All of the gurus will tell you that, yeah, the money is in the list. But the real money lies in building strong relationships with your subscribers before you try to get them to buy from you. And yes, that sounds good, but the the big guys are not very good at following their own advice. Here are the subject lines from the first dozen or so emails I received this morning…

Mike, 2 simple ways to make serious money online..
this is a big $*&!ing deal…
I got cool FRE.E stuff for you… (from Andrew Fox)
Mike, You NEED To Look At This!
Ex-Oil Rig Worker Drives A BENTLEY?
Mike, the Short Cut
Mike, here’s your first $100 per day
marketing BLACK OUT sale
exciting test results (new video on blog) (From Frank Kern)
“SUPER mike” vs. the Gargantuan Grape
Do you have this problem?
Mike, Niche Dominion is Live Right Now, Check…
Are you broke? Do this…

All but two of the emails were filled with nothing but junk text filled with affiliate links. Two of them, one from Andrew Fox and one from Frank Kern, actually had some great content. Guess whose emails get opened next time around?

My point is that if you expect your list subscribers to respect you, you must first earn that respect by providing them with something of genuine value. Do that and they will end up being much more receptive to your offers!