I’ve been meaning to send newsletters more often but I held back.
I was afraid my open rates would drop. That subscribers would unsubscribe. That I’d lose what I’d worked for.
Have you ever felt like that? I usually see this feeling show up like:
You want to raise prices, but don’t.
You want to set a minimum retainer, but don’t.
You want to fire a client, but don’t.
You want to sell more often / more directly, but don’t.
You want to focus on a specific type of niche, but don’t.
Here’s the truth: if hearing from me more than once a week is that annoying, these people are not my audience anyway.
They’re just not annoyed enough to unsubscribe yet.
So I’m here to help them with that by sending 2-3 emails per week.
Because they’re messing up my data.
They make me think I have more reach than I actually do. They’re skewing my open rates and making me lose confidence that what I have to say matters.
And worst of all, they’re distracting me from serving the people who do care: my most devoted readers and my paid audience.
So what’s the benefit here?
Nicolas Cole says “fail faster.”
It’s one of the best pieces of advice I’ve heard online.
If there’s something you want to do and you’re afraid you’ll fail, you’ll typically put it off. Or try to find a way around it.
The best thing to do is try it faster and if you’re going to fail, fail faster.
Then take the lesson and move on to the next thing that might actually work.
Otherwise, you stay stuck in that grey zone where it feels like nothing works because you’re avoiding the one thing you really want to do and half-assing everything else.
So do it.
Stop serving people who are not your people. Stop waiting for them to give you permission to grow.
Clients who won’t pay the price you want can go find someone else.
Readers who won’t read what you send can go find someone else.
Subscribers who are too annoyed to hear your paid offer can go… Well, you know.
But seriously. If you’re afraid of doing, of monetising, of selling, of setting your own goals, boundaries, yes’s and no’s, how will this business thing ever work?
So whatever it is you want to do, do it.
Do. It.
If you needed to hear this, you might also enjoy:
Let’s get you unstuck, the smart way.
Maya
Doing something just for the practice of failing was one of the best pieces of advice i've gotten. We get so bogged down by the paralysis of fear of failing that we forget that - that's the whole point. You have to fail to succeed, so you might as well fail faster.
Oh how I have been there many times. This is so relatable and I am sure it is for many others. I recently was in a mastermind call around building community and the guest presenter talked about how they send 3 emails a week. I was honestly surprised by that but as he explained it made sense. There was a super clear process around when he sent and why he sent. For example one of the three was to promote his weekly podcast. Ok that makes sense. Then the other two are on specific days and tend to cover specific things on those days. He has a plan! I know how shocking. He has a process. 😱 Who does that? Oh I know. Successful people. Ha! He also shared with us the big peaks and valleys he sees with his large list. Told us to stop the focus on the numbers because he even sees crazy swings and he has been doing a consistent newsletter for over 10 years. Easier said than done I think for new newsletter writers but it was good to see his actual stats and not just be told something.