You can lead a deer to water, but you can’t make that mf drink

If you’re a freelancer - then best you heed my words. And if you’re a business owner, heed mewords even more. 

I just got an email from a prospect who said he was gonna pass on my services and to reach back out in a couple of months. 

Y’see, he admitted he’s strapped for cash. And out of all the ways I can help (which there are a-plenty), this is the most immediate, the most important, and the most effective problem I can solve. 

Especially because this prospect’s business makes a pretty penny (in terms of revenue, no idea what the profits are but I suspect they aren’t stellar for reasons I’ll explain) and yet…

He has NOT turned on the email marketing engine for his business. Like, at all!

For example:

* I signed up for his email list the other day… and, well, I’ve received one email. So he “technically” has a welcome email, but not a welcome flow. The irony is he told me he can’t really offer discounts (but the welcome email offers a 25% discount lol). The irony doubles because my email strategy works without relying on discounts. 

* I also joined another list for another business he has - I’ve received not-a-single email from this other business 

* To make matters worse, after visiting his site, I got served a YouTube ad for his business (a dreadful YouTube ad in my professional opinion, but an ad nonetheless) 

* To be running ads (and very likely wasting money on these ads because they suck and the only clicks they get have to be accidental clicks - which has become extremely common on YouTube, probably to pump up their numbers to their advertisers because YouTube quietly hit the tipping point where they turn on their advertisers - this happens to most corporations and I won’t shed a tear for them because they’ve long since turned on their customers… but when you turn on your customers - whether customers who are served ads or customers who buy ads - then, well, you’re on the shakiest of grounds) without having ANY kind of email strategy to potentially turn those visitors into customers is the peak of braindeadedness - hey, that’s a new word for my ever-growing personal dictionary 

🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦

(Now, it’s becoming obvious as I write this that I may have dodged a bullet.) 

But still: 

You can only lead a deer to water, you can’t make that mf drink it! 

This guy’s strapped for cash (but wasting money on awful YouTube ads). 

He’s scared about discounts (despite my telling him that my strategy does not rely on discounts). 

And he’s doing a whole song and dance instead of making a decision that can literally fix all (or most) of his problems in a hurry. 

Sheeeeeesh. 

Some people just simply can’t be helped. 

It reminds me of another call I had a while back where, after a good discovery call, a prospect asked me about the next steps, and I told him that I need access to his Klaviyo account. 

His response to this braindead simple request?

“We don’t let anyone into our back office.” 

Okay, weirdo, what in the fvck are you selling if you’re scared to let an email marketer into your email software. 

Many such cases of this cautionary tale of self-sabotage. 

That’s the bad news. 

The good news?

You’re on email away from all but guaranteeing you never fall for the sabotaging lies of yourself ever again - well, at least when it comes to your email strategy. 

So, hit reply to free you from the future consequences I’m trying to save you from. 

John