In 1981, when I was 9 years old, i moved from rural ohio to southwest florida...

To say it was a culture shock would be an understatement…

Despite being a nerdish kid with a speech impediment, bowl haircut and Coke-bottle glasses, my sense of humor had made me one of the most popular kids in my 4^th grade class in Ohio.

But in Florida, I was just a scrawny outsider who had trouble fitting in.

In order to keep in touch with my classmates in Ohio, I wrote a mail order catalog, where I dreamed up a dozen or so products such as stories and comics, board games and puzzles. I sent it up to my teacher to share with my old classmates and prepared myself for an avalanche of orders…

I’d soon learn my first lesson in the economy of scale when I had to actually fulfill those orders all by myself!

I could have thrown in the towel and given up…

But those kids had sent me money ­– I had an obligation to fulfill!

Looking back, it was a formative moment that would stay with me throughout my life.

I spent most of my 20’s in business-to-business sales, but my true passion was marketing…

I’d carry a copywriting portfolio along with me on sales calls – things I’d written “on spec,” just in case some foundering business had a need for great ad copy. But since I was working for a trucking company, and my typical customer fell somewhere between a ball-bearing company or a railroad parts supplier, that never happened.

And so my passion for marketing found other outlets…

My side hustle at the time was singing in bands.

Eventually I tired of the bar scene and convinced a few friends to form a Journey cover band. We became popular enough to travel around the Southeast performing the hits of that legendary band. In fact, after only a year or so, we’d become so popular we were even selling out massive regional venues like The House of Blues.

But I could have never dreamed what would happen next…

Shortly after Mother’s Day in 2007, as my wife and I were expecting the birth of our first son, I got a phone call from the keyboard player of Journey – Jonathan Cain, creator of such cultural touchstones as “Don’t Stop Believin’” and “Faithfully.”

His daughter had shown him a YouTube video of a recent performance, and he was convinced I should be the new lead singer of the band!

The next few weeks were a whirlwind, as my very pregnant wife and I boarded a flight to San Francisco, where I’d spend a week rehearsing and writing with the band.

We flew back home with a life-changing offer in hand – I was to be the new lead singer of the rock band Journey!

But what happened next was another important life-lesson. Political turmoil inside the band quickly soured me on the entire affair, and I decided to remove myself from the opportunity.

I was crushed – but I didn’t lick my wounds for too long…

When one of the songs I’d co-written with the band wound up on their next Platinum-selling album, I quit my sales job and hit the road with my revitalized cover band, touring the country and performing for hundreds of thousands of Journey fans over the next 5 years.

But in July of 2011, an onstage equipment malfunction resulted in a career-ending injury to my vocal cords. I’d lost my “golden ticket” – my voice – and I’d never get it back.

With two toddlers at home, no savings, and no chance of working again as a musician, I returned to my first love.

Inspired by memories of creating, writing, marketing, and selling my own products during my childhood, I dove headfirst into the world of direct response copywriting.

The year is 2012.

Day after day I’m taking whatever copywriting jobs I can scrounge up on the internet, getting myself an on-the-job education – building my parachute on the way down, if you will.

And as my successes piled up, I started taking on multiple retainer clients, which then turned into revenue share agreements with companies desperately needing help with their email marketing and list management.

In less than 3 years, I was offered the opportunity to run two online businesses in the health and wellness industry. As the CEO of those businesses, I was integral in scaling them to 8 figures in little less than 4 years. What’s more, I managed to sustain sales and keep the numbers in the black throughout the pandemic and economic madness that would soon follow.

Through it all, the through line of my success has been the power of email marketing.

Sounds crazy, right?

But over the past 8 years, my efforts have contributed to over $58 million in sales and millions in profits for myself and my business partners. And you know what? Nearly every one of those sales started out as a click on a link in an email.

As a homesick 9-year-old kid, I couldn’t have known how writing those catalogs and creating those products would be laying the foundation for a lifelong career in persuasion.

But it makes perfect sense… because there’s little difference between the underlying principles of my business today compared to what I was doing back in the 4^th grade…

Build an audience who loves you (or your brand), believes in what you do, and trusts you to deliver on your word.

Own that relationship – talk to your peeps…

Ask what they want, then deliver in ways that make them fans for life.

When you do this, there’s no limit to your success!

Email marketing is bar-none the most profitable and direct way to market your products and services directly to the people who need them the most.

Yet what I’ve seen in recent years tells me that there are still thousands of small businesses and entrepreneurs who aren’t even aware of the power of the inbox – or worse, they’ve been steered down some dark alleys that can actually do more harm than good!

So I’ve just launched a new business.

The Isotope Agency – a boutique email marketing agency that helps small  businesses build more authentic and profitable relationships with their audiences.

In my past role running an online health company, the term “holistic” came up a lot.

Holistic, as in treating every part of the person – the whole body – not just addressing the symptoms, but fixing the root cause of their illness.

The same approach should apply to your email marketing strategy.

You must have a holistic marketing strategy that addresses the entire life cycle of your customer.

One that’s not just about copywriting some emails…

There’s so much more to it than that.

It’s about building an infrastructure from the inbox out that protects your business from any economic downturn.

It’s about deliverability, it’s about retention, it’s about the lifetime value of your relationship with your customers.

And it’s the genesis of practically every dollar I’ve made in my career.

So here’s my proposal to you:

To truly transform your email marketing into a thriving, evergreen profit center for your business, you need to know what’s happening in your email marketing right now…

You need to assess your current strategy, evaluate your campaigns, take a close look at deliverability and the health of your list… and of course to identify the holes in your current strategy that need the most help!

Here’s where The Isotope Agency comes in.

What I’d like to do is invest up to 60 minutes of my time into your business to conduct an assessment of your current email marketing strategy. 

Over the course of an hour, we’ll dive into your current email marketing efforts and evaluate key areas of your campaigns to nail down the biggest opportunities for improvement.

We’ll cover deliverability, engagement, list health, your marketing calendar, and much more.

And I’m willing to bet 60 minutes of my time that we’ll spot some areas right away that will provide quick and profitable wins for your business!

By the end of the analysis, you’ll walk away with a clear understanding of where your email strategy is at, what’s currently holding you back, and most importantly, a clear roadmap for optimizing your strategy for success.

So what are you waiting for?

>>Click here to schedule your FREE Email Marketing Strategy Session

I can’t wait to put our team to work for you…

Let’s make some noise!