Why Listening to Your Email Subscribers Will Send You Straight to the Loony Bin

Couple weeks back I sent an email about a subscriber who demanded that I opt him out of any and all sales pitches—and just send him the specific content he wants.

Nuh uh, I said.

This ain’t Burger King—”have it your way” doesn’t apply.

There’s an unsubscribe link for a reason.

Sales pitches are just part of the deal here.

You’re either on or you’re off.

That email triggered a reply from a subscriber named Alp, who gave a PERFECT illustration of why I don’t say “how high” just cuz a subscriber says JUMP.

Enter Alp:

Hey Josh,

This email should be printed and pinned above every marketer’s desk in hard copy.

Bravo. You took the words right out of my mouth.

Here is a funny thing that happened last week:

I got two complaints on the same day.

One subscriber complained that she was still getting the launch emails despite buying the course. (Turns out, she bought with a different email address…)

The other subscriber complained that he wasn’t getting the launch emails after buying the course. He said he loves to watch me launch and that I shouldn’t have taken him off the launch list w/out asking him first.

Goes to show that you can’t please everyone.

This sense of entitlement bugs me so much I’m going to write a blog post on it.

Let me tell you this:

There is NO shortage of people who are more than happy to tell you exactly how to run YOUR business.

They read a blog post or two about “permission-based marketing” and suddenly they’re pounding out angry replies about how YOU should be catering to their every whim.

Well guess what.

You can’t make everyone happy.

Nor should you try.

99% of these critics sniping from behind their laptop screens have never taken a risk in their life.

Meanwhile YOU’RE the one taking bullets in the trenches, figuring all this out as you go.

You’re helping *real* people, building a *real* business in the rough-and-tumble world of the free market.

And since you’re the one taking all the risks here…

That means this is YOUR show.

You get to run the business YOU want to run.

And to all the “armchair marketers” out there I say:

You’re welcome to try this yourself.