free tool out there for everybody called ListMatch, and it is a robust directory of people looking to partner.

So, and that’s where I’ve found a lot of people as well. I just had a call this morning with someone in the education tutoring neurodiversity space, and I’m like, “Awesome. We are gonna share each other’s resources next week,” and I’m so excited.

Liz Wilcox: Oh my gosh, there was so much juicy goodness here. I literally, y’all, I, you can’t see me, maybe you can, I’m taking notes.

Wow. First of all, the, the research, y’all, and I love that, Allyn, you said Chiropractors, practitioners, et cetera. It’s not just other content creators, right? You guys, I say this with love, you’ve got to think outside the box. When we start this online thing, it can be really easy to kind of put yourself in that silo of I’m only gonna work with other people that are doing this online thing.

But it’s so important to branch out and think of all the actual adjacent groups you can talk to. Your peer group is so much larger than you think. For example, y’all, I teach email marketing, and I teach email marketing to content creators mostly, but I got reached out to a few months ago, and I’m now speaking at, I’m actually the keynote speaker, which is wild, for this group that they’re, they’re a group of female contractors, you know, like construction, uh, building houses and such.

And they wanted me to come out, and I never would have thought like, “Oh yeah, I need to get some contractors in my membership,” right? But they, they said, “Oh, Liz, we just love that you, as a woman, show up who you are, and all of our contractors need to learn about email marketing.” The follow-up that Allyn said once, twice, three times.

They said, “You know, you are really good at teaching how to set up automations for that follow-up, and that’s what our people need.” So it’s just, ugh, I love this so much. I love this so much. Thank you for sharing how you find the people. Thank you for sharing that you have to follow up, and I can testify that, yes, please follow up with me.

I will forget. Number one, I suffered a concussion about four years ago. My short-term memory just ain’t what it used to be. Number two, I get about, I don’t know, anywhere from 3 to 500 emails a week, and there’s only me and my life manager, Patricia, that manage that inbox. So if you want us to see it, and it’s been about 48 to 72 hours, maybe, you know, pop it to the top.

Anyway, Allyn, I’m so excited. Thank you for sharing this. This is gonna be such a low effort and fun way to connect and grow people’s email lists. Speaking of, if we want to join your email list today, how can we do that?

Allyn Miller: The easiest way to remember, if you’re just listening on the go, is to go straight to my website, child-connection.com.

Everything is there, and I do have that guide that I mentioned. If you are a parent and you want to raise kids who will actually want to come home for the holidays, then I do have that guide for building a healthy relationship with your children, and I think there will be a special link that Liz is going to share with you.

But you can also find that on my website. My latest free workshop coming up at the end of the month. It’s all there. Straight to my newsletter, if that’s the only thing you want. All the options are there on my website.

Liz Wilcox: Awesome. Thanks so much.

Pat Flynn: Okay, another great list building strategy from one of our amazing community members.

I just love seeing people find ways to grow that I didn’t even think of. That’s something I’ve always loved about being in communities with other entrepreneurs. It’s just so inspiring and motivating at the same time. If you need that in your list, a group of business peers to help you take what you’re learning here at this event and turn it into real action, come join us inside the SPI Community.

Not only will you finally have people keep you accountable, you’ll have all the resources you need to make a living online, not just with email marketing, but content creation and monetization as well. And right now, we’re offering fifty percent off and some other fun bonuses just for List Building Live listeners, and that’s you.

Just go to SmartPassiveIncome.com/listlive and use code 26LIST that’s 26LIST, to grab this special rate. SmartPassiveIncome.com/listlive and use code 26LIST.