Sell with Email

Sell with Email If your emails aren’t working like they used to, I can help you bring them back to life.

My custom GPTs and courses show you how to rebuild trust with your audience, improve deliverability, and write messages that connect and sell — all in plain English. Sell With Email Academy teaches professional marketers how to crush their sales goals by using email.

The estate planner's emails were thoughtful, thorough, and thoroughly ignored.He had built his practice around families ...
06/24/2026

The estate planner's emails were thoughtful, thorough, and thoroughly ignored.

He had built his practice around families navigating the complexity of estate planning for the first time.
It was sensitive work. He was good at it. His clients trusted him deeply.

His lead magnet was a guide. "How to Protect Your Family's Future: An Introduction to Estate Planning."

AI helped him produce something that was warm, clear, and genuinely demystifying for people who found the topic overwhelming.

Downloads were steady. The list grew quietly but consistently.

His nurture sequence reflected his character.
Patient.
Educational.
Never pushy.

Each email peeled back another layer of complexity and positioned him as exactly the kind of advisor a family could trust with something this important.

The sequence ran for eight emails over six weeks.

Two people responded. Neither became a client.

What he couldn't see from inside the sequence was who was actually reading it.

Estate planning is one of those topics that almost everyone knows they should address and almost nobody feels urgent about today. His lead magnet spoke to the responsible instinct that most adults carry.

That instinct is real. But it isn't the same as motivation.

The person who downloads a general introduction to estate planning is almost never standing at the edge of a decision. They're filing the thought away for later.

Later doesn't book consultations.

A lead magnet built around a specific, felt trigger -- a recent loss, a new child, a business transition -- attracts someone for whom later has already become now.

That's the person his sequence was written for. His lead magnet just never found her.

Marc - The Market Research Assistant is a free custom GPT built to help you identify that specific trigger before you build your next lead magnet.

Click the link in the first comment below to get immediate access.

The real estate agent's lead magnet got downloads. But his phone never rang.He worked exclusively with first-time homebu...
06/24/2026

The real estate agent's lead magnet got downloads. But his phone never rang.

He worked exclusively with first-time homebuyers in a mid-size market where inventory was tight and the process was genuinely intimidating for newcomers.

His lead magnet was a checklist. "10 Things Every First-Time Buyer Needs to Know Before Making an Offer." AI produced a clean, well-organized version in under an hour. He published it, ran a modest ad behind it, and watched the downloads come in.

His list grew to several hundred subscribers over two months.

The nurture sequence did its job. Emails went out on schedule. Opens were good for emails #1 and #2. After that, the dropoff was severe.

The content was helpful and positioned him well as a knowledgeable, trustworthy guide.

But nobody called.

What the download numbers obscured was the enormous range of readiness inside that list.

A checklist called "Things Every First-Time Buyer Needs to Know" speaks to everyone who has ever thought about buying a home. That includes people who are three years away from being financially ready, people who are researching on behalf of their adult children, and people who are curious but not yet committed to this market or this agent.

His emails were written for someone standing at the edge of a decision.

Most of his list was still sitting comfortably in the research phase with no particular urgency pushing them forward.

The checklist was useful. It just wasn't selective.

Marc - The Market Research Assistant is a free custom GPT built to help you build lead magnets that attract people who are ready to move.

Click the link to get immediate access. It's in the first comment below.

The copywriter's lead magnet attracted writers. But she needed marketers.She was a professional copywriter who had built...
06/24/2026

The copywriter's lead magnet attracted writers. But she needed marketers.

She was a professional copywriter who had built a niche in email sequences for product launches.

Her lead magnet was a guide. "5 Email Mistakes That Kill Your Launch Revenue." AI helped her draft it in an evening. It was sharp, specific, and genuinely useful.

It attracted a lot of attention.

Fellow copywriters loved it. They shared it. They left complimentary replies. Her list grew with people who appreciated good copy and recognized the craft behind the guide.

The problem became obvious when her nurture sequence ran its course.

Her service started at $3,500 for a complete launch sequence. The people on her list were copywriters themselves. They weren't prospects. They were peers. Some were quietly competitors.

They had opted in because the content spoke their language. Not because they needed to hire someone who spoke it.

Her lead magnet had been built around her expertise. It should have been built around her client's problem.

A marketing director staring down a product launch with an underperforming email channel has a completely different frustration than a copywriter critiquing someone else's work. Different language. Different fears. Different urgency.

The guide attracted the wrong room entirely.

Expertise-based lead magnets are a common trap. They demonstrate what you know instead of addressing what your prospect feels.

Marc - The Market Research Assistant is a free custom GPT built to close that gap before you build your next lead magnet.

Click the link in the first comment below to get immediate access.

Email isn't dying. It's being (mis)used by people who skip the first step.I've had this conversation more times than I c...
06/23/2026

Email isn't dying. It's being (mis)used by people who skip the first step.

I've had this conversation more times than I can count.

A smart marketer. A well-built sequence. A growing list. And results that don't come close to justifying the effort.

Their conclusion, more often than not: email doesn't work the way it used to.

I understand why it feels that way. But I disagree with the diagnosis.

Email works exactly the way it always has. It moves people who are already leaning toward a decision the rest of the way forward. What it cannot do is create motivation in someone who arrived without any.

That's not an email problem. That's a lead quality problem.

And lead quality begins with one thing: a lead magnet that speaks so precisely to a specific frustration, desire, or fear that only the right person feels compelled to raise their hand.

That precision doesn't come from AI alone. It doesn't come from instinct alone.

It comes from research.

Specific, structured, psychologically grounded research that identifies exactly who your ideal prospect is and what they're feeling before they ever find you.

That's the step most people skip. And it's the step that determines everything that comes after.

Marc - The Market Research Assistant is a free custom GPT I built to walk you through that research before you create your next lead magnet. It takes about ten minutes.

The link to get immediate access is in the first comment.

The lead magnet worked perfectly. It just attracted the wrong people.This one's harder to see because the numbers look f...
06/23/2026

The lead magnet worked perfectly. It just attracted the wrong people.

This one's harder to see because the numbers look fine on the surface.

The download rate was solid.
The list grew at a healthy pace.
The open rates on the first email were encouraging.

And then the sequence slowly died.

When a lead magnet performs well by acquisition metrics but the nurture sequence goes cold, most marketers conclude that their copy needs work. Or their offer isn't compelling enough. Or the market is saturated.

Rarely do they go back and question the lead magnet itself.

But here's what those acquisition metrics don't tell you:

They don't tell you whether the person who downloaded your lead magnet has any intention of ever solving the problem your product addresses.

Some people collect lead magnets the way others collect bookmarks. Genuine interest at the moment of download. No real urgency underneath it.

Those people will open your first email. Maybe your second.

After that, they're gone.

The lead magnet's job isn't just to attract attention. It's to attract the attention of someone who is already motivated to move. Someone for whom the problem is live, felt, and worth solving now.

That specificity doesn't come from a good title or a well-designed PDF. It comes from research that identifies exactly who that person is and what they're carrying.

Marc - The Market Research Assistant is a free custom GPT built to do that research with you.

Click the link to get immediate access in the first comment below.

AI didn't create a bad lead magnet. The prompt you gave it did.This isn't a criticism. It's a pattern I've seen enough t...
06/23/2026

AI didn't create a bad lead magnet. The prompt you gave it did.

This isn't a criticism. It's a pattern I've seen enough times to recognize.

Someone opens their AI tool of choice. They type something like "create a lead magnet for my [industry] business." The AI delivers something polished, professional, and plausible.

They publish it. Leads come in. The sequence launches.

And three months later they're wondering why nobody's buying.

Here's the thing about AI that most marketers are still learning:

It's an exceptional executor. It's a poor diagnostician.

Give it a vague prompt and it will produce a confident, well-formatted response to a question you didn't quite ask.

The problem isn't the output. The problem is that the input skipped the most important step in lead magnet strategy: the research.

Before you write a single word of a lead magnet, you need to know the specific frustration you're targeting. The precise desire you're speaking to. The particular fear that's keeping your ideal prospect from moving forward.

Not in general terms. In the language your prospect uses when they're talking to themselves at midnight.

That's the research AI can't do for you by default. But it's the research that determines whether your list fills with prospects or with browsers.

Marc - The Market Research Assistant is a free custom GPT built to do exactly that research before you build your next lead magnet.

The link to get immediate access is in the first comment.

AI wrote a polished email. Your financial planning prospect is still "thinking about it."They've been thinking about it ...
06/22/2026

AI wrote a polished email. Your financial planning prospect is still "thinking about it."

They've been thinking about it for six weeks.

And every follow-up email you've sent since has been some variation of the same thing.
A reminder of your credentials.
A restatement of the offer.
A gentle nudge toward booking a call.

All of it well-written.
None of it moving them.

Here's what's actually happening on their end:

They're not procrastinating because your email wasn't compelling enough.
They're procrastinating because nobody has yet said the thing that makes the decision feel safe.

That's not a copywriting problem.
That's an understanding problem.

And AI can solve it if you give it the right prompt.

A prospect who's been "thinking about it" for six weeks isn't on the fence about you.
They're on the fence about themselves.
About whether their situation is serious enough.
Whether they've waited too long.
Whether admitting they need help means admitting they've made mistakes.

That's the email that moves them.
Not another credential.
Not another nudge.

Instead of:
"Write a follow-up email to a prospect who expressed interest in my financial planning services six weeks ago but still hasn't booked a consultation."

Use this instead:
"Write an email to a prospect who's been considering financial planning for six weeks but hasn't committed.
Don't restate my credentials or repeat the offer.
Speak directly to the internal hesitation most people feel at this stage about whether their situation is serious enough to warrant professional help.
Normalize that hesitation and make taking the next step feel like clarity rather than commitment."

They don't need another reason to book.
They need permission to stop waiting.

That's the email AI can write for you the moment you stop describing your offer and start describing your prospect.

You used AI to write the email. Your real estate prospect didn't care.That commission didn't walk out the door because o...
06/22/2026

You used AI to write the email. Your real estate prospect didn't care.

That commission didn't walk out the door because of your market knowledge.
Or your track record.
Or the quality of your service.

It walked out because during the silence between your emails and their decision,
another agent made them feel more understood.

Not more impressive.
More understood.

That's the variable most real estate professionals aren't accounting for when they hand their follow-up sequence to AI.

AI writes for the transaction.
Your prospect is living the emotion.

The anxiety of the first purchase.
The complexity of selling while buying.
The weight of a decision that affects their family for the next thirty years.

An email that reads like it was written for a motivated buyer lands completely differently than one that acknowledges what that specific person is quietly carrying right now.

You know which one AI produces by default.

Instead of:
"Write a follow-up email to a first-time home buyer lead who attended my open house last weekend
but hasn't reached out to start the buying process."

Use this instead:
"Write a follow-up email to a first-time home buyer who attended my open house last weekend
and seemed genuinely interested but hesitant.
Don't mention listings or next steps in the buying process.
Acknowledge that the first purchase feels overwhelming and that most people at this stage have more questions than they feel comfortable asking.
Make it easy for them to ask one."

One email moves the transaction forward.
The other moves the relationship forward.

In real estate, the relationship always closes first.

Why Your Emails Are Getting Ignored Even When the Copy Looks GoodGetting ghosted isn’t always a copy problem.Sometimes i...
06/22/2026

Why Your Emails Are Getting Ignored Even When the Copy Looks Good

Getting ghosted isn’t always a copy problem.

Sometimes it’s a trust problem.

That’s hard to see when the email looks fine.

The subject line is clear.
The offer makes sense.
The call to action is easy to understand.
The tone sounds professional.

But no one replies.

So you rewrite it.

You make it shorter.
You make it warmer.
You ask AI to clean it up.

Now the email reads better.

And still, people go dark.

That’s when many business owners start to wonder:

“Maybe email just doesn’t work like it used to.”

But the problem may not be email.

The problem may be that the email is asking for more trust than the reader is ready to give.

For example, “book a consultation” may be a clear CTA.

But it’s also a high-trust CTA.

It asks for time.
It asks for attention.
It asks the reader to believe the call will be useful.
It asks them to believe they won’t be pressured.

That may be too much if the relationship is still early.

Before you rewrite the whole email, ask:

Is my CTA asking for a step this reader is ready to take?

That question may explain why a good-looking email still gets ignored.

I wrote more about this in my latest blog.
"Why Your Emails Are Getting Ignored Even When the Copy Looks Good"

The link is in the first comment below.

AI wrote a great email about your legal services. Your prospect hired someone else.That outcome has a specific cause.And...
06/22/2026

AI wrote a great email about your legal services. Your prospect hired someone else.

That outcome has a specific cause.

And it's not that the other attorney had a better website, a longer track record, or a more compelling offer.

It's that somewhere in the process their communication made that prospect feel understood.

Yours didn't.

Not because you're less capable.
Because the email AI wrote for you was written for a prospect in general.

Not for the person who spent twenty minutes on your website reading your case studies, filled out your contact form, and then went quiet for two weeks.

That specific person in that specific moment needed a specific email.

One that acknowledged where they are.
Not one that assumed where they should be.

People don't hire attorneys, coaches, or financial planners because they received a well-written email.

They hire them because at some point they felt like someone actually got it.

That feeling is engineered.
And it starts in the prompt.

Instead of:
"Write a follow-up email to a prospect who filled out my contact form but hasn't scheduled a consultation."

Use this instead:
"Write a follow-up email to someone who spent significant time on my website, filled out my contact form two weeks ago, but hasn't responded to my first outreach.
They're likely still weighing their options or aren't sure if their situation warrants legal help yet.
Don't push for the consultation.
Help them feel confident that reaching out was the right instinct and that the next step is lower risk than they think."

One email chases.
The other reassures.

Reassured prospects book.
Chased prospects hire someone else.

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