The foundation needed to start building your list is almost complete.

But before you get your first email subscriber, there is one thing left to do.

In another life I was a salesman for a conveyor company.

Twice a year we would go to a big trade show where all of the bigwigs and industry execs would congregate. We spent tens of thousands of dollars on our booth to show off our latest technology in an effort to impress them and turn them into customers.

But even though we spent all of that money on a fancy booth, not a single sale was ever made on the showroom floor. Don't get me wrong: those trade shows produced many sales for us. However, the sale didn't happen there.

A normal interaction looked something like this...

Bryan: Hey, I'm Bryan Harris with EMIT.

Industry Bigwig: Hey, Bryan with EMIT. What do you do?

Bryan: [explains what he does]

Industry Bigwig: That's interesting. We actually are about to start a big project you might be interested in.

Bryan: That's great. I'd love to talk about working with you on that project. I'll contact your project manager on Monday for details. What is your contact information?

Industry Bigwig: [hands his me his contact information]

6 months later we closed the sale for $400,000!

Sounds pretty standard, right?

Well, here is the problem.

You have to have a way of collecting your prospects' contact information or you'll never build your list or make a sale.

Offline, that is easy. Simply ask for their business card.

Online, you have to get them to fill out a form with their contact information.

Before you can collect your first email address, you have to set up a form.

So, your last assignment before getting your first subscriber is to set up an email collection form.

Watch the video below for a tutorial on how to do just that...