Inbox Insider #8 - Sun Mar 23, 2025

Welcome to Issue #8 of "Inbox Insiders": Your Email List-Building Backstage Pass

In this issue:

1. By The Numbers: What worked and what didn't
2. Deep Dive: Spaghetti Launching
3. Up Next: What I'm working on this week

Welcome to Issue #8

"Inbox Insider" is my Sunday newsletter sharing the behind-the-scenes of what I'm doing to grow my email list to 100,000.

I share what works, what doesn't, and how I'm growing.

Thanks for reading.

Let's dive in:

By The Numbers:

My Email List

• Total Subscribers: 15,018 (last week: 14,856)
• Added last week (net): 180 (last week: 200)
• 5* Subscribers (engaged in the last 30 days): 9,039 (last week: 9,659)

My Ad Account - Lead Magnets:

• Ad Spend: $769 (last week: $768)
• Gross Leads from FB: 356 (last week: 374)
• Cost per lead: $2.16 (last week: $2.05)

Assessment:

• Crossed 15k subscribers (yay).
• Crossed 600 YouTube subs (yay).
• CPL staying relatively flat
• 5-star subscriber drop is concerning; I will keep an eye on this.

Instagram (@emailschool): Started Feb 1st

• Total Subscribers: 373 (last week: 361)
• New Subscribers last week: 20 (last week: 20)

​Email School (Email-Focused Membership):

1. Paying Members: 243 (+14 from last week)
2. Monthly Recurring Revenue: $4,527 (up $445/mo from last week)

Other Audiences:

• ​LinkedIn Newsletter: (94 subscribers; +6 this week)
• ​Threads: 19 followers (+1 this week)
• ​YouTube: 601 (+4 this week)

Deep Dive: Spaghetti Launching

LESSONS FROM A DALLAS OVERPASS

My wife is from a small town in the Texas Panhandle (Hereford).

I moved to a Dallas suburb when I was 5.

She was astounded at the highway exchanges when she first came to visit my family.

It's a mix of underpasses, overpasses, toll roads, onramps, and offramps.

Concrete spaghetti:

AS MUCH AS I'D LIKE TO SAY I ALWAYS "WIN"... IT'S NOT TRUE

I started to write this newsletter to give you the BTS of what I'm doing to grow my business.

The wins and the losses.

Mountaintops and valleys.

I've had a rough couple of weeks.

IT STARTED IN JANUARY

In January, I did my flagship launch of "The Laidback Launchpad."

My pre-launch offer is a paid bootcamp to help you set up your FB Ads.

180 people registered.

I thought I'd close 40-50 folks into my $1k signature cohort.

24 signed up.

1 immediately asked for a refund. This was a first.

The launch crested $30k in revenue (not bad for a 1-man business)...

But far from the $50-70K I was planning.

January was still a great month from a cash-collecting perspective.

IN FEBRUARY, I DID A BIG EMAIL SCHOOL PUSH

I got about 800 people into a free lead-magnet-making challenge.

56 joined Email School.

This launch made just over $12K, which is great for a $30/mo membership...

But, again, it was far from the amount I was planning.

February cash collected was ~$33K less than January.

Oops.

MARCH MADNESS

Back to the "spaghetti" launch mentioned in the Dallas highway analogy.

Everything converged at once, like a magnifying glass focused on burning a leaf on a sunny Summer day.

In the last ~7 days:

1. Hosted a "Welcome Series Workshop" and sold Email School on the backend.
2. Finished the Laidback Launchpad Cohort and opened/closed enrollment in The Laidback Membership.
3. Off-boarded a few folks from the Coaching Program at their 6-month mark.
4. Raised the price on Email School on Friday at 5 pm.
5. Closed The Laidback Membership on Friday at 10 pm.
6. Enrolled 1 new client in the Coaching Program.
7. Launched a new workshop on "How to Make a CustomGPT" (details here).

Which meant:

1. 15 new sign-ups for Email School
2. 92 buyers of the CustomGPT Workshop
3. 70 buyers of The Welcome Series Workshop
4. 5 new monthly members of The Laidback Membership ($89/mo)
5. 3 new annual members of The Laidback Membership ($875/yr)
6. 1 new coaching client

And a partridge in a pear tree.

"WHAT'S THE PROBLEM, BRO?"

From the outside, you may be wondering, "So what's the big deal?"

I hear you.

There's been a flurry of activity and a bunch of sales.

March is closer to getting back on track than February.

But, I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I had focused.

Maybe closing the cart on multiple things at once while launching 2 new workshops in 2 weeks wasn't the most strategic play.

Poor prospects in The Launchpad didn't know what to buy.

• Email School?
• The Welcome Series Workshop?
• The Membership?
• Wait, no... the CustomGPT thing?

Instead of a calm, linear marketing strategy...

It was "Everything, Everywhere, All At Once."

LESSONS AND NEXT MOVES

The reason I squeezed in the CustomGPT Workshop next week is that I'm going to be out of town for a few weeks.

Some vacation (leaving tomorrow).

Some international business (leaving Friday).

And a 2-day quarterly intensive for my Coaching Program.

And if I didn't do it now, I wouldn't have time for a month or 2.

I'm loading up for another cohort of The Launchpad in April. (Join the Waitlist here).

I'm grateful for the ups and downs.

Makes me feel alive.

And what fun would it be if everything worked all the time?

Just gotta stay focused.

Thanks for reading.

~ Cody

What's Next:

Here's what's on my radar this week:

1. I'm hosting a "How to Make a CustomGPT Workshop" on Thursday.
2. ​Email School is open for enrollment and better than ever.
3. I'm looking for 2 more coaching clients. If you're winning and want to win faster, reply with "COACHING" and I'll get you the details.

It's gonna be a great week.

Thanks for reading this issue of "Inbox Insiders."

See you next week,

~ Cody

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