A welcome series like a TV show
Lesson 13 of 31 in the course “Million Dollar Sales Course”. Free, with animations and a quiz.
Why a series won’t let you go
In the last lesson your email learned to arrive. Now let’s make people wait for the next one. In “DotCom Secrets”, Russell Brunson admits that for years he struggled to bond with new subscribers fast, until his friend Andre Chaperon showed him the “soap opera” technique. Every episode of a show ends at the best part, so you play the next one. Emails work the same way: at the end of an email you open a question, “tomorrow I’ll tell you why I deleted my first video”, and in the next email you answer it and open a new one. Brunson warns: if the first email is boring, nobody opens the second. If it has a hook, people wait for more.
Science: myth and truth about the unfinished
Marketers love to say: unfinished things stick in memory, that’s the Zeigarnik effect. In 1927 psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik did report that. But testing told a different story. In 2025, researchers Ghibellini and Meier pooled almost a century of such experiments. No memory advantage turned up: interrupted tasks made up 49% of what people recalled, which is chance level. What held up was the effect found by her colleague Maria Ovsiankina: people resume an interrupted task on their own about 67% of the time. The takeaway for email: an open question really does pull people back, but only if they care how it ends. Nobody finishes a boring story, cliffhanger or not.
Brunson’s 5 introduction emails
Brunson sends new subscribers 5 emails, one a day. One, set the stage: who you are, how often you’ll write, and what’s coming tomorrow. Two, drama: start at the hottest moment of your story, then tell how you got there, and lead up to the wall you hit. Don’t give the answer yet. Three, epiphany: what you realized that changed everything, which is the bridge to your product. Four, hidden benefits: things the reader hasn’t thought about. Five, urgency: an honest reason to act now and a clear call to action. It’s not the subscriber’s last email ever, just the end of the introduction. The series runs on its own: every new subscriber gets it from day one.
Case: how Brunson introduces himself
In the book, Brunson shows his full series. He numbers the subjects like chapters: “Ch. 1 of 5”, “Ch. 2 of 5: The day my education failed me”. The number tells you more is coming, and in the P.S. he names tomorrow’s subject ahead of time so people look for it. The second email doesn’t start in childhood, it starts at his graduation on May 14, 2005: he sits in a hall among hundreds of happy graduates, thinking that debt and $30–40k-a-year jobs are waiting for them. Only then does he tell how, still a student, he found another path, making $250,000 in his senior year by his account. Each email answers yesterday’s question and asks a new one.
Start at the hottest moment
The biggest mistake in stories is starting at the beginning. “I was born in 2009, I got my first phone at 12…”, and the email is already closed. Brunson passes on Daegan Smith’s advice: always start at the point of high drama, since most stories only get good in the middle. Once you’ve got attention, tell the backstory: how you got to that moment. It usually takes you back to where the reader is now. Then the wall: you got stuck and didn’t know what to do. That’s where the reader recognizes themselves. Misha’s email 2 opens: “An hour later I deleted the video. 11 views, 4 of them mine.” The answer, what helped, moves to email 3.
Hidden benefits and honest urgency
In the fourth email, Brunson shows benefits the reader hasn’t thought of. The pattern is simple: “Sure, you’ll get the obvious. But also…”. Misha’s: “Sure, your videos will look better. But friends will also ask you to edit theirs, and those are your first paid gigs.” Often the hidden benefit is what tips the decision. The fifth email gives a reason to act now. Brunson says it straight: the reason has to be real, fake urgency backfires and you lose your credibility. Real reasons: the webinar really is tomorrow, there really are 20 review spots, the new-subscriber price really ends Friday and won’t come back. A timer that resets every visit is a lie, and we agreed on that back in lesson 5.
What the email looks like
Series emails are short and light. Brunson advises: one or two sentences per line, lots of white space, no long paragraphs, since people read on their phones on the go. He writes the skeleton first, then adds the juicy details. And he doesn’t hide his personality: the subscriber is meeting a person, not a company. He even admits his emails sometimes have typos and says don’t let fear of mistakes stop you from sending. We’ll go one step further and still proofread every line, but you don’t need perfect style, you need a real voice. Send one email a day: Brunson recommends that rhythm for the first series. Set it up once in your email service as an automated sequence, and it works for every new person.
Do it yourself: your 5 emails
Map out your 5 emails in one line each, like Misha’s card. Email 1: who you are, how often you’ll write, and what question you’ll open tomorrow. Email 2: the hottest moment of your story, the backstory, and the wall. Email 3: what you realized and how it leads to your product. Email 4: “Sure, you’ll get… But also…”. Email 5: a real reason to act now and one link. Check that every email except the fifth ends with an open question, and each next one answers it. Number the subjects “Ch. 1 of 5” and name tomorrow’s subject in the P.S. Then go through every line: is it true, and would a beginner get it? What to send after the series is next lesson.
Check yourself
- What should he change?
Correct answer: End the email with an open question for tomorrow. Without an open question, there’s no reason to wait for the next email. A hook at the end turns separate emails into a series. For example: “Tomorrow I’ll tell you why I deleted my first video”. - How should email 2 begin?
Correct answer: “An hour later I deleted the video. 11 views, 4 of them mine.”. That’s the hot moment from the middle of the story. It hooks right away, and the backstory can come once the reader is drawn in. - Which urgency is honest?
Correct answer: The new-subscriber price really ends Friday, and after that the course costs more. It’s a real deadline with real consequences. Brunson says it outright: the reason has to be real, or you lose trust. - Who’s right?
Correct answer: Both are wrong: a hook pulls, but only in a good story. The 2025 meta-analysis found no memory advantage but confirmed people resume interrupted tasks about 67% of the time. So a hook pulls, but only toward a story that matters.