A surefire way to piss some people off...
A surefire way to piss some people off?
Add them to your subscriber list without getting their permission first.
Let me start off by saying that I am eternally grateful for everyone that has signed up to my email list through the years.
It’s humbling and flattering and I appreciate your attention every Monday, Wednesday and Friday - or whenever you decide to open these damn things up to read them, :)
You know what I don’t appreciate?
People who decide to put me on their lists without consent or me manually signing up.
I can’t actually believe that in this day and age, that old and hacky practice of padding your lists with emails still rages on.
The other day, I believe I counted 6 people who’ve placed me on their lists without permission.
And it pisses me off.
Why?
It’s invasive, presumptuous, annoying, and it clutters up my inbox which is a hub for every communication that I have currently in progress.
And also, it’s NOT how you build relationships, folks.
In fact, it’s a fast way to get you on people’s shit lists and that will ensure you’ll never work with them, ever.
Besides, what’s the value of having a list of hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of people who ignore and delete everything you send them?
Rather than automating emails that come through your inbox right to your list storage, how about you ask them first?
How about you start a conversation that would naturally lead to them wanting to know about you organically by signing up for your newsletter?
When you’re in the business of building relationships and establishing your credibility and authority, the details count.
While at the end of the day, blindly adding someone to your list won’t get you thrown in jail, it does leave a bad taste in the mouths of those who don’t appreciate it. That, ultimately, affects their trust towards you.
With no trust comes no business - it’s pretty simple.
And I should know.
Years ago, I admit that I did the hacky thing and added people without their knowledge.
Did it get me anywhere? Nope - not one single paid client. Oh, I sure did get a stream of unsubscribes, that certainly happened.
Oh also, it got me a talking to from several colleagues who were annoyed that I added them to a list without their permission.
And that talking to led to me never doing that shit again - it’s been years, and I’ve never looked back.
At the end of the day, it’s simply not worth it - ask for permission first.
Rather, promote your newsletter and ask those who are already members to spread the word. When you build it that way, people will gravitate towards you and not feel like they were duped into it somehow.
END RANT, :)
On that note - if you find the content that you read in my emails valuable, I invite you to share it on your socials so we can spread the word - there’s a couple button thingies at the bottom of this article to help share it to different social platforms…
…and don’t worry, I wont steal your friends and colleague’s emails if they don’t sign up on their own, ;)