The outlaw’s guid to do it yourself team building

LIVE! Today at noon eastern with Ben and I...

One, one… ONE! [Replay from LIVE with Ben]

Don’t ever send another print product out!

I see “opportunities”…

The case for perfectionism…

Tired of beating yourself up?

The ultimate fail of perfectionism…

The curse is the blessing…

It’s go or no go time… you in?

Your way or the highway… a simple approach to tracking what matters

The dark side of obsessive focus 

Why I focus on simplicity these days…

The age of transparency is here, are you?

The power of seeing is not about believing

It ain’t about arm twisting & convincing

What if your business had zero operating expenses?

A perceived bug morphs into innovation déjà vu

Featuritis reply guy majoring in the mundane…

<pre style="overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; 
 line-height: 1.5em;
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 font-family: Arial; font-size:22px; width: 100%; max-width: 700px">This thread comes up every so often and so the message bears repeating.&nbsp;A gentlemen wrote into me the other day with a terse email that just said, “why no split testing in BerserkerMail not good.”&nbsp;&nbsp;Ben Settle would call him a “reply guy,” so I'm just gonna follow suit here...&nbsp;And here’s the thing… there is subject line split testing in BerserkerMail and a very robust implementation that blows our competition away I might add (more on that in a minute). But it’s not turned on by default, it’s an option.&nbsp;So as my partner Ben likes to label them, this “reply guy” just did a drive by complaint without even bothering to really investigate it or ask the Helpdesk, or look into the features, etc…&nbsp;Why don’t we make the split testing active by default?&nbsp;Simple. 99% of our users don’t use it or want to use it and shouldn’t use it. That’s why. We do have some larger clients, of course, where it makes sense to be doing split testing, so for those reasons we implemented it as a feature. But for most people it’s just another case of majoring in the minors… focusing on the trivial stuff that is just mental masturbation but doesn’t move your business forward.&nbsp;Look, statistically speaking, if you can’t generate 200 to 300 actions at a time, then you shouldn’t be using split testing. That means getting 200-300 clicks from your email. That’s a pretty big number. You may not think that 200 clicks seems like a lot, but go back and check your emails and see how many people are clicking.&nbsp;If you can consistently average more than 200-300 clicks per email, then split testing MAY make sense for you, but not necessarily. For many, it never makes sense because the truth is that they’re not really going to follow through with the discipline it takes to conduct a proper scientifically valid and statistically significant test anyway. But that’s a whole separate discussion and a book in and of itself.&nbsp;We did “do it right” for you, however, within BerserkerMail for you 1%’ers that want to split test. We do split testing as scientifically relevant as we can to make it as statistically viable as possible for you. We can create splits based on the age of your contact’s account or based upon their ESP, or both.&nbsp;Split testing by account age is very important because you want to ensure both segments have relatively the same make up of new versus old contacts. If you don’t take account age into account, you’ll have one segment that has many more new subscribers than the other and that generates bogus results that are statistically irrelevant.&nbsp;Likewise, if one of your split segments is all gmail email addresses and the other yahoo, then any data you get back from your split test will also be useless. That’s why we take both into account when automatically creating those splits for you in BerserkerMail and we even allow you to choose, either approach or a hybrid of both (which is what I recommend).&nbsp;&nbsp;But, as Ben would call him, reply guy just misses the boat as many do… worrying about some “feature” that they perceive us to not have (erroneously in this case) rather than focusing on what really matters.&nbsp;All these featuritis reply guys crack me up. They’ll spend more time complaining about some lame feature that we don’t have then writing emails to their list which could actually make them money.&nbsp;And therein lies the crux of this problem. Features don’t make you money. Focus does. Focus on what needs to be done in your business and you’ll be profitable. But chasing features is the stupidest approach you could take.&nbsp;The best email writers on the planet, my partner Ben sitting at the top of that list, simply write in plain text emails.&nbsp;IT AIN’T ABOUT THE FEATURES!&nbsp;So look, split testing does have some merit, that’s why we do support it and took the time to do it right. This is not about bashing split testing.&nbsp;Rather it’s about bashing those that look to a single feature as a decision point for evaluation of a software platform that can make them a ton of money and reduce hours from their workload each week.&nbsp;No, we leave the feature chasers with the ambulance chasers and just let them “do their thang” elsewhere! We prefer to focus on people that understand the value of email is to build relationships and inspire and effect change.&nbsp;If it’s been awhile since you’ve checked out BerserkerMail, maybe it’s time to reevaluate your priorities:&nbsp;<a href="https://berserkermail.com" style="color: #1255cc; font-size: inherit; text-decoration: none !important;" target="_blank" class="mention" colorlink="#1255cc" autoboldlinks="true" data-id="https://berserkermail.com" data-label="https://berserkermail.com" data-tooltip-id="YjamKLd5T3k4FVC8HUjmu">https://berserkermail.com</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Troy “no time for splits” Broussard</pre>

<pre style="overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; 
 line-height: 1.5em;
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 font-family: Arial; font-size:22px; width: 100%; max-width: 700px">Over the years we refine, improve and add features into our business and our programs and services. It’s a never ending process.&nbsp;We find a bug and fix it.&nbsp;We find a better way to do something.&nbsp;We create a new feature that we need and hadn’t thought of before.&nbsp;We remove something that has been nagging us for months.&nbsp;And the process continues, “…the wheels on the bus {of refinement} go round and round, round and round, round and round!”&nbsp;&nbsp;What’s funny though, is when you find yourself documenting a bug only to realize it’s actually a feature and a previous innovation you had! This is exactly what happened to me the other day.&nbsp;BerserkerMail has turned into quite a robust platform over the past few years. It has morphed and evolved, matured and refined and, yes, grown in features as well.&nbsp;Featuritis is a real thing… and something I am always careful to monitor. By that I mean, in our industry, all of the other email platforms simply try to play a sadistic game of “keeping up with the Jones”… each ripping off each other’s features, copying and cloning, duplicating and duping. It’s kind of sadistic really.&nbsp;And ya know what?&nbsp;YOU pay the price. Yes, you the user of these platforms pay the price because the platform you use daily just keeps getting more and more and more complex.&nbsp;What used to take 12 clicks, now takes 15. What used to take 3 min, now takes 4 1/2 min… and so on and so forth. Worst of all, it’s a death by a thousand paper cuts.&nbsp;It’s a slow degradation, an erosion of productivity that you don’t really notice. You just slowly find yourself spending more and more time doing stuff you don’t want to be doing and you don’t even know why.&nbsp;So yeah, I really fight the urge to burden the process of how BerserkerMail works with tons of features that very few people want or use. One of the ways that I do this is via a very customized interface. It’s the Burger King model. We give it to you YOUR way.&nbsp;For example, we have very robust split testing in BerserkerMail for email subject lines. It’s not like our competition which just does silly random segments. No we use a scientific and statistically valid approach to creating email segments.&nbsp;We allow you to create segments that have the approximate same account age (based upon when they opted in) and segments that have the approximate same distribution of top level ESPs like Google, Yahoo, etc…&nbsp;Segmenting by account age, is important because otherwise you end up with one segment of new subscribers and the other segment has people that been on your list forever. Comparing open or click rates between improperly age neutral segments is just stupid, unscientific and meaningless.&nbsp;Likewise, you want about the same number of Gmail addresses on each segment (and the same for the other main ESPs). If you don’t do this, you end up with one segment skewed towards Yahoo and another skewed towards Gmail and, again, you end up comparing apples to oranges and drawing all kinds of false conclusions from bogus data.&nbsp;So we have a very robust and scientific approach to split testing. But guess what? Most BerserkerMail users don’t even know that we support split testing. Ya know why?&nbsp;Because we turn it off in the interface to keep the interface clean and simple for the lions share of people who don’t want to use it. We don’t burden the masses for the desires of the few.&nbsp;Do you love split testing? Great. You can turn it on in your preferences and it will show up by default for you. I don’t use it and so I don’t want it to clutter up my process.&nbsp;This is the approach we take when we add features. We almost always make them “optional” in order to preserve the elegance and simplicity of the platform for everyone who “doesn’t care” about them.&nbsp;One of these features that is somewhat buried and hidden caught me off guard yesterday and I thought I had discovered a bug. Here’s what happened.&nbsp;I was purging some old contacts and when doing so, I had a list of about 17 contacts and selected them all, and hit delete. But 3 of them remained. Odd.&nbsp;So I repeated the process and once again tried to delete the 3 contacts. Again, nothing happened.&nbsp;At this point I started typing up a bug report. But in doing so, in the time of thinking through it all and documenting it, I realized I had just fallen victim to my own innovation.&nbsp;It wasn’t a bug, it was a feature. The system was preventing me from deleting those contacts because I had defined my “Customer” tag as a protective tag.&nbsp;Protective tags are something that I came up with after years of using CRMs that would self-destruct over time and break. Protective tags do just that, they protect your contacts from being accidentally removed from the system by you or someone else.&nbsp;If you have customers, you have customer historical data that you cannot purge. Even if they opt out, you have to have that history. So, I “protect” any contact that has a “Customer” tag by defining that tag as a protective tag. Now I can never delete a contact that is tagged as a Customer (and neither can anyone else). Slick, right?&nbsp;So what I thought was a bug, was actually my own innovation protecting me from myself.&nbsp;Now, in fairness, I am the master at finding bugs and it still technically was a bug because it should have alerted me that the three contacts couldn’t be deleted because they were protected. And we’ve since added that enhancement into the process.&nbsp;Things evolve and we can actually outdo ourselves with our own innovations at times. But it’s also important to always look back, refine and improve.&nbsp;Anyway, there’s not some big point to this email other than to reveal a little about the care and attention that we devote to BerserkerMail in taking care of you and your priorities — even if it means preventing you from doing what you think you want to do at times — “Why won’t these three contacts delete?”&nbsp;&nbsp;Haha…&nbsp;Ok, so if you haven’t checked out BerserkerMail for yourself, maybe it’s time. Here’s where ya go:&nbsp;<a href="https://BerserkerMail.com" style="color: #1255cc; font-size: inherit; text-decoration: none !important;" target="_blank" class="mention" colorlink="#1255cc" autoboldlinks="true" data-id="https://BerserkerMail.com" data-label="https://BerserkerMail.com" data-tooltip-id="HT_1HCcHIsT7Nv-NApo-C">https://BerserkerMail.com</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Troy “protecting me from me” Broussard</pre>

<pre style="overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; 
 line-height: 1.5em;
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 font-family: Arial; font-size:22px; width: 100%; max-width: 700px">This is an interesting question to ponder. What if you didn’t have to pay for all of that stuff that eats up your monthly profits… ya know… those pesky little operating costs.&nbsp;What if you didn’t have to pay for:<ul><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Your merchant bank fees</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Your landing page builder software</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Your hosting &amp; shopping cart</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Your traffic and ad spend</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Your computer &amp; Internet equipment</li></ul>Think about that for a bit, ‘cuz there are dozens of other little related expenses I left off that list. Ask yourself, what would it mean to…<ul><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Your business longevity?</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Your ability to grow and expand?</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Your peace of mind from week to week?</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Your ability to get a high quality health insurance plan for you and your family?</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Your ability to fund your personal retirement more profitably?</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Your ability to hire some more team members to do the stuff you don’t want to… or… pay existing team members more?</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Your ability to create better legal contracts and documents for your business?</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Your business valuation (if you’re looking to sell it)?&nbsp;</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Your ability to fire PITA (pain in the a**) clients?</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Your ability to produce higher quality content with a bigger budget?</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Your ability to hire better quality staff, team members and employees?</li></ul>&nbsp;And lastly, ask yourself this final question…&nbsp;What would it mean to your enjoyment of running your business?&nbsp;&nbsp;So why am I asking you all of this? What am I talking about? Is this just all a big BS pipe dream?&nbsp;Well, no, no it isn’t.&nbsp;I have already achieved this milestone with one of my companies, I have effectively reduced it’s operating costs to zero. And I’m working towards the same thing in my other companies, though they have more overhead and team members so it might take 2 or 3 years to reach my goal.&nbsp;So how am I doing it?&nbsp;It’s actually a pretty ingenious little approach if I do say so myself. Here’s what I’m doing…&nbsp;I’m still keeping business reserves, but I’m shifting a percentage of those reserves previously held in cash and using them to create a self-funding operating expense trading account in the business’ name.&nbsp;Then, every time we get a bank deposit transfer from our merchant account, I shift a small percentage of that (stealing from myself as it were) into the trading account so that it’s got a constant trickle of income coming into it and growing.&nbsp;Lastly, I’m leveraging my own Low Stress Options™ program to generate 1% or more a week growth in the business trading account.&nbsp;As an example, in one of my companies, I originally shifted $60k from cash reserves into a new trading account. And then began trading that account for additional business income. This was on 1/15/2024 — so only 11 trading weeks ago. That account today already has grown to $76,720. Yep, just since January. That's a 27.9% return in just 11 weeks, not even 1/4 of a year yet. &nbsp;If it stays at this growth rate, next January it would have made about $66k in income off the original $60k seed money. Will it make that much? Who knows... there's never a guarantee, of course, but even if it's only half that, it's a massive success.&nbsp;So if you just look at averages, it would be making about $1500 a month already, which, in this particular low expense company, already covers it’s expenses. It’s also allowed us to hire some top attorneys in the industry.&nbsp;We haven’t even started adding more money weekly into the account yet. Not for any other&nbsp; reason that the simple fact that it requires me to go to the bank and open yet another account. I really hate dealing with the bank, so I’ve been lazy about it. But that $16,720 is just trading income, no other contributions have been made.&nbsp;So… if we just don’t touch it for a bit, continue trading it but don’t make any withdrawals, in the next few months it will up over a $100k or so and generating enough where we could maybe take like 40% out each week and leave 60% in there to keep growing and still pay all of the company bills.&nbsp;Fast forward a couple of years and it would be making way more than we could spend on expenses and will likely just be passed on to the partners as additional income — never a BAD thing…&nbsp;But it’s already covering expenses now if I wanted to pull out the weekly income.&nbsp;Anyway, I thought I'd give you this unique perspective on how to use Options in your business to give you more stability, freedom and flexibility to do the things you love. &nbsp;If you'd like to ask questions about this approach, join me on the live Q&amp;A and discussion call tonight at 5pm EST. You can find out more about the Options program and register for the call here:<a href="https://LowStressOptions.com?__position__=0" style="color: #1255cc; font-size: inherit; text-decoration: none !important;" target="_blank" class="mention" colorlink="#1255cc" autoboldlinks="true" data-id="https://LowStressOptions.com?__position__=0" data-label="https://LowStressOptions.com" data-tooltip-id="3h7IwKy087xo7HL6mYUKm">https://LowStressOptions.com</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;Troy "no expenses" Broussard</pre>

<pre style="overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; 
 line-height: 1.5em;
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 font-family: Arial; font-size:22px; width: 100%; max-width: 700px">Ok so yesterday I gave you some goodies for your sales discussions and presentations. But I also left you hanging with a tease for today, right? Curiosity never killed the digital cat…&nbsp;We’ve been talking about blatant transparency and demonstration and their power in today’s jaded world. Adding more to everything you do will do nothing but improve your results in your business.&nbsp;We also talked about how it’s really not so much about getting people to “believe” you, but rather just bargaining with themselves and being willing to suspend their disbelief and give you a chance. We also talked about how they need to see things first today so that they could build up a little bit of confidence that they could do it themselves.&nbsp;But there really is one missing ingredient to that formula. One emotion that you can learn to tap into and generate that will make everything else easier.&nbsp;Remember, I’m a big fan of the book The One Thing and it’s primary quote which is:&nbsp;“What is the one thing, such that doing it, everything else becomes easier or completely unnecessary.”&nbsp;&nbsp;Well that “one thing” today is more important than ever. See today people are jaded, disillusioned, anxious about the economy and their future, uncertain about their income and that it will be enough, distrusting of politicians on both sides of the aisle, sick of the divisiveness of our country and society, disbelieving that Social Security will be there for them and completely worried and edgy about their retirement situation.&nbsp;&nbsp;All with just cause.&nbsp;If you want to get through to them to whip out their credit card and take yet another chance on someone new… something new… well… you better know how to give them some HOPE!&nbsp;You see HOPE is the missing ingredient that most marketers try to out-clever themselves out of. It’s so stupid watching all of these horsesh*t tricks and hacks that marketers try to employ in their business and their lame funnels — it’s just totally unnecessary. Instead…<ul><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Just have some damn character and ethics!</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Actually give a sh*t about your customers and let them know that you do</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Practice what you preach and let it just ooze off of you through the process of blatant transparency and candor</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Lead them and quit being a manipulative and contriving wimp!</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">And, for the love of all things good, give them some damn HOPE as to why what you say and preach should make any damn bit of a difference in THEIR life!</li></ul>&nbsp;People need hope. They need to believe they can do it. They need to know that the challenges they are facing are not insurmountable.&nbsp;They can get out of debt.&nbsp;They can reduce anxiety.&nbsp;They can take control of their finances.&nbsp;&nbsp;They can learn to be a better salesman.&nbsp;Or whatever it is that you help them with. They can do it, and you can help them, but are you conveying that? Are you giving them that belief in themselves that they can do it? Are you inspiring them to increase their own confidence?&nbsp;&nbsp;ARE YOU GIVING THEM HOPE?&nbsp;Today, and all week, John and I will be holding a live demonstrations and Q&amp;A call for our Low Stress Options™ trading program at 5pm EST. You can goto the sales page to learn all about the program and there’s a big colorful banner across the top of it where you can register for tonights live discussion too.&nbsp;&nbsp;Here’s the link:&nbsp;<a href="https://lowstressoptions.com" style="color: #1255cc; font-size: inherit; text-decoration: none !important;" target="_blank" class="mention" colorlink="#1255cc" autoboldlinks="true" data-id="https://lowstressoptions.com" data-label="https://lowstressoptions.com" data-tooltip-id="4hILOQieIcoPg0SC838eB">https://lowstressoptions.com</a>​&nbsp;&nbsp;The whole backstory behind our program is there too, and why, and how, we created it. Also, there is a big FAQ section at the bottom of the sales page. If you spend some time going through it, it should answer 80% of your questions — we took the time to make it really thorough. It even explains what Options are.&nbsp;You’ll also be able to see my weekly results right on the sales page updated through the end of March, current and on full display. Candid and direct, as is our style. No convincing necessary.&nbsp;Look, I know it’s a long sales page. I also know that most people will just skim. But look, this is about your financial future and you owe it to yourself to spend the time to do it right. Read the full sales page. Go through the full FAQ. You it owe it yourself to do at least that.&nbsp;Also, make sure to play around with the portfolio simulator that is on the page (there’s a link to it in the sales letter). This is a really powerful tool that will help you forecast potential portfolio growth using our framework to illustrate the power of our simple 1% a week approach.&nbsp;&nbsp;Troy “hope helps” Broussard</pre>

<pre style="overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; 
 line-height: 1.5em;
 letter-spacing: 0.025em;
 font-family: Arial; font-size:22px; width: 100%; max-width: 700px">Yesterday I wrote to you about how blatant transparency is such an easy way for you to stand out in today’s marketing world and how it just makes everything else you’re doing easier.&nbsp;When you just lead with integrity, candor and full disclosure, it breaks down people’s resistance. It’s the main reason that when my business partner John and I sell our Low Stress Options™ program, we focus on just having discussions, answering questions and demonstrating the program a bit.&nbsp;People are used to being hit over the head with the typical webinar slide presentations with 48 slides, 32 of which are “the sales stack”, building up to some ridiculous value that we all know is total and utter BS. How does that make you feel sitting through one of those presentations?&nbsp;For me it makes me feel like I need to take a shower — I loathe them. Which is why we don’t use that approach at all.&nbsp;A lot of that approach is based upon convincing people and twisting their emotions. We simply don’t want people in our training program that have to be convinced.&nbsp;Look, please understand this. If you have to “hard sell” and “convince” someone to join your program, you’re screwed. Why? Because… if that’s the buyer psychology you attract then you will also have to…<ul><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Convince them to show up for your calls with countless reminders and nagging</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Convince them to do the work your program teaches</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Convince them to CONTINUE to do the work</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Convince them to participate in the calls</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Convince them to submit their work and results</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Etc, etc…</li></ul>&nbsp;It’s a never ending world of adult babysitting! Who the hell needs that? Certainly not me…&nbsp;But the thing is, people misunderstand the power of demonstration and candor. They tend to go with that age old statement of “seeing is believing” but I just don’t subscribe to that — not any more.&nbsp;People are jaded today, and with reason. Hell, I am too, so I get it. So just “seeing” what you do, even in blatant candor and a no holds bared approach, just isn’t enough for them to “believe”. And I don’t even have that expectation or goal with I do a live demo or discussion.&nbsp;No, today it’s more about just getting them over two hurdles:<ol><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Seeing you do it allows them to have a little bit of confidence that they could do it. Not a lot, but a little bit and that’s usually enough for most people to take the plunge.</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Seeing also allows them to suspend disbelief.</li></ol>&nbsp;This last one is a bit of an odd statement, but you have to understand the world we’re selling into. As I said, everyone is jaded. We’re not going to likely convince them to believe in us in one fell swoop. But we can, perhaps make an impression enough on them that they choose to suspend their disbelief for awhile and give us a chance for them to believe in us and our product.&nbsp;If you really want to connect with people via your presentations, focus on these two goals and the third goal which is the most important of all. However, I’m gonna save that one until tomorrow’s email… it is the secret sauce though, so you definitely want to tune back in tomorrow to catch it. If you can learn to create this one emotion in your presentations and discussions, your sales will 3x. But more on that TOMORROW…&nbsp;Today I just want to mention that John and I will be holding one of these live demonstrations and Q&amp;A calls for our Low Stress Options™ trading program at 5pm EST. You can goto the sales page to learn all about the program and there’s a big colorful banner across the top of it where you can register for tonights live discussion too. Here’s the link:&nbsp;<a href="https://lowstressoptions.com" style="color: #1255cc; font-size: inherit; text-decoration: none !important;" target="_blank" class="mention" colorlink="#1255cc" autoboldlinks="true" data-id="https://lowstressoptions.com" data-label="https://lowstressoptions.com" data-tooltip-id="ey0vxM-ig2RHHaLio54oT">https://lowstressoptions.com</a>​&nbsp;&nbsp;The whole backstory behind our program is there as well as how and why we created it. Also, there is a big FAQ section at the bottom of the sales page. If you spend some time going through it, it should answer 80% of your questions — we took the time to make it really thorough. It even explains what Options are.&nbsp;You’ll also be able to see my weekly results right on the sales page updated through the end of March, current and on full display. Candid and direct, as is our style. No convincing necessary.&nbsp;Look, I know it’s a long sales page. I also know that most people will just skim. But look, this is about your financial future and you owe it to yourself to spend the time to do it right. Read the full sales page. Go through the full FAQ. You it owe it yourself to do at least that.&nbsp;Also, make sure to play around with the portfolio simulator that is on the page (there’s a link to it in the sales letter). This is a really powerful tool that will help you forecast potential portfolio growth using our framework to illustrate the power of our simple 1% a week approach.&nbsp;And stay tuned for tomorrow’s email about the real secret emotion to tap into on your sales presentations and discussions…&nbsp;&nbsp;Troy “Mr. Direct” Broussard</pre>

<pre style="overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; 
 line-height: 1.5em;
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 font-family: Arial; font-size:22px; width: 100%; max-width: 700px">As you know, I’m pretty focused on my trading these days. It’s honestly hard not to be. In just a couple of hours a week I’m hitting some pretty powerful income levels. Over the past year that has grown from just under $500 a week to where now $5000 in a week is an “off week.” Several weeks now have been at $8, $10k and even $12 in a single week — all with only about 2 hours a week of my time.&nbsp;So you can probably see why I’m a little bit more removed from other activities, they don’t pay me that kind of money per hour of time invested.&nbsp;Even my 1-on-1 coaching clients paying $5k a month only yield about $1250 an hour and I make double that on an off week trading. So again, you can see the logic of the shift.&nbsp;Anyway, because I’m in that financial and trading space, I get a ton of emails from all kinds of marketing schmucks playing all kinds of foolhardy games.&nbsp;Here are some of the most popular stupid acts by stupid marketers:<ul><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Doom and gloom hypesters. Look, I’m a pretty middle of the road kind of guy, mostly falling neither in the optimist or pessimist bucket. But in terms of our financial reality of the times, I’m a bit more pragmatically pessimistic. Meaning, it’s hard to ignore facts and big signs in the economy. But I hate those that just constantly hype up everything and play into that “FEAR” angle in every piece of marketing they product. And trust me, the financial space is littered with fear mongering hypsters.</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">The new AI whizmo-gizmo guys. Every financial self-appointed wizard in the world is clinging onto AI to save the day as if it were the last bagel on planet earth.</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">The ‘Trade a Trend’ guys. These are the worst and what got my blood boiling to write about today. The second email in three days that I have received where all out deceit was purposely involved.</li></ul>&nbsp;So let’s go a bit deeper into this last category.&nbsp;So the other day I get this email from a guy promoting some $2k financial offer with the mandatory “force you to watch a 35 min video” tactic, dangling the promise of free picks and all of that nonsense.&nbsp;What “trend” was he trying to piggyback on? Well, according to him, the new Apple iCar is going to revolutionize the planet. Only one problem, Apple has already announced they’ve killed their plans to produce it.&nbsp;Sigh… seriously? He knows the car has been cancelled, yet still has the cajones to keep hocking his lame, outdated and completely deceitful offer? Trying to tap into the brand power of Apple and deceive those that aren’t thorough enough to research before they buy. Shameful.&nbsp;Then today, just a few minutes ago, in comes another email from another huckster d’jour trying the exact same strategy — picking something out of the news and trying to massage it into the greatest thing since sliced bread and charge $2k for it, hocking his “system.”&nbsp;So what was this guy pitching?&nbsp;The Tesla 2, a supposed VW Beetle of electric cars and the next great release from Tesla to revolutionize cars selling for just $25k and becoming the Toyota Corolla of EVs.&nbsp;Sigh, again… head hung in shame.&nbsp;A quick search on the News in Google reveals that Tesla has abandoned their plans to build out the “cheap end” of the market because Chinese EVs are killing them already in that area and they just can’t compete on the dirty bowl spiral to the bottom of the “cheap” toilet pricing model. The news source? Reuters.&nbsp;So again, just hype over substance… and it’s so prevalent in the financial space that it just makes me sick.&nbsp;Recently another one of these financial “newsletter” companies, a massive one that you surely know the name of, a division of the “A….a” guys… was shut down by the FTC and kicked to the curb. They were in the Crypto space, but did all the same BS games.&nbsp;Their biggest shameful game though was the blatant lies they told in their marketing. They would sell you a $2k product promising all of their Crypto picks for the next year. Then immediately upsell you on a $10k “lifetime” product all promising you’d get the picks for life.&nbsp;But then they realized they had shot themselves in the foot, because they had no continuity and no way to sell if you got everything already. So what did they do?&nbsp;Pivot, I guess… that’s probably what they would call it. Me, I just call it going back on your word — a lie plain and simple.&nbsp;They came out with $2k to $5k offer after offer, all in the same Crypto space, but they would create some “excuse” as to why this offer was “different” than their other you had already paid thousands for just so you had to pay again. This was done despite the fact that the original offer promised you their Crypto picks for life…&nbsp;Again, shameful and outright deceit. This one was caught and shutdown but only because of their large stature. Sadly, most BS financial stuff like this goes on under the radar and never gets shutdown as they just go on to the next deceitful marketing tactic (i.e., scam).&nbsp;&nbsp;I’m telling you, if you want to really stand out today simply be willing to do what you say, transparently!&nbsp;People are highly jaded in this sophisticated marketing driven world we find ourselves in. They’ve been burned by every moron under the sun thinking they’re “clever” — they’ve seen it all and they know it’s rotten to the core. Quit trying copy these morons — please, for the love of all things that are good in marketing! Just STOP the insanity!&nbsp;All you really need to do is lead with…&nbsp;Blatant, full frontal, lift the kilt candor!&nbsp;That’s it. You want your people to trust you? You want them to buy from you?&nbsp;EARN IT. PROVE IT. DO IT. PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH.&nbsp;It really is as simple as that.&nbsp;Okay, stepping off my pulpit now… but just to put my money where my mouth is, this entire week at 5pm EST every day I will be hosting a life “show and tell discussion” of what I’m doing in my Low Stress Options™ trading program.&nbsp;It won’t be some lame slideshow presentation with a 14 page “stack” of nonsense to sit through either. No slides at all in fact. Just a simple, full frontal lift the kilt discussion on what I’m doing and how it’s working for me and the nearly 300 students that have joined us.&nbsp;In fact, I’m even going to “lift the kilt” on my personal account, login live and the call and show you whatever you want to see.&nbsp;Let’s put some trust and honor back into marketing, shall we?&nbsp;And, just so you know, if you have never traded Options before, don’t worry. About 1/3 of the students that have joined us didn’t even know what Options were either.&nbsp;In fact, lemme tell ya about Lindsay.&nbsp;She was extremely jaded when she joined, having lost money in day trading, Forex and Crypto too. So her faith was at next to zero. But her husband saw the sales page and told her, “You gotta buy this.”&nbsp;And so she did.&nbsp;She made money her very first week of trading and was off to the races, just following our framework, getting her reps in and DOING (not thinking about doing). She was an action taker.&nbsp;She is a very busy mom and runs her own business too, so this was something she truly could only devote 1-2 hours a week to. Fortunately, that’s all we need.&nbsp;Lindsay has done so well with the program that she is now trading multiple accounts, trading her retirement accounts and has gotten her monthly income up to more than she used to make in corporate.&nbsp;How excited is Lindsay? Well, enough that she bought into my Low Stress Trading company and is now a co-owner. From jaded and duped, to full-time level income and co-owner in about six months!&nbsp;So if you’re not sure about Options. If you’re a lady and don’t want to be in the “all boys club”. Well, you’re in the right spot. Show up to the call and let us prove it to you!&nbsp;To register for the call just go here:&nbsp;<a href="https://lowstressoptions.com" style="color: #1255cc; font-size: inherit; text-decoration: none !important;" target="_blank" class="mention" colorlink="#1255cc" autoboldlinks="true" data-id="https://lowstressoptions.com" data-label="https://lowstressoptions.com" data-tooltip-id="nIChAwGbmxAGce6NS9Loe">https://lowstressoptions.com</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;You can show up to any or all of the live daily calls this week and ask us anything you like.&nbsp;&nbsp;Troy “lifting the kilt” Broussard&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;DISCLAIMER: MY EARNINGS ARE NOT TYPICAL. I HAVE ADDED A LOT OF MONEY INTO MY ACCOUNT TO GROW IT FASTER AND HONESTLY THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "TYPICAL" EARNINGS. IN THE MARKETS — WHETHER STOCKS, BONDS, MUTUAL FUNDS &amp; ETFS, FOREX, FUTURES, CRYPTO OR OPTIONS — YOU CAN LOSE MONEY. SO NEVER TRADE WITH MONEY YOU NEED FOR LIVING EXPENSES AND DO NOT INVEST WHAT YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO LOSE. </pre>

<pre style="overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; 
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 font-family: Arial; font-size:22px; width: 100%; max-width: 700px">For those of you that have been on this list for a decade or more, well, you know… it wasn’t always this way… I didn’t always seek out simplicity.&nbsp;Live and learn, right? Hopefully with age comes a little wisdom… there certain comes a lot more AGE… haha&nbsp;But when I was first getting into marketing automation back in 2007 or so, I was not at all thinking of simplicity. No, I was sucked in by the sex appeal of automation.&nbsp;I was seeing the “automation ferries” dancing everywhere… and everything I did I looked to find a robust (read: complicated) and sophisticated (read: complicated) and elegant (read: complicated) solution.&nbsp;It wasn’t that I set out to overcomplicate things — I don’t think most entrepreneurs do… it’s just that you drink at the tech fountain of freedom a little too much and its just ripples through you, like a hiccup you can’t control.&nbsp;So, yeah… I get it… been there… done that.&nbsp;Interestingly enough, it’s what YOU want as well. Here’s what I mean.&nbsp;For years I sold my marketing automation training and I took great lengths to make sure that I didn’t go overboard with the “sophistication” of things and really just focused on the 80/20 of what people really wanted.&nbsp;Sales? Sales were mediocre. Not dismal, but nothing great.&nbsp;Then I sexed it up… and turned my campaign training into a good-better-best three versions of sophistication training.&nbsp;What I had already created was the “good” version and honestly, it’s exactly what people needed. Even in this version, 80% of people would never even do 80% of what was contained in the training. Meaning, it was far deeper than most people would do or needed already.&nbsp;The “best” version went far deeper down the rabbit hole of automation sophistication. This version included things that only about 5-10% of my clients had every needed, requested or used.&nbsp;And my clients… well… they were paying $10k to $30k or more to hire me. In other words, they were not the run of the mill marketer that was buying this training, they were high end clients that wouldn’t pay for training… they just wanted it done for them.&nbsp;I point this out because this “better” version was far more than what the vast majority of people buying this course needed or would ever use. Much of what was included in this very deep version of the training was simply beyond the scope of an average marketer.&nbsp;Their list size wouldn’t justify the techniques taught. Their marketing budget wouldn’t stretch far enough to actually implement the multiple campaigns required to implement the techniques taught, etc…&nbsp;It simply was NOT for them.&nbsp;Then there was the “best” version. Holy cow, in this version I showed stuff that was so sophisticated that only one of clients had ever used it. It was created for him and included some super powerful innovations in automation that simply weren’t even touchable if you didn’t have an 8-figure company (he did).&nbsp;This was pure unadulterated marketing automation “crack”, no question about it.&nbsp;The sales?&nbsp;They went through the roof… even though 99% of people had everything they needed in the core training and would NEVER use even what was taught in the “better” version, much less the “best” version… they bought it up like a $5000 Porsche at the used car lot.&nbsp;So when I say YOU want it… I do mean it.&nbsp;It’s tough to not cave into that appeal of selling the sex appeal and I get why most marketers do it. I just don’t have the stomach for it because I have seen what it does to the buyers.&nbsp;They buy it on the premise that it will make their lives better, and it doesn’t. All you do is add to their debt and feed their FOMO bunny, you’re not doing them any service.&nbsp;And so… I don’t.&nbsp;No, today, I focus on simplicity.&nbsp;All of the software platforms I’ve created, all have this one theme… simplicity.&nbsp;All of the courses and trainings I have created, the same theme.&nbsp;And yes, this methodology about metrics follows the same trend…&nbsp;<h2 style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px;; text-align: center">S I M P L I C I T Y</h2>&nbsp;When it comes to metrics, people go bat sh*t crazy with complexity and it’s simply NOT necessary.&nbsp;If a 1/2 billion dollar company like Dropbox can build itself from the trenches with nothing more than a single metric (how it was founded and initially grew) then I think it’s good enough for you!&nbsp;You don’t need to overcomplicate this. You don’t need to have a ton of fancy software and dashboards. And you CERTAINLY don’t need to waste a lot of time maintaining it all and studying the millions of different business methodologies and approaches to tracking your metrics.&nbsp;Nope. I call a big fat juicy “BS” to all of it. It is simply not necessary.&nbsp;Instead, do this…&nbsp;Snag my training below on 1MTM — the “one metric that matters” and escape all of the complexity.&nbsp;The fact is, you only need one metric to run your business all the way to the 8-figure or multi 8-figure level. Yes, a single metric.&nbsp;There’s no fancy sales page for this digital product because it’s just a super simple and clean offer. And it’s priced so affordable that anyone can pick it up, so there’s no need for a big “heavy lifting” sales page. After all, I did say I was keeping things simple, right?&nbsp;Here’s what you’ll get in this short, perfect for the weekend, training:&nbsp;You’ll receive the following when you purchase, immediately via my mobile app platform:&nbsp;<ul><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">The core 1-hour training</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">A 39-minute Q&amp;A recorded session as well</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">The transcript of it all in a PDF so you can print it out, take notes, and turn it into your own action plan</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">The PDF slide deck for your study and review</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Even a “bonus” training on how to organize and structure your day to be highly effective</li></ul>&nbsp;Here’s where you go to pick up your copy of the training. Remember, it’s so short you can easily consume it TODAY…&nbsp;<a href="https://troyb.me/yourmetric?__position__=0" style="color: #1255cc; font-size: inherit; text-decoration: none !important;" target="_blank" class="mention" colorlink="#1255cc" autoboldlinks="true" data-id="https://troyb.me/yourmetric?__position__=0" data-label="https://troyb.me/yourmetric" data-tooltip-id="XrH_0wIDaLjvYJcGSU53C">https://troyb.me/yourmetric</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;Best of all, you won’t need any fancy software subscription, tool or anything else to implement this 1MTM methodology. Let’s just keep it simple... and affordable...&nbsp;Remember though, this offer comes to a screeching halt TODAY... so don't delay...&nbsp;&nbsp;Troy “keeping it simple” Broussard</pre>

<pre style="overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; 
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 font-family: Arial; font-size:22px; width: 100%; max-width: 700px">I’d like to look at things from a full perspective and see all sides of an issue.&nbsp;When it comes to tracking, it can become an obsession for some and that’s certainly not where you want to go. Whether tracking business metrics, your health or anything else — you have to keep it in perspective.&nbsp;The most poignant example of this I can think of is with teenage girls — teenagers in general, but much more so with girls — and tracking their followers on different social platforms.&nbsp;They can become completely obsessed with their followers and getting more at all costs. They compete with their friends to “best” each other and begin doing all kinds of crazy things, acting out and going over the deep end down a dark path of obsession.&nbsp;When I say a dark path, I mean it exactly as I say it. Many studies have shown (even Facebook’s own internal studies as a recent whistle blower pointed out) that this social media obsession in teenage girls causes an increased amount of depression and leads to a higher percentage of suicides.&nbsp;All of this is driven by a compulsive need to increase and monitor their followers and their perceived influence or perceived self worth to the world as measured by silly social media statistics. It's very sad.&nbsp;So yes, obsession with anything can be bad and a very big negative influence in your life. On the flipside, however, you’ll also find that it does prove the theory:&nbsp;<h3 style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px;; text-align: center">“That which we track improves”&nbsp;</h3>&nbsp;Now don’t get me wrong, I think that it’s sick that social media has this type of power and hold over our teenage youth. But if we put that specific topic aside and simply consider the behavior and the reaction to meticulous focus on a single metric, you can’t help but see the result.&nbsp;So imagine taking a more healthy approach but still leveraging the same power of focus and applying it to the most important metric in your business.<ul><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">What would happen?</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">How many more leads would you be getting?</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">How many more sales would you be making?</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">How many more members in your membership site would you be generating each month?</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">How much could you improve your membership retention rate?</li></ul>Obsession is never the way to go, but even in its extremity, there are lessons to be learned and adapted thru it, and successfully applied to our advantage.&nbsp;That's why I created my 1MTM training where I will give you a super simple process for tracking what really matters. It is simultaneously both simplistic and effective, so effective, in fact, it’s used by the likes of Dropbox.&nbsp;Here’s what you get:<ul><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">Access to the short recorded training in my app immediately</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">A copy of the PDF slides</li><li style="margin: 15px 0px;">A copy of the PDF transcript if you prefer to read it and study it and mark up with your own notes</li></ul>&nbsp;<h2 style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px;; text-align: center">~~ BONUS ~~&nbsp;</h2>&nbsp;I've even added a small mini-training on my most powerful approach to daily task management that is built around ultra simplistic focus. You'll love it and it only takes 5 minutes a day. You can do it at night before you goto bed and plan out the next day, or do it like me and do it in the morning to start your day. Whatever works for you. It's a small sampling of what is included in my Time &amp; Productivity Mastery training that I've included here as a bonus.&nbsp;Here’s where you purchase your spot:&nbsp;<a href="https://troyb.me/yourmetric?__position__=0" style="color: #1255cc; font-size: inherit; text-decoration: none !important;" target="_blank" class="mention" colorlink="#1255cc" autoboldlinks="true" data-id="https://troyb.me/yourmetric?__position__=0" data-label="https://troyb.me/yourmetric" data-tooltip-id="X7tYf_xoZ4k84CicMcPfH">https://troyb.me/yourmetric</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;Don’t delay though because tomorrow is the deadline...&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Troy “don’t obsess” Broussard</pre>