I once heard about a man named Neil Strauss.
If you don’t know who he is, he was a pretty famous pick up artist in the seduction community.
More of the well known ones, I assume.
And I say that because he has a certain fashion style, a certain look, and uses certain phrases and pick-up lines to attract women.
In fact, he was so successful in attracting a big audience that a lot of his students copied his ways, down to the last detail. Meaning, they copied his fashion, his look, and his way of talking to women.
And when women encountered his copycats enough times, Strauss’ pick-up artist method went from effective to cringeworthy.
Not to say that the pickup artist methods are effective in the first place, but that’s a whole different topic.
Point is, copying someone isn’t going to get you far at all.
And that’s the reason why, talking to people in MLM businesses, for example, makes me want to roll my eyes.
Everytime I meet someone from an MLM business, they always give me the same spiel.
How I retired at a young age, how my mentors helped me, passive income, build assets, etc.
It got to the point where whenever I meet someone new and as soon as they say, “I help people become financially free…”, I immediately shut down.
But it’s not necessarily their fault. It’s just the system of the business and that they’re taught to say those things.
I remember when I interned at a startup non-profit a couple of years ago, the Executive Director used to tell me stories of his days in MLM.
He did something smart. He published his own book and sold it to people as a lead generation strategy. But as soon as his supervisor found out, he was told to stop doing that immediately.
Thinking about it now, I don’t understand why his supervisor would tell him to stop. If it helped him get more leads, why not let it be? It’s not like he was drastically veering off from the MLM’s system.
This just goes to show that it is important to create a system, or follow someone else’s proven system. But when you add your own twist, it might just do wonders for you.
And that goes double for writing emails in your own voice.
This recent quote I heard sums it up perfectly.
To paraphrase it:
People join your email list for the content. But it’s your personality that keeps them around.
To learn more, check out How to Become an Email Titan.