Building an eBiz

My apologies this is a long post but I felt it was important enough to warrant my time and yours.

Running a business — no matter how small or how large, how successful or challenged — is an exhausting and frustration-inducing effort. And some days it just doesn’t seem worth the trouble. And I admit it, sometimes my communications can let just a little of that frustration, anger and yes, exhaustion show.

It’s been a bit of a rough week or two.

New releases (my book “101 Writing Tweets: 101 Tips … ” has just been released) are always a bit of a challenge. After all, there’s the rush up to the posting on Amazon, followed by the first of the marketing efforts and then the endless waiting (well a week or two anyway), followed by a few days of sending out notices and watching the downloads and the reviews. Then comes the initial sales, slowly trickling in and hopefully turning into a stream. Overwork, followed by sitting on one’s hands, followed by overwork, followed by gnawing on one’s finger nails coupled with elation followed by fear followed by elation followed by fear … well, you get the idea here.

Add to that, my local RONA building supplies had a sale on laminate flooring so I decided now would be a good time to repair my bedroom floor. About 15 years ago I installed laminate incorrectly and it’s finally officially died. I’ve been smart enough to avoid replacement so far but bit the bullet this year. Unfortunately, since then I’ve become less mobile so my son has been trying to install this stuff. Of course, we did it wrong … directions, who needs stinking directions … and had to start again. Meanwhile the furniture from our room has made the whole second floor into a climbing apparatus. (The cats love it — the humans not so much!) So my wife and I have been forced to spend the last week on the pull-out couch in the study.  This is a 30 year old couch with a mattress that wants to be a bag of frozen peas — a thin bag of frozen peas at that. Sleep? What’s that?

Then to top it all off, one of my email accounts decided to fill up. No big deal normally but this happens to be one that has my mailing list notifications on it. And of course, as I’m eliminating the spam, I’m reading the cancellations.  Which is not a smart thing to do. Now 99% of them are cool — too busy, not quite what I wanted, and so on. But I’m dealing with the public and I’m teaching a topic that many people have unrealistic dreams about. So naturally, I have a few — let’s say, less than stable clients. It’s inevitable and all things considered, there are very few of them (less than 0.2% by my estimation).  But it only takes one to really bring a person down. And of course, I’m reading all of their rants.

Needless to say by the end of the day, I was really bummed out and ready to chuck it all.

That’s when it happened…

I received this email…

Dear Glen Ford,

I loved the language you used in your e-mail – and got the book right away. Thank you.

I will be delighted to send my appreciation of the book to Amazon as soon as I finish it.  The end of this week. DV.

Your writing is a pleasure to read because I know that at the end of it I will have learned something without having to go through the nonsense and time wasting stuff others send.  In fact, I have unsubscribed to all of them yesterday. But never you of course!!

I have written stuff over the years in the form of Newspaper columns and some were main features in  Magazines and I would now like to publish them in book form.   But, they say that e-books is the way to go as they outnumber ‘real books’ five to one!

All the best with your new book.

Sincerely,

Renee.

Dear Glen,

Delighted to get a reply – and so soon – and the answer is “Absolutely not!  Not even a hint of objection – use whatever you want if it’s any use to you.”

Yesterday I randomly clicked into a file, your file. Life was too busy for me to do things for me but I kept them “for the time I would have time for me.”  I had another look at that video. Wonderful. I love your manner, your honesty, and your clear concice delivery without any bs. Not a minute wasted.

 It seems to me that very few people know how to do that, in fact you’re  the only person I’ve come across. That is why I was able to tell you yesterday that I had ‘unsubscribed’ from almost everybody who came through to me on the email. Not you! You’re kept there with family and friends.

I loved the way you said right at the start how long the video would run so I knew right away that I could watch immediately  and of course because of the way you are – your use of language – I knew I was interested. I lost too much precious time in the past listening to those long-winded …who in the end had nothing worthwhile to offer.

I celebrated my 80th birthday in January this year and I can’t take the risk of losing any more of that precious time. So. I now have much more time to be selfish to do what I want to do without feeling guilty.  Should have done it years ago! Thank you for helping me to do that.

With love to you and yours,

Renee

Now you may think that I’m posting this rather long blog to either bitch or crow … and you’d be wrong. (Well maybe there was just a little of bitching and crowing).

I wrote this post because of how I felt after the emails.  And what we both can learn from this delightful 80-year young lady.

How did I feel?

Absolutely top of the world. My blue funk was gone, and I was smiling (between the yawns but can’t have everything).

It doesn’t take much to express our thanks — this email probably took Renee less than 5 minutes to write. And I doubt that she thought much about it.  But she found something she liked about the videos and complimented me on it. The result is something that I will remember.  Maybe she hated the rest of the video (I know I do) but she found one thing to praise.

It’s something we all need to remember and practice in our businesses.

How often (and loudly) do we complain? And how seldom do we compliment? With the internet this tendency has become worse. Perhaps because we believe that the internet gives us a level of anonymity. Or simply because the person at the other end isn’t quite real to us.

But the truth is our complaints are often ignored  … but our praise never. If we can bring a smile to the face of the person at the other end of our internet lifeline, we’re far more likely to achieve our goals. If we can make them say thank you, we are one step closer to winning our dreams. All it takes is one little honest sentence praising something that they did.

It’s a simple truth but a truth we so often forget.

And our businesses will thrive or fail on the result.

So let me put my advice into action now.

To the 90.0% of you who have enjoyed what I have shared. To those of you who have read my books (and bought my books). And especially to those who have told me how much you have enjoyed my books. Thank you. Your thoughtfulness and willingness to learn has given me much joy. I and my team find joy in creating learning. But we experience joy when we see you learn.

To the 9.8% of you who have not found what I have shared of value, but dealt with me professionally, thank you. Your advice and yes, your identification of why you didn’t continue has helped me to improve.

And to the Renees of the world, thank you for reminding me why I love to help people.