Daily email reader Lilian asks:<\/p>\n
Hey Ben !<\/strong><\/p>\n
Quick question. How do you remember everything people told you ?<\/strong><\/p>\n
It seems like you have hundreds of quote from discussion that you use in your copy…<\/strong><\/p>\n
Do you write them all in notes\/paper ?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Do you make them out of memories ?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Thanks for your answer if you take the time !<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
True story about this:<\/p>\n
In August 2021 while on a walk listening to Edward White\u2019s \u201cThe 12 Lives of Alfred Hitchcock\u201d audio book\u2026 the idea for the cover to my Markauteur book just slipped into my mind. It was all there in my head \u2014 exactly what it would look like. I didn\u2019t even have a title for it or know what I\u2019d write inside the book \u2014 as the mere possibility of writing a book about the visual & design-side of marketing had never once occurred to me a single time before that.<\/p>\n
But there the idea was haunting my brain.<\/p>\n
And so, instead of trusting my brain to remember it, I did this:<\/p>\n
1. Immediately whipped out my phone<\/p>\n
2. Tapped out the idea (for the cover) in an email<\/p>\n
3. Sent it to myself<\/p>\n
When I got home a few hours later, I then got out a yellow legal pad and sketched out the cover idea. I\u2019m no Picasso. But I was able to get the gesture of it down. And I then immediately sent that to Email Players subscriber Kia Arian and hired her \u2014 again, without having the book title or even knowing what I\u2019d say in the book figured out \u2014 to start creating it.<\/p>\n
The result?<\/p>\n
The single most expensive book I sell (retails at $1,108.00), that moved nearly 100 copies on launch. Yes, I did sell it at a discount during the launch. But it was still quite expensive even at the discount, especially to non-Email Players subscribers who did not get as big of a discount Email Players subscribers did.<\/p>\n
And it was all from a stray idea I was too paranoid not to write down.<\/p>\n
To bring it back to the question, it\u2019s an example of what I mean when I say:<\/p>\n
\u201cIdeas are fragile\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n
Especially ideas for content.<\/p>\n
(emails, books, courses, videos, audios, whatever)<\/p>\n
Ideas are very fleeting.<\/p>\n
They are there in your head one minute, and \u2014 poof! \u2014 gone the next. I sometimes shudder at all the books and other content I\u2019ve NOT created over the last couple decades simply because of a lost idea here, another idea that slipped away there, yet more ideas gone into the abyss of wherever they came from that I could not remember.<\/p>\n
So I am quite paranoid about this these days.<\/p>\n
One stray idea can be worth tens of thousands of dollars in sales.<\/p>\n
And I mean that, literally, as my Markauteur book proves.<\/p>\n
So to answer her question:<\/p>\n
I capture everything.<\/p>\n
Any idea, quote, thought, story, joke, anecdote, pain, pleasure, fear, desire, analogy, lesson, feeling, email, article, tweet, stray comment, random revelation about something\u2026 whatever it is I even think could possibly be relevant to content creation now or in the future.<\/p>\n
I have thousands of these notes\/ideas cataloged.<\/p>\n
And I am always adding to it.<\/p>\n
So much so my frustration is never, \u201coh what am I going to write about???\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s \u201coh crap \u2014 I have TOO many ideas to write about\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
And then, when it comes time to create said content like my books or emails or courses or videos for the BerserkerMail YouTube channel or whatever it is\u2026 I simply pluck out what I need and get it all down.<\/p>\n
All of this is especially applicable using my Email Players methods.<\/p>\n
More on that here:<\/p>\n