I don’t know if this is for real or somebody is pulling my leg:
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“To: Alp
Hi M,
You were the one who told me about this guy, so maybe you get these emails. I liked this one in particular so I’m forwarding.
D”
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Wait… did someone just forward my own email to me?
At this point, I suspect it must be a prank.
Because 10 minutes before that, I was teaching a workshop where I said:
“When you do emails this way, you can expect to start getting fan mail. Also, people will start passing your name around. Every time you contact your list and you say something that impresses them, they will want to share with their friends.”
So I’m thinking at my inbox thinking: This is too much of a coincidence to be real.
I just delivered a corporate workshop on how email marketing, done right, can generate word of mouth for your business - and 10 minutes later this lands in my inbox?
No way.
Clearly someone from that company is up to mischief.
So I write back, feigning innocence:
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“Hey Devon, I think you forwarded it back to me (Alp instead of to M). 🙂
Glad to hear you liked the email btw. What did you like most about this one?”
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Turns out it really was a forwarding mistake:
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“Oops! Forwarding fail, my apologies. Surprised and most amused that you actually replied. :))
I liked the example of out of the box thinking in this one, and the positive spin at the end. I agree with the last line, Ambition + effectiveness = unstoppable.
My friend and business partner M and myself are dipping a toe into physical product ecommerce waters and hope to apply your methods in the near future. Our shoestring budget doesn't permit us to sign up for your program yet. In fact calling the budget a shoestring is a disservice to fine shoestrings everywhere. We're in bootstrap mode. Meanwhile we will glean what we can for free from your emails, so by all means keep'em coming!”
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We all have forwarding fails. No biggie.
I have at least one every week where I’m trying to email my assistant, and autocorrect decides to send it to some random person instead.
That said, look at what’s happening beneath the surface here:
First of all, Devon liked my email so much that he shared it with a friend.
That’s word of mouth for you.
If you email consistently, you will start seeing this too.
And it won’t be a one-off thing. It will become a regular occurrence in your world. For example, I have new subscribers writing in every week saying stuff like, “I heard of you from my friend. She loves your emails, and can’t shut about you. So I had to join your list to see what the fuss was about.”
Second, look at that last line in his response:
“Meanwhile we will glean what we can for free from your emails, so by all means keep'em coming!”
In other words, he is saying that he is getting value from emails which are, very unapologetically, sales emails.
This, by the way, is something you always want to do: Make your emails worth the interruption.
All the entrepreneurs whose work I admire do this.
For instance, I’m in a private beta for Ramit Sethi’s new course right now. I just walked out of a call with him a few hours ago where he mentioned something very similar:
“Launches should be valuable even if they don’t buy. If you do a launch right, you’ll deepen your relationship with everybody on your list.”
Well, Devon’s email to me is a case in point.
Think of that the next time you ask:
“Will I burn my list if I email them too often?”
Short answer: Not if you’re doing it right.
