You’re in business to make an impact and an income, right?
You know that you’ve got to have a compelling message or you’re sunk.
You know that you can’t possibly serve everyone – that’s why you have a niche.
And you know that great brands take a stand for what they believe in and aren’t afraid to turn people away.
You get this logically. You’ve heard a million marketers tell you how important it is.
But emotionally? Well, that’s another story.
Because when that first nasty email comes in – it stings. Big time.
You open up that unsubscribe note, hoping it’s a simple “just getting too many emails right now” only to see someone literally lambaste you over email. And in that moment, your stomach drops, your face turns red and you immediately think about giving up. It can’t be worth this, can it?
My first nasty message sent me into a spin for several hours. I was accused of being a slimy, sales person with no integrity. She called me a liar, a fraud and a con artist. All because I sent out an email to my community announcing…wait for it…a new program for sale (the gall of me and my business!).
As my eyes blinked back the tears, I wondered how anyone could be so nasty. So mean spirited. And then I immediately wondered if she was right. Was I nothing better than a sleazy, online marketer looking to swindle my community out of their hard earned money?
I regrouped and asked what was really true about her message. Not much I’m afraid. Yes, I was selling something (umm…I’m in business, that’s what we do) but my approach was neither sleazy nor based on lies. It was about her – not me, and I had to let it go. Because there’d be more messages like it.
If you’ve been in business any length of time, this has happened to you. Sometimes the messages are fairly neutral, “you’re just not what I’m looking for right now,” and sometimes they are downright mean, “who do you think you are?” But we all get them – and the more visible you are online, the more you’ll get.
But here’s the reframe.
These messages are a good thing. Unsubcribes are a good thing.
When you’re building your brand and its accompanying community, you want only the people who love you and resonate with your stuff. You don’t want to waste your time trying to convince the fence-sitters and nay-sayers. The more of those people that fall away, the more you’re left with a community of people who get you – who love your content and who will go to bat for you when somebody takes a side-swipe at you.
And the only way that can happen is if you’re willing to stretch yourself and take the risk of really saying something worth listening to.
Spend some time online and you’ll see site after site after site that all say some version of the same thing. They may say it just a little differently, but essentially it’s the same old stuff. You don’t walk away enlightened, changed, transformed – you walk away with one little tip.
That’s fine and those businesses still can work.
But if you want to be great – if you want to be remarkable – then you have to be willing to turn people off. Not by being rude or arrogant (unless that’s your schtick – which I don’t particularly recommend) but just by taking a stand for something. By not producing vanilla content you can find anywhere. By having something actually interesting to say – even if it may ruffle a few feathers.
In my mind, nobody does this better than Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz fame. She’s the ultimately polarizer. She swears, she says it like it is and she isn’t afraid to take a hard stand for what she believes.
Some people hate Naomi and want nothing to do with her. That’s fine. Why? Because she’s got thousands and thousands of fans that hang on her every word and buy anything she has to sell, on name alone. Her confidence and courage to deliberately build a brand she knew would repel more people than it would attract did something truly spectacular. It bonded those who DO resonate with her and turned them into raving, die-hard, tween-girl-at-a-Justin-Bieber-concert, fans.
Now, Naomi’s content is pure genius so that helps too. She’s not just polarizing with nothing interesting to say. You must have both. But Naomi is a fascinating case-study in how you can build an incredible, highly profitable business by deliberating be willing to piss a lot of people off.
So, what can you learn here?
It hurts when people say nasty stuff – there’s no doubt about that. And it’ll sting for sometime to come if you’re human. But you must keep going. You MUST be willing to say what so few are.
Do you want a powerful and profitable business?
Do you want to have legions of fans who hang on your every word?
Do you want to be that go-to person in your industry?
Take a stand. Be willing to turn people off.
Say what you REALLY want to say. Give voice to the ideas and thoughts that no one has yet had the courage to say.
When you do this, you’ll get noticed. Your visibility will increase. Your fan base will start to grow.
Yes, you’ll get unsubcribes. Probably a lot of them. But for every unsubscribe you get, you’ll get that many more clamouring to get on your email list. And you’ll see your sales shoot up. You’ll get invited to be part of joint ventures.
There’s no doubt that this takes confidence and courage. But you can do it.
Your business success is depending on it.
