Ely Delaney doesn’t just teach follow-up marketing—he lives it. On this episode of Leaders & Legacies, Ely shares how authenticity and consistency transformed his business and leadership style. From his signature purple branding to a three-year evergreen email campaign, Ely leans into what makes him different—and encourages others to do the same.

He and host Craig Andrews explore the leadership lesson behind showing up as your full self, even when it’s unconventional. Ely discusses how revealing his personal quirks, like his Renaissance fair obsession and dog love, helped him build stronger business relationships. The real leadership win? Ely’s ability to systematize authentic communication that continues building trust—even when he’s offline.

Ely explains how his “Ultimate Follow-Up” system boosts engagement not with gimmicks, but with real conversation. His emails feel personal because they are. The result: higher open rates, stronger replies, and deeper relationships.

Want to learn more about Ely Delaney's work? Check out his website at https://ElyDelaney.com.

Connect with Ely Delaney on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/elydelaney/.

Key Points with Timestamps

• 01:00 – Meet Ely Delaney: Founder of Purple Knight Marketing and creator of the Follow-Up Rockstar System.

• 02:00 – The story behind the purple branding: Why Ely leaned into color and consistency to stand out.

• 04:00 – Color psychology in branding: What purple communicates and how it aligns with Ely’s dual personality.

• 07:00 – Being different vs. blending in: Why standing out is a leadership advantage.

• 09:00 – Authenticity over imitation: Ely critiques “sheep mentality” in business trends and emphasizes personal leadership.

• 12:00 – The importance of “showing up as yourself”: Leadership within the Success Champions Network.

• 14:00 – From stoic to human: How revealing personal interests improved Ely’s business performance.

• 17:00 – Attracting the right clients: How Ely's Renaissance fair hobby and dog love helped connect with like-minded clients.

• 19:00 – Email marketing as leadership communication: Ely’s metrics prioritize human response over clicks.

• 22:00 – Automating authenticity: Ely’s evergreen email campaign keeps delyvering value while staying personal.

• 26:00 – The "Ultimate Follow-Up" system explained: A mix of tips, resources, FAQs, and story-driven content.

• 29:00 – Pattern interrupts for higher engagement: Why variation in timing matters in email strategy.

• 32:00 – Respecting inboxes: How real value, not spam, creates loyal followers.

• 34:00 – Ely’s call to connect: How to find him and start building authentic communication systems.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment in my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on this show.

00;00;51;10 - 00;01;03;19
Craig Andrews
Today I went. Welcome Ely Delaney. He is the founder of Purple Knight Marketing. He is also the creator of Follow-up Rockstar System, helping entrepreneurs,

00;01;03;19 - 00;01;25;14
Craig Andrews
build a 24 seven automated system and go from surviving to thriving in any economy. ely is a best seller, Amazon best seller. Marketing tidbits. He's also written networking tidbits and his program Networking Like a rock star has ever.

00;01;25;16 - 00;01;29;22
Craig Andrews
1400 students globally.

00;01;29;22 - 00;01;32;05
Craig Andrews
I've gotten to know Ely through,

00;01;32;05 - 00;01;47;00
Craig Andrews
an organization called Success Champions networking. And every conversation I've had with them has been delyghtful. I expect this one will be as well. And you'll actually learn something. Ely. Welcome.

00;01;47;03 - 00;01;51;12ely
Ely Delaney
Thanks for having me, my friend. I appreciate you invite me to come hang out with you today.

00;01;51;14 - 00;01;53;02
Craig Andrews
I've been looking forward to it.

00;01;53;02 - 00;01;57;24
Craig Andrews
I gotta ask about the purple. You showed me your purple mouse. You got purple? My whole. Hold it up for the crew.

00;01;57;25 - 00;02;01;11
Ely Delaney
Okay. Purple mouse. Yeah. Gotta have the purple mouse.

00;02;01;11 - 00;02;14;14
Ely Delaney
So, yeah, I have been known as the purple guy for 30 years. I, I built that with my first company, which was a web and graphic design agency. When I first started and started, like, building my own branding and my own website.

00;02;14;14 - 00;02;17;03
Ely Delaney
I hummed and hot over it, and then I was like, you know what?

00;02;17;04 - 00;02;42;25
Ely Delaney
I think I want something that's going to be around purple and and I'm a wren. Fair nerd. I'm a medieval times kind of guy, so I had to have the word knight in there. So it was like, I'm your purple knight in shining armor. That was kind of the way I went over things, and I used to be known as the guy, which was the purple guy, because I would always walk in the room, always had a purple shirt on, and I got to the point where the branding was so solid with that, that somebody else walked in the room wearing a purple shirt.

00;02;42;27 - 00;02;45;20
Ely Delaney
People would ask them if they work for me.

00;02;45;22 - 00;02;47;05
Craig Andrews
Oh my goodness, that's awesome.

00;02;47;10 - 00;02;49;17
Ely Delaney
Yeah, it worked really well.

00;02;49;17 - 00;02;54;00
Ely Delaney
A lot of confused people had that conversation, but it was it was hilarious. And,

00;02;54;00 - 00;03;06;04
Ely Delaney
and I just I stuck with it. The funny thing is that when I launched this company originally, I decided to try to break away from the purple and change the colors to to blue and green because that's more business corporate kind of thing.

00;03;06;07 - 00;03;23;28
Ely Delaney
And it never landed, right. It didn't. It didn't feel right. People didn't really attract to it as well. And when I rebranded back to the Purple, it just felt right. And so I was like, yep, we're never changing it. So I am the purple guy.

00;03;24;00 - 00;03;34;18
Craig Andrews
Well, you know, there's like companies out there with blue and green and like you, I've read the psychology behind the trust that blue builds and yeah, I mean, my company colors are blue.

00;03;34;18 - 00;03;38;00
Craig Andrews
But nobody remembers me because of that.

00;03;38;03 - 00;03;55;17
Ely Delaney
Yeah. Well, you know, what's really funny is that I didn't know this when I started. So when I started design, when I started that company, my graphic design agency, I started just because I had graphic inclinations, you know, I fell in love with the the ability to do that. I had artistic ability.

00;03;55;17 - 00;04;03;07
Ely Delaney
But what ended up happening with it is I didn't actually like, study color theory or any of that kind of stuff for a couple of years later.

00;04;03;09 - 00;04;21;27
Ely Delaney
And then at one point, I was like, okay, if I'm going to get serious, I should probably have that silly piece of paper that says, I know what I'm doing. So I went to school for it, and I actually studied the the color theory side and found out that purple has two sides to it. It has, you know, purple especially like a deep royal purple.

00;04;21;27 - 00;04;27;02
Ely Delaney
It has royalty, it has elegance. And then on the other side, it has holistic peace,

00;04;27;02 - 00;04;44;27
Ely Delaney
calming feelyng to it. And it's kind of cool because to be perfectly honest, those are literally like the two sides of my personality because I like, I like shiny, cool things. And at the same time, I tend to be that more passive kind of hippie attitude towards things.

00;04;44;29 - 00;04;49;12
Ely Delaney
And so once I figured that out, I was like, I know that works for me.

00;04;49;12 - 00;04;53;13
Ely Delaney
I think I'll stick with it. And so, yeah, I've stuck with that ever since.

00;04;53;15 - 00;04;57;26
Craig Andrews
And what drew you to purple originally?

00;04;57;28 - 00;05;02;28
Ely Delaney
It just it just drew me to it. It just wasn't. There wasn't a thing that did it.

00;05;02;28 - 00;05;14;23
Ely Delaney
And it's so funny because, I mean, my mom, my mom has always been into purples. That's her favorite color my daughter has. Now she's a purple as well. And I don't know if you know this, but there's even, like, a whole culture of people that are like, oh yeah, you're a purple.

00;05;14;26 - 00;05;34;09
Ely Delaney
And people that are just they love purple and they're, they're something about it is that, that they that color that draws them in. And I've had other people that are that way that they're like, yeah, I'm a purple too. That's why I like you so much. Like, okay, I'll, I'll go with that. And so yeah, I don't know why.

00;05;34;10 - 00;05;45;21
Ely Delaney
I mean, it was just like I looked at. Yeah, I look at all the different colors. I'm sitting there playing with building my first website, and I was like, yeah, I think I like this one. Yeah, I think I'll go with that. And that's how it started. Really.

00;05;45;24 - 00;05;58;08
Craig Andrews
Wow, wow. That's interesting. Well, and the thing is, like I say, I have blue in my logo. I mean, but this is something I picked out,

00;05;58;08 - 00;06;04;21
Craig Andrews
15 years ago or something like that approaching 15 years ago. And,

00;06;04;21 - 00;06;09;17
Craig Andrews
part of it is I just like blue and I, I was following the psychology of,

00;06;09;17 - 00;06;11;05
Craig Andrews
you know, blue builds trust.

00;06;11;05 - 00;06;28;12
Craig Andrews
So I'm going to do that. But, you know, I, I just the further I go in life, the more I realize the if you're doing what the crowd is doing, you're blending in, you're not standing out. You're right. You're not different.

00;06;28;12 - 00;06;31;26
Craig Andrews
I tell you about how I got the scar across my upper lip.

00;06;31;28 - 00;06;33;07
Ely Delaney
Yeah. You did.

00;06;33;10 - 00;06;54;29
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And yeah, it's for those who are listening. It was, is they, when they put me on the ventilator they thought I'd die and they get sloppy. They just got sloppy and you know really good. Brought up my mouth. So I had that plastic surgery about a year after I got out of the hospital. And I remember I moved around because I, I've always been able to grow a nice beard.

00;06;55;05 - 00;07;06;27
Craig Andrews
Right. And I realized I'd never again I started realizing I'd never again be able to grow hair there, and it made me really sad. And then I finally thought, Craig, you're a marketer. If you can't do something with that, you suck.

00;07;06;29 - 00;07;12;26
Ely Delaney
Yeah, well, it's you know, we all have our quirks and our weirdness. You know, for me,

00;07;12;26 - 00;07;25;09
Ely Delaney
and we can go on. The purple thing is, like, you know, for, for the longest time, a guy who's into purple was just weird, like, that's not normal. I mean, today, even today, it's not. It's still not really normal. But back then, it was really weird.

00;07;25;09 - 00;07;29;13
Ely Delaney
I mean, trust me, trying to find a good purple shirt is still hard to do sometimes.

00;07;29;13 - 00;07;46;23
Ely Delaney
I found I found one place that has a great, like, a really nice royal purple, and I bought, like, ten of those shirts like, that day, you know, cause they're such a hard thing to find. But, you know, when you find something that's unique for you, that's that is that is brilliant.

00;07;46;24 - 00;08;10;08
Ely Delaney
That's a great thing to do because it does help you stand out. And like I always joke about now, purple has become such a much a much more mainstream color. Like there's stores, there's literally stores that are nothing but purple and I'm like, you know, I was I was into purple before. Purple is cool, you know. So but that's just, that's my one of my quirkiness pieces.

00;08;10;08 - 00;08;35;04
Ely Delaney
Trust me, I got plenty of them. But you know, that's just one of them. And I think that that's the cool thing is when we and you and I are both marketers, so we understand the psychology of it and all that kind of stuff. But when we really look at it, there's a certain point of we do certain things because we know they work, but then there's a point of are they working because they legitimately work?

00;08;35;04 - 00;08;55;04
Ely Delaney
Are we do it? Are they working because of sheep mentality? And there's a difference between the two. And when we can stop and look at it as, okay, am I doing this because it just works like there's certain language patterns or like the internet marketing thing, you know, everything has to end in the seven those kind of things, right?

00;08;55;06 - 00;09;20;14
Ely Delaney
But then you turn around, it's like, okay, there are certain other things am I using this color because it has to give this kind of vibe. Now, nowadays I do to some degree, like when I got on the purple, I want people to think royalty. I want them to think, you know, not expensive, but classy. And I want them to feel at ease, which is more of the holistic side of it.

00;09;20;14 - 00;09;43;19
Ely Delaney
And for me, those those are part of my personality. So I'm going along with that. But I'm not doing it because society says I have to follow these steps. I'm doing it because that's actually still literally part of my authenticity, the way that I look at things. And I think when we do that, it's another great example. I know you and I are both in the speaking world.

00;09;43;21 - 00;09;53;03
Ely Delaney
There's a lot of speakers once Gary Vaynerchuk got so popular and for, you know, if anybody, anybody doesn't know him, go look him up, look up Gary Vee, you'll find him.

00;09;53;03 - 00;09;57;13
Ely Delaney
But for everybody who does, when he started getting popular, all of a sudden, people,

00;09;57;13 - 00;10;16;13
Ely Delaney
they're just they're dropping F-bombs left and right. And it was never really acceptable before, but they're like there's a difference between is it just part of my personality which for him it is I've, I've had one on one conversations with him and the dude just can't stop.

00;10;16;16 - 00;10;32;25
Ely Delaney
Yeah. That's a part of his upbringing. That's part of his his background and growing up as a kid, all that kind of stuff. So that is you can tell that's genuinely part of his personality. And then you have all these other people that they do it because they're they're looking for the shock factor. They see him doing it and he gets success.

00;10;33;00 - 00;10;45;23
Ely Delaney
So they think that they need to do it too. And that's where we have the the difference between are we doing it because it really works or are we doing it because we're sheep, you know. And that's so we have to kind of think about these things. And,

00;10;45;23 - 00;10;50;21
Ely Delaney
I don't know, for me, purple's part of my personality, so it works.

00;10;50;21 - 00;10;52;08
Ely Delaney
Well.

00;10;52;11 - 00;11;02;08
Craig Andrews
Well, I tell you what, here's here's some shock value. I spent six years in the Marines. Not as one who cusses this stand out when you're in the Marine Corps and you don't cuss.

00;11;02;14 - 00;11;07;22
Ely Delaney
I can totally understand that. I know many, many guys that are for that are Marines. And yeah,

00;11;07;22 - 00;11;11;05
Ely Delaney
I could totally imagine that that would stand out.

00;11;11;07 - 00;11;15;09
Craig Andrews
And as telling you, we had our success. Champions networking. Yeah.

00;11;15;09 - 00;11;32;09
Craig Andrews
Meeting about an hour ago, and I it's my job to read the champions code, and I read a modified version. So within the Asean community, I stand out and is sitting right there in the meeting watching me misquote his champions code. Yeah. Well, and.

00;11;32;09 - 00;11;35;09
Ely Delaney
That's and I and I tell I know exactly what you're talking about with that.

00;11;35;09 - 00;11;40;12
Ely Delaney
You know, Jeffrey and our group does the same thing. He has a hard time with the last code.

00;11;40;12 - 00;11;57;24
Ely Delaney
But you know what? Here's the beauty of it is that that was written in Donny's voice and his personality. His his style. And he does give us the ability to modify it to our best purposes.

00;11;57;26 - 00;12;20;01
Ely Delaney
And I think that that's that's good that he does it because I know people who would be they would be upset if they had to follow it to the tee. And I think that we all have to give grace where it's there. You know, if there's something that doesn't. Right, you know, run with you the way you want to go, you just there's like, all right, well, I'm not going to be quite that way.

00;12;20;01 - 00;12;28;15
Ely Delaney
But you do. You let me do me. And as long as we get the same principles across, we're good. And that's I think that's the important part.

00;12;28;17 - 00;12;38;20
Craig Andrews
Well, and it was funny when we were going into that, I told my wife about that and she's like, well, what are you going to do? I said, well, I'm going to communicate the meaning.

00;12;39;15 - 00;12;48;03
Craig Andrews
I'm going, can you communicate the meaning my way? And if Donnie says something to me, when that part of the champions code is show up is yourself, right?

00;12;48;05 - 00;12;49;20
Ely Delaney
Yeah, absolutely.

00;12;49;22 - 00;12;52;01
Craig Andrews
And like, I am showing up as myself.

00;12;52;08 - 00;13;04;08
Ely Delaney
Yeah, well. And that's good. And you should, you should do you know what works for you and that's, you know, and that's and that's cool. And I don't, you know, I, I can guarantee Donnie wouldn't have a problem with that either.

00;13;04;11 - 00;13;10;26
Craig Andrews
He hasn't he's been in you know, it's been three meetings where I've misquoted his code and he's been. And so the thing.

00;13;10;29 - 00;13;17;26
Ely Delaney
Yeah, I mean, I, I make fun of him about the whole thing. I say, yeah, it's like the last, the last one. I just say, I don't be a Donnie.

00;13;17;26 - 00;13;18;27
Ely Delaney
You know.

00;13;19;00 - 00;13;23;12
Craig Andrews
I wish I had taken a drink of water before so that,

00;13;23;15 - 00;13;26;25
Ely Delaney
We almost got we almost got a days where you spit in your water out

00;13;26;25 - 00;13;27;22
Ely Delaney
of Mickey Olaf.

00;13;27;22 - 00;13;46;21
Ely Delaney
That makes my day. I feel much better now. But this is. I mean, this is. I think authenticity is such an important thing, and I. I learned this early on, again, back in my webdesign days, I was very, like, I had built my branding so solid that it worked so good.

00;13;46;21 - 00;14;07;20
Ely Delaney
It was awesome. But I also was very as the term, I had so many and I didn't know even with the term I meant when they said this to me because this was so long ago, but they basically said you were such a stoic person and I didn't know what that what that meant, and that it was described to me as boring and stunt.

00;14;07;23 - 00;14;08;27
Ely Delaney
What's the right word?

00;14;08;27 - 00;14;25;28
Ely Delaney
I can't think of the right word. Oh. Dang it. I can't think of the right word. Stuffy. That's all right. That's what I was thinking. Was the word stuffy, and and that's not really what it means. Which I learned much later in life, but I was like, oh, well, that's not okay.

00;14;25;28 - 00;14;50;02
Ely Delaney
I was kind of insulted when I, you know, got that understanding of it. But I realized that I had I had put myself in the spot where I was an amazing web designer. I was the best at what he did, and all of that was there. The people didn't know me that well. They didn't know my personality. They didn't know that I have a daughter.

00;14;50;02 - 00;14;54;27
Ely Delaney
They didn't know that I'm a dog guy. They didn't know that I'm a Renaissance fair nerd.

00;14;54;27 - 00;15;07;28
Ely Delaney
That I like blues music, you know, all of the other things that make us human. They didn't know, and it had served me to a certain level. But then I found out that people saw me as kind of boring because of it.

00;15;07;28 - 00;15;15;06
Ely Delaney
Because I come in, I'm very business oriented. I'm here to do my thing. That's it. And and this was my my

00;15;15;06 - 00;15;31;14
Ely Delaney
partner actually told me this, and I was like, okay, well that's not the it's not what I really want. I want people to actually feel like like I'm a real human, you know? And so I started changing it and I started loosening up a lot more and got let people get to know me.

00;15;31;14 - 00;15;33;29
Ely Delaney
And it's so funny when that happened,

00;15;33;29 - 00;15;50;17
Ely Delaney
two things happened. Number one, people were shocked. But the second thing was my business exploded. I had no idea that. That's because I thought that you had to be serious and you had to be professional, and that wasn't being professional and all of a side like my business actually took off like crazy once I did that, and I was like,

00;15;50;17 - 00;15;52;08
Ely Delaney
that's a new one.

00;15;52;10 - 00;16;12;11
Ely Delaney
And so ever, ever since then, I've always pushed the the idea of staying staying authentic and stay within reason. You know, there's not a point. There's some points where people think, let me let me put it this way. My this is my favorite phrase in this whole concept. If you're trying to be authentic, you're probably doing it wrong.

00;16;12;13 - 00;16;14;00
Craig Andrews
That's a good way of putting it.

00;16;14;02 - 00;16;31;14
Ely Delaney
You know, if you have to try, you're not doing it right. And so I've been a big one of, you know, let your personality go through again. Are you saying things because that's part of your true personality, or are you saying it because you think that's what people want to expect you to say,

00;16;31;14 - 00;16;38;22
Ely Delaney
or act or do you know, for me, you know, on the public side, most of the time I don't cast very often.

00;16;38;22 - 00;17;12;07
Ely Delaney
But, you know, when I get with close friends, they'll see me. There are times where I go off like a sailor, and it's so funny when somebody comes into that circle, they're just like, I have never heard you speak like that. That is so weird. And I'm like, well, that's just a different side to me. I was still there, but in public, I think that there's a certain amount of respect for other people that you try to, you know, do you know, try to retain yourself a little bit, but at the same time I've, you know, I'll walk in like, you know, I'm in a buttoned up black shirt and I'll walk into a mixer

00;17;12;07 - 00;17;33;15
Ely Delaney
like that where I used to be in a suit every day, you know, that was me every time. And so you just figure out, just be you. You know? It's just be you. We have fun with it. Let people know your your weirdness, your quirks, your hobbies, stuff like that. Because when you can do that, people will actually like you more.

00;17;33;16 - 00;17;43;17
Ely Delaney
They'll want to do business with you more, and you'll find that you'll attract more of the right people. Like when I started, when I got more public about being a dog guy. And next thing I know, most of my clients were dog people.

00;17;43;19 - 00;17;44;13
Craig Andrews
Wow.

00;17;44;15 - 00;18;08;12
Ely Delaney
I mean, it was it wasn't intentional. It's just like, those are the people that I attracted. You know, right now, one of the big things, I attract a lot of people to hang out at Renn Fairs, which I think is hilarious because it's not really a common thing, but I have met and hung out with more people who either hang out or perform at Renaissance festivals than I've ever met in my entire life.

00;18;08;15 - 00;18;25;15
Ely Delaney
But I think part of it is because I just I talk about it and it's like, it's not the forefront of everything that I talk about, but, well, if if the conversation is right, I'll bring it up and we have that conversation and next thing I know you do that. Oh, I do that too. Or I've always wanted to go, well, cool.

00;18;25;15 - 00;18;39;28
Ely Delaney
Here's some some resources or you want to come hang out with us next weekend. I got somebody actually this Saturday we're going to a fair and I had somebody that I had lunch with last week. She's always wanted to go to a fair. She's never had an opportunity. And I was like, why don't you come hang out and join us for the day?

00;18;40;00 - 00;18;47;01
Ely Delaney
Wow. This is just be cool, you know, be cool, have some fun with it.

00;18;47;03 - 00;19;01;20
Craig Andrews
What I want to definitely talk about email. Yeah. Email marketing because this is cool. I can talk about this other stuff forever. It's just a great conversation. But yeah, you do a lot of email marketing.

00;19;01;22 - 00;19;24;09
Ely Delaney
Yeah, that's email marketing is my primary business. Now. I'm an email marketing strategist. And so it is it really is about the how do you communicate more effectively. But the cool thing is everything we've just said, everything we just talked about leads up to why my emails work so well, because it's about having a real conversation with a real person.

00;19;24;11 - 00;19;32;29
Craig Andrews
How do you measure it? Because it's interesting. How do you measure when they work? Well? And I belyeve that, what is it you measure that tells you they're doing well?

00;19;33;05 - 00;19;55;00
Ely Delaney
Responses. So responses. Most people are going to measure clicks or opens and stuff like that. Yes. To some degree those those are important. I mean I get clients, they'll come to me. They're their average open rate for their emails is like 10 to 15%. That's been normal for years. When we start working with them, it's not uncommon for us to take them to 40 or 50% fairly quickly.

00;19;55;02 - 00;19;55;12
Ely Delaney
Yeah.

00;19;55;12 - 00;20;17;15
Ely Delaney
But that's only one metric. That's just that just says, okay, did they actually did they actually open the email? Well, obviously the subject line hit that worked. That's good. Yes, that's a piece of it. But ultimately, do those people respond? Do those people reply to you? Do they pick up the phone and say, hey, I got your email and I want to, I need think, I need to talk to you.

00;20;17;15 - 00;20;21;02
Ely Delaney
Or, you know, I get people like I do a lot of local mix,

00;20;21;02 - 00;20;31;17
Ely Delaney
mixers like business networking events and stuff like that. And I have people that come to me and they say, you know, I got this email from you last week. It was so good. And I was right thing at the right time. I really needed this.

00;20;31;17 - 00;20;53;20
Ely Delaney
Thank you so much. That's how I measure it. That's what I measure is those responses because I have one client that it was so funny. She launched what we call the ultimate follow up. And when she did this is like my big this is my big program and my philosophy behind email marketing. When we launched this program with her the first week, she comes back to our coaching calls.

00;20;53;20 - 00;21;17;26
Ely Delaney
So like we have group coaching calls, she's like, okay, for everybody here that's behind me that hasn't done this yet. I just have to stop and tell you, Holy crap, this is amazing. I have been doing this for five years and just launching this program. In the last week. I have gotten more responses from people than I ever have combined.

00;21;18;29 - 00;21;34;15
Ely Delaney
And these are people that have been on my list for three and four years and have done nothing, and all of a sudden they're replying back, they're thanking me and saying, I think I need your help. Can I get on your calendar? And she just chooses like going off. I mean, I didn't prep her for this or anything.

00;21;34;15 - 00;21;54;29
Ely Delaney
She came to the call and this is what she spewed out. And that's the cool feelyng. That's the stuff that I love. And that's where I get giddy about, is when you get those kind of responses, because it is you're getting real interaction, you're getting human to human interaction. It's not just, did they open and did they click a link?

00;21;55;01 - 00;22;14;17
Ely Delaney
Most of the emails that I send don't have a link in them, so you can't track it. Click on that a click as if you're sending somebody to a page to go buy something. Well, what if you're saying, hey, here's a cool book that I recommend, you should check it out. Let me know what you think. I mean, yeah, you could maybe you could kind of sort of click the track track there.

00;22;14;17 - 00;22;17;19
Ely Delaney
Click on that. There's my mouse goes backwards here.

00;22;17;19 - 00;22;18;28
Ely Delaney
My dyslexia kicks in.

00;22;18;28 - 00;22;32;21
Ely Delaney
You know, you can do that to some degree, but when you have something that there isn't really even a link or their purpose to have a link in the email, you can't track at a click, but you surely can track when somebody responds and thanks you for that.

00;22;32;23 - 00;22;35;06
Ely Delaney
Yeah, that's the difference.

00;22;35;09 - 00;22;41;19
Craig Andrews
Well, and even with the open rates, you know, like for Gmail, Gmail has like a ton of false opens.

00;22;41;19 - 00;23;04;20
Ely Delaney
Oh yeah. They well nowadays especially with the with the new stuff with AI is it's summarizing your emails before you ever get to it. Yeah. So yeah you're going to get that stuff different services have that. You also have I mean I found out that there's just a company out there that their internal system is automatically unsubscribing people from any kind of anything that has an unsubscribe link.

00;23;04;20 - 00;23;23;12
Ely Delaney
They're just unsubscribing them. And the person doesn't know the user doesn't know it's the company that's doing it. I just found that out last week with somebody that I had a conversation with, is they signed up to check out something that I had. I have what I call an educational email course that I was I was sharing with her and I'm like, hey, check it out, go through it.

00;23;23;12 - 00;23;44;23
Ely Delaney
It's just going to be five days. Check out the emails. Let me know what you think. Like, once you've done that, feel free to opt out if you want. That's totally cool. But she got like one email and opted out and I and I was like, okay, well, just curiosity, did you really hate that first email? So that she's like, well, no, I didn't I didn't click on anything and come to find out, it was something corporate did.

00;23;44;23 - 00;24;07;19
Ely Delaney
So we don't have control over all that stuff. That's another reason why those other numbers tend to be very flaky. But when somebody actually replies and says, thank you, this was awesome, or calls you or books on your calendar, now that's trackable and now you're getting real engagement, real action, and that's what you want.

00;24;07;22 - 00;24;12;02
Craig Andrews
What do you think's the key that's driving that engagement?

00;24;12;05 - 00;24;15;17
Ely Delaney
True conversation, talking to people like a real human being.

00;24;15;17 - 00;24;17;19
Ely Delaney
A big piece of that is,

00;24;17;19 - 00;24;26;21
Ely Delaney
I tell everybody, get rid of all the fancy news that are garbage. Like no header, no fancy graphics, no pretty formatting, any of that kind of stuff. It should look like you opened up Gmail and just wrote somebody

00;24;26;21 - 00;24;28;07
Ely Delaney
an email to a friend.

00;24;28;09 - 00;24;38;01
Ely Delaney
That's one of the. That's the first thing that I say to people is start there. The second thing is talk to them like a human being, like actually have a conversation with them.

00;24;38;01 - 00;24;45;29
Ely Delaney
Nobody wants your newsletter. You know, there's a there is a place for newsletters. I have to start correcting myself on that because there are there's like a whole thing of like, paid newsletters.

00;24;45;29 - 00;25;03;03
Ely Delaney
It's more specific type of things. There's a place for it. But most newsletters, people don't read them because they don't care. And they they definitely don't want to hear about all the amazing things you have for sale or all the great places that you're speaking if you're a speaker, because I get a lot of speakers, if that's what they do, is like, oh, I'm going to be here and I'm doing this and I'm doing this.

00;25;03;03 - 00;25;24;29
Ely Delaney
It's like me, me, me, me, me, me, me and nobody cares about that stuff. But if you say, hey, you know what? I read this thing and I thought it was super cool and I thought it might be helpful for you. Here's what I got out of it. Check it out. Let me know what you think. Now, all of a sudden, you're changing the entire conversation, and it's about you just providing something of value.

00;25;24;29 - 00;25;52;15
Ely Delaney
And the beauty of it is like, for for what I help clients with, 90% of it has nothing to do with their business specifically. They're not pitching, they're just adding value to people. And the beauty of it is they already those people are on your list. They already know what you do. They know what your product is. So every once in a while, you definitely still have to sprinkle in like, hey, by the way, we happen to have something cool that you might help you out, but for the most part you make it a place of.

00;25;52;18 - 00;25;58;10
Ely Delaney
Here's a great article. Here's a great tip. Here's a book. Here's a video that I saw. I mean, we've all seen,

00;25;58;10 - 00;26;12;14
Ely Delaney
Simon Sinek start with why the great book? Well, he did a Ted talk on it and that was the first introduction I had to it. Well, I've shared that. I've shared that video, that Ted talk video probably 3 or 4000 times.

00;26;12;17 - 00;26;33;01
Ely Delaney
And you know, it's like, hey, you know when I first start I started building my business around this whole concept of what's your why. And then I ended up getting my mom, of all people share this video with me and I watch it and I'm like, okay, he's doing all the stuff I've been talking about, but he's saying it way more elegant than me.

00;26;33;04 - 00;26;50;18
Ely Delaney
I need to share this out with people. Yeah, but when people see that stuff, they appreciate it because that that shows that you care about them as a person as opposed to your. Do you just trying to pitch them again. And that's the difference.

00;26;50;20 - 00;26;53;16
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, that's

00;26;53;16 - 00;26;57;15
Craig Andrews
now you mentioned the ultimate follow up sequence. What is. Yeah.

00;26;57;17 - 00;27;00;08
Ely Delaney
So we have it's six categories.

00;27;00;08 - 00;27;09;12
Ely Delaney
My mind is the ultimate follow up. Was created by myself in 2013. That 2013 when I ended up in the hospital,

00;27;09;12 - 00;27;17;06
Ely Delaney
had a blood clot going to my kidney. I don't recommend it. It is one of the most vivid is still, to this day, the most painful thing I've ever had.

00;27;17;08 - 00;27;22;06
Ely Delaney
The good part was I lost 50 pounds. That was pretty amazing. The bad part was I did it like five days, which is not recommended.

00;27;22;06 - 00;27;22;26
Ely Delaney
But.

00;27;22;28 - 00;27;24;08
Craig Andrews
By the way, you got me beat. I like

00;27;24;08 - 00;27;28;26
Craig Andrews
it. Took me three months to lose 40 pounds in the hospital. So 50 pounds. And,

00;27;28;26 - 00;27;29;23
Craig Andrews
what was it, five days?

00;27;29;23 - 00;27;34;21
Ely Delaney
Five days? Yeah, it was tech experience. Don't don't recommend it. I have no.

00;27;34;23 - 00;27;37;15
Craig Andrews
40 pounds I the way I lost it either.

00;27;37;15 - 00;27;42;29
Ely Delaney
Yeah, yeah. Not that I couldn't lose the pounds now, but that is not the way to do it. Definitely.

00;27;42;29 - 00;27;54;13
Ely Delaney
But I realized that I like everything in my entire business. It stopped during that time frame. Nothing could be done. And so I was like, okay, I need to put automation in place. And so I started building this thing out.

00;27;54;15 - 00;28;11;18
Ely Delaney
And the whole point behind it was, I want to have these the same kind of emails that I'm sending now, but I need to make them evergreen. I need to put them automated because I need them to work if I can't. And so I started building this out and over the years it got better. I fine tuned it.

00;28;11;20 - 00;28;21;05
Ely Delaney
My running joke is I've got a three year campaign that runs 100% evergreen, 100% innovative, meaning I could go outside and get hit by a bus today and still say stuff for three more years.

00;28;21;05 - 00;28;26;17
Ely Delaney
That's my running joke with it. But the idea, the principle behind it is we have different categories.

00;28;26;17 - 00;28;27;17
Ely Delaney
We'll talk about books.

00;28;27;17 - 00;28;32;27
Ely Delaney
We talk about videos, podcasts, tips, tricks, frequently asked questions should ask questions.

00;28;32;27 - 00;28;43;12
Ely Delaney
If you make a nice variety of stuff that you send out on a consistent basis, part of it is, I like to say, consistently and consistent. So it's not every seven days.

00;28;43;12 - 00;29;03;01
Ely Delaney
Because there's psychology involved and there's how does a human brain think if they get an email at 7:00 am every Monday morning, it doesn't matter how nice, how clean the email is and how much it looks like a regular just email you wrote, people are going to see it's a newsletter because subconsciously the brain is going to realize they got an email every Monday at 7:00 am and maybe

00;29;03;01 - 00;29;25;10
Ely Delaney
consciously they're not, but subconsciously they are. So we'll mix it up. It might be seven days, might be ten days, might be six days, might be eight days, might be in the morning, might be in the afternoon, might be even early evening. We mix it up a lot to basically put those pattern interrupts in there so it looks, acts and feels like you actually stopped and sent that email out.

00;29;25;13 - 00;29;33;26
Ely Delaney
Now we're not lying. We're never hiding anything. Of course, there's going to be the unsubscribe garbage at the bottom of the page because you need to put it on there.

00;29;33;26 - 00;29;40;02
Ely Delaney
But unless you're a politician, don't get me started on that garbage. But,

00;29;40;02 - 00;29;43;23
Ely Delaney
has there's a way we could unsubscribe permanently from those. That would be awesome.

00;29;43;23 - 00;29;50;24
Ely Delaney
But you you give them that feel, and people feel like you really care about them.

00;29;50;24 - 00;30;13;12
Ely Delaney
Like you took the time to send that. And the beauty of it is like, for me, I have a disadvantage because I teach this stuff and I talk about this stuff all the time, but I still I mean, even just last week, I was at a has a business event and somebody, somebody is like, you know, I get all these emails from you, but I just, I don't know which ones are, are ones that you stopped and sent to me or which ones are part of your system.

00;30;13;14 - 00;30;17;28
Ely Delaney
And I'm like, does it really matter?

00;30;18;01 - 00;30;18;23
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00;30;18;26 - 00;30;36;17
Ely Delaney
Because if you reply to any one of those, I'm going to answer it. And if you read any one of those and you got value out of what's in that email, isn't that what does matter at here, really know how to respond to that? It's pretty funny.

00;30;36;17 - 00;30;38;15
Ely Delaney
Because at the end of the day, that's what we're looking for.

00;30;38;15 - 00;30;57;01
Ely Delaney
We want that response. We want people to to feel like you actually care about them. You've got you've given them something of value to help make their day better. And that's the difference. That's how, again, we can put it into a system we should put into a system because we're humans. We're going to drop the ball. We're going to screw it up at some point.

00;30;57;03 - 00;31;16;14
Ely Delaney
Life happens whether it's on purpose or not. It happens. And so if we can put this in there, it takes the human error out of the equation by just having the system work. And you can still send one off emails, but you put this in place so you're never dropping the ball with people. You're always in front of them.

00;31;16;16 - 00;31;19;18
Ely Delaney
And you don't have to talk about your business.

00;31;19;18 - 00;31;34;10
Ely Delaney
You can talk about anything you want that will add value to their life, because as long as you're adding value to other people's lives, they're going to like it. You know, the funny thing is that these days, especially when texting started getting so crazy, everybody's like, yeah, email's dead.

00;31;34;15 - 00;31;41;23
Ely Delaney
No, email's not dead. It's just your emails. Like, dude, you know, write better emails, make it so people actually pay attention.

00;31;41;23 - 00;31;47;07
Ely Delaney
You know, somebody texts me, I'm going to opt out immediately, you know, because I'm not a texting guy.

00;31;47;07 - 00;31;51;21
Ely Delaney
You know, if I get a text from somebody, it's like, hey, this is, you know, I'm running five minutes late.

00;31;51;21 - 00;31;54;06
Ely Delaney
That's okay. That other stuff I don't care about.

00;31;54;09 - 00;32;02;25
Craig Andrews
I do do that with the politicians, you know? And I don't care if I voted for him or didn't vote for him. I'm like, no, I'm sorry I didn't give you permission.

00;32;02;27 - 00;32;03;28
Ely Delaney
Exactly.

00;32;04;00 - 00;32;10;00
Craig Andrews
To send me all these text messages. So when they come through, I just hit Marcus, you know, delete Marcus spam.

00;32;10;03 - 00;32;30;05
Ely Delaney
Yep. Absolutely. Well, and that's and that's the thing is, if you don't opt into it, you shouldn't be doing like you shouldn't be. I mean, it's technically illegal for us to just start adding everybody to a mass list. Mass, you know, the anti-gay and spam law came into play for that. Well, how long ago was that? 15 years ago.

00;32;30;05 - 00;32;33;10
Ely Delaney
Something like that. 15, 20 years ago. A long time ago. And it's still.

00;32;33;10 - 00;32;34;17
Craig Andrews
Exempt. The politicians.

00;32;34;17 - 00;32;37;21
Ely Delaney
Yeah. Yeah, it's still annoying.

00;32;37;21 - 00;33;00;25
Ely Delaney
But that's, you know, we shouldn't be just adding everybody to our list and and pitching them all the time. But that doesn't mean you can't stay in touch on a regular basis. And those people that did opt in, you should try to get people who did to opt in for something cool. Give them something of value, and then you build something like the URL to a follow up that stays with them for forever.

00;33;00;27 - 00;33;17;06
Ely Delaney
You know, that's the beauty of it, is if you're just giving it tips, tricks, resources, good value, that is just like a conversation piece. Okay, you know, I thought that you might find this helpful stuff like that. And it just it works like a charm. It really does not.

00;33;17;06 - 00;33;19;20
Craig Andrews
Oh well, do you have,

00;33;19;20 - 00;33;31;17
Craig Andrews
I mean, because this sounds fascinating to me, and I'm, I'm actually kind of curious. What how did people engage with you and how did people find you?

00;33;31;20 - 00;33;33;10
Ely Delaney
Yeah, well, finding me is easy.

00;33;33;10 - 00;33;35;21
Ely Delaney
ely Delaney, ely's. ely.

00;33;35;21 - 00;33;47;18
Ely Delaney
If you want to reach out, find all the places. Get Ahold of me. It's connect with ely.com, and from there, you can get some free stuff. You can check out my websites, my social media, all that kind of fun stuff.

00;33;47;18 - 00;33;50;29
Ely Delaney
And all they have to do is just reach out if this is interesting to you.

00;33;51;02 - 00;33;54;09
Ely Delaney
I do have what I call the educational email series is basically it's,

00;33;54;09 - 00;34;07;20
Ely Delaney
fix your follow up. It's the follow up fix. Dot net is where that's at. And the whole point behind it is go here, go through the five day program, see, see where you're making the mistakes. Because I'm going to show you what mistakes you're making and how to fix them.

00;34;07;23 - 00;34;23;22
Ely Delaney
And if anybody has questions wants to ask, I am super easy to get Ahold of. Connect with me on social reach out. Just say, hey, I heard you on Craig's show. I'd love to talk to you. You can get on my calendar. I'm. I'm totally easy to talk to because I have,

00;34;23;22 - 00;34;26;28
Ely Delaney
you know, anybody, anybody's watching the video version, you see a banner above my head.

00;34;26;28 - 00;34;28;00
Ely Delaney
This as me call people.

00;34;28;00 - 00;34;40;27
Ely Delaney
That's because I love to meet cool people. I love to have great conversations. And if I can help you on the business side, cool. If not, I'll point you in whatever direction I can, and I'll. I guarantee you, I'll walk away with a couple nuggets. Either way.

00;34;40;29 - 00;34;43;21
Craig Andrews
Well that's cool. Well, ely, this has been a delyght.

00;34;43;21 - 00;34;54;00
Craig Andrews
I always enjoy speaking with you. Well. Thank you. Yeah, it's been fun, and I definitely want to learn more about what you're doing and emailing, because it sounds I'll tell you, it sounds different than what I'm doing. Okay?

00;34;54;00 - 00;34;57;01
Craig Andrews
And I need to figure something out. Yeah, but,

00;34;57;03 - 00;34;59;12
Craig Andrews
Thank you. Thanks for coming on Layers and Legacies.

00;34;59;15 - 00;35;06;26
Ely Delaney
Well, thanks for inviting me, a friend. I really appreciate it. And this was this was a fun conversation. Okay.

00;35;06;26 - 00;35;33;20
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Ally's for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this

00;35;33;20 - 00;35;35;15
Craig Andrews
episode on social media.

00;35;35;17 - 00;35;58;27
Craig Andrews
Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend, or posted on the socials. If you know someone who would be a great guest. Tag them on social media and let them know about the show, including the hashtag leaders and legacies. I love seeing your posts and suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content to make sure you don't miss anything.

00;35;58;29 - 00;36;07;06
Craig Andrews
Please go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up. Ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show. It means a lot to me.

00;36;07;06 - 00;38;09;11
Craig Andrews
It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Ally's for me.com. Or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.