How I Paid All My Annual Business Expenses with Three Free Emails

A novel approach to fund your small business with the help of your tribe

A week ago I launched a micro-course for writers. It’s my first course under the Book Mechanic arm of my publishing business. As a big proponent of organic marketing I performed the entire launch by sending three free emails to my lists of valued readers. There were no paid ads involved. I didn’t use social to boost my traction. In fact, I didn’t use social at all.

Over five days I’ve paid for my annual business expenses with the proceeds from three emails.

Each email took me about twenty minutes to write — I sent a launch sequence over a series of five days. Once the smoke cleared, all my annual business expenses were covered — web hosting, course hosting, email, phone, and business training. I’m a writer, so my business expenses are much lower than a brick-and-mortar company. My business is tiny. My course is tiny.

I wasn’t expecting a miracle. There was no flying to Fiji in my private Gulfstream G560.

This wasn’t that kind of launch. My little course is $29. She did her job. From this day forward, with a few reminders, I’ve added a semi-passive income stream to my portfolio. This is far from the last stream I’ll build.

I’m a bootstrapper and a grinder. I prefer not to owe money to anyone. I like to avoid debt, so my business isn’t beholden to outside influences (beyond the influence of my tribe). This approach works for me. It may not work for you.

The important takeaway is one of abundance, not scarcity.

Don’t save. Earn.

I used to paint houses in the summer. I worked for an ultra-exclusive house painter. Our painter’s pants had to be almost perfectly white, or he’d make us buy a new pair. We looked clean when we showed-up to a job. There was a reason. Our customers were some of the wealthiest people in northeast Illinois.

One summer we spent two months painting a single house. The place looked like a castle. The owner was a real down-to-earth guy. He’d come out and chat with us when he was home. During the work-week. Which was often, since he owned the business.

One day he stopped us while we were cleaning our paint brushes.

I complemented the owner on his house. The place was all stone — built by a former admiral in the navy, like a hundred-some years ago. The great room had a giant wheelhouse in it with a captain’s wheel, overlooking the two-story room. Anyway, the owner said [paraphrased] “Thank you. I want you to know I didn’t get this house by saving money for it. Instead, I built my business to pay for my home and lifestyle.”

This guy owned a huge hedge fund in Chicago, but he didn’t start that way. He got married in a Holiday Inn motel, starting from nothing.

His point stuck with me for life. I was probably nineteen then, and I’ll never forget it, twenty-plus years later. Although my scale is much smaller than his, the principle is identical. Instead of a scarcity mindset (oh, I have to wait until I’ve saved enough for a hosting account, or email platform), I think, “what can I release into the world to pay for all the tools I need to grow my publishing business even bigger?”

I worked from the goal, backwards. I started with the end.

Versus wanting something, then hoping I’d have the money someday. Someday doesn’t happen. And without a steady stream of assets building your income, it’s almost impossible to save enough to get to where you want to be.

Sure, I save money, but it’s not to pay for things. I save as an insurance policy. I pay for expenses with assets. Yes, I had to pay for my email hosting in order to earn the money to pay for email hosting, but you get the idea.

You can create assets too

No matter what type of creator you are, there’s an asset you can build to pay all your expenses. Whether it’s a book or course, a steady stream of merch, an app, or a subscription program — when we build automated assets, we’re free to grow our business in novel ways.

We can experiment more once all our business assets are covered.

It’s like having an hourly wage that covers all your living expenses. There’s a sense of pure relief once you no longer have to worry about food, clothing, or shelter.

I give my assets a purpose.

I didn’t just create a micro-course for fun. I had valuable information with which I could serve my tribe. If I didn’t offer this information, I would be doing them a disservice.

Instead of creating a whole bunch of products, throwing them on a digital shelf, and opening the door, I like to give each income stream a purpose. My little launch funded my business.

Now I’m free to take more risks with future, bigger projects. I gave myself room to make a lot of mistakes, which is the best position I can be in — if I want to be innovative.

I don’t save as much as some entrepreneurs. Instead, I build assets that cover the purchases I want to buy.

I spent a long time building the micro-course but only had to create it once. Now, the course will sell as long as it’s relevant. I spent a total of an hour writing three free emails that reached 100% of my audience. I didn’t have to pay for ads, worry about ROI per click, or boost a social media post and cross my fingers.

I built a tiny asset. You can do this too.

I learned the power of deadlines

The last email I sent included a four-hour deadline. Once the deadline was up, the small discount I offered my inner-circle, disappeared. We thrive on boundaries. Our brains need boundaries within which to operate.

People are natural procrastinators too.

Without boundaries, will allow a task to fill the space. With infinite space available, many customers won’t make a purchase decision — putting it off until later.

Once I added the deadline, I made a quarter of the entire week’s sales in those last 3–4 hours of the launch.

Deadlines build interest. They reward the decisive. And deadlines help the indecisive make decisions too. When we give purpose to our assets, and we build assets to fund our bigger mission, we operate our creative businesses with an abundance mindset, versus scarcity. Now, if we need to buy a piece of equipment, we go create an asset to fund it.

When we launch our new work we build deadlines around the launch.

We serve our tribe with integrity. When we build only the best products for the people we serve — creations made with only their best interests in mind — we’ll have assets to fund our best work for a long time.

We’re waiting for you.

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August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. A self-proclaimed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indie authors how to write books that sell and how to sell more of those books once they’re written. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.