A Tale of 2 WAHMs

I won’t share any names or businesses with this post but, I do hope that if the person I’m writing about reads this will take no offense but instead take it as a little nudge of advice. I also hope that our readers will take the same.

This morning I received a newsletter that I subscribe to and opened almost immediately. Sure, I had one or two other emails that were a little higher up on the priority list but as soon as I had a spare moment I opened it right up. Number one, I enjoy the newsletter and number two, it’s written by a friend of mine online from my message boards. I hadn’t heard from her in a while and I automatically realized that I hadn’t received a newsletter from her in a while also. I replied to her newsletter and you’ll read more about my reply later but, here is part of her reply to me:

It was you who gently nudged me to make sure I did this each month. I did miss last month, but I’m back on track now.

Hint One: Your subscibers reading and we notice when you miss a newsletter. There are very, very, VERY few issues that Kara and I miss when sending out our newsletters. Our subscribers can be guarenteed every Wednesday, they’re going to have a new issue of Direct Sales News in their email. I think we’ve only ever missed one when the two of us were both horribly sick and just couldn’t muster the effort to do it. We were online long enough to decide to not do it and then we both headed to bed. Otherwise, if it falls on a holiday, it goes out the day before or the day after OR if it’s really BIG holiday that usually no one ends up reading it, then we may consider not sending it at all. (Example: Between Christmas & New Years we tend to not bother.) Now using this newsletter as an example, it’s apparently a monthly newsletter. What’s that mean? That means that it’s been about 2 months that I’ve not heard from her. (I as in a possible customer.)

So, back to my story. Her newsletter had an excellent … let’s just call it a tip. It was something that will certainly come in handy for me (if I had a printer hooked up right now I would have printed it out) and I knew that many others would benefit from it . So, I asked her if she would mind bringing her tip to the message boards and she replied with a gracious yes.

Hint Two: If a reader replies to your newsletter with good feedback - surprise! Let me tell you, we can never get enough feedback. Of course we all want it to be good all the time but remember, take it with a grain of salt when you get the bad. Take it as a learning exprience and fix it if it can be but also remember, you’ll NEVER satisfy everyone. And if you get a reply like I gave her … go for it! Take it to those message boards and post it. Post something like, so and so replied to my newsletter today and enjoyed my tip so much she asked me to post it here. Then post your tip and MAKE SURE you have your newsletter in your signature line. First, someone else has already given testimonial to it and secondly, they’re already getting a taste of what’s to come.

Hint Three: Readers LOVE tips! Always try to include something related to your business within your newsletters. Let’s say you sell make up. Too many people worry about writing long articles to accompany their newsletter. Chances are, the longer they are, the less readers you’ll have. Everyone is in a hurry these days so, get to the point. A special here, a tip or two there and call it done. Trust me - from experience. A lot of you may remember Mommy’s Helper - Mom’s Market Ezine. That ezine was entirely too long. We featured 3 different articles every week. We may have had a lot of subscribers - but we also had very little readers. (Quality over quantity at all times!)

And once again … back to my story …
Unfortunately, the gracious yes didn’t come alone which brings me closer to the real reason for this post in the first place …

I wish there were more hours in the day to participate in forums. Unfortunately, I have NEVER picked up a customer or a recruit from the boards so I removed them from my visit all the time list. I try to come from time to time though and miss you and Kara.

Ouch!

Okay, first of all, it’s a good thing I’m good friends with this particular writer and I feel pretty sure she meant no harm. However, had I been someone else who wasn’t as close as we are, I may have taken great offense to this reply. And I say this for a couple of reasons such as there must be one heck of an excellent tracking system on her shopping cart to know that not a single sale came from someone at my message boards. Plus, unless you’ve gotten no recruits at all and this is the only way you show yourself online, how can you be absolutely SURE you’ve not gotten ANY recruits EVER from the message boards? Folks, your recruits and customers don’t always come screaming “Hey, I found you at such and such message boards!!” Another reason is, I’m a subscriber … don’t I count?

Hint Four: Of course I COUNT! Actually, I should be HIGH on that list of people who COUNT. Apparently I’m interested in what she has to say and/or what she has to offer. Folks, a lot of your subscribers are subscribers because they want to REMEMBER you. Your newsletter is a constant reminder to your subscribers that you’re still here and you have something they want. There are so many reasons why someone doesn’t buy when they first visit your site. This is your NUMBER ONE reason for having a newsletter in the first place. I know so many people and consider myself friends to so many online that I can’t possibly remember who sells what at all times. However, those people who I’m subscribed to their lists - as long as the newsletters come out on a regular basis - I know what they’re selling and I know where to go when I’m ready to buy that particular product.

Hint Five: You shouldn’t be recruiting or selling on message boards anyway. If you haven’t figured out from above, you should be working on making friends, making contacts and gaining subscribers.

Hint Six: Don’t we ALL wish there more hours in the day?? However, you need to prioritze a little AND you certainly shouldn’t take message boards off your “to do list” completely. Never, never, never. Message boards tend to create a community of friends and these communities of friends support each other. They recommend you to others who are looking for products you offer, recommend you to any business opps you offer AND they come to you when they need these things themselves. Unless I don’t care for the way you represent your company or the way you present your business on the message boards, I will do business with you before I will do business with anyone else. And trust me, I could do a poll right now and I’d be willing to bet the percentage would be - I’ll even give it a 99.9% that everyone will agree with me. (I’ll let that .1% for those folks that you’ll never make happy.)

Do I recommend spending hours every day on message boards? Nope - not even close. As a matter of fact, when you’re making your to do list … I recommend it be last on your list … but make sure it IS on your list. Do I recommend being a member of a whole bunch of communities? That’d be a big old nope there too. Join a few, spend a little time trying to get to know the members and then decide. You’ll know. You’ll be able to easily pick and choose which ones do it for you and which ones don’t. Even stopping in once a week is good. Depending on how much you participate each time will be the deciding factor because even once a week is starting to push it.

And I know we’ve all heard it before but take it from someone who owns a message board and pays very close attention to what members are and aren’t doing …

Don’t stop in once a month or once every couple of weeks or even once a day or once a week just to post your specials, contests, freebies etc. It ain’t gonna work. Regular members know. They know when they see your name under the specials constantly but know absolutely nothing else … they know you and the chances of them choosing to do any business with you is slim to none.

Don’t stop in every once in a while JUST to reply to all the new members. Have you ever seen that link at the top of the page that says Posts Since Your Last Visit? Regular and loyal members use this feature often because they want to be sure they haven’t missed any posts. They know about when new members came and didn’t come. When they click that link and there’s 20 new messages of just introductions with your username as the last person who replied on every one. Plus they’re from the past two weeks and then there is no other posts made by you. Guess what folks? It’s obvious to us. We know that you’re doing nothing more than quick “Welcome to the boards!” posts and your only intent is to get your signature in there.

Wanna know what I think is even funnier about this? Think about it … when was the last time you really sat and read all the signature lines of the people who reply to the introductions? Now think about this … how many times have you read a really good post or reply with helpful information - how many times have you purposely looked at THEIR signature? Hmm … there’s some food for thought for ya. Now don’t get me wrong, we all want to make the new people feel at home. I’m not telling you to not reply. I’m telling you to make sure those are not your only replies!

So this post turned out to be a lot longer than I had originally planned but, it’s a goodie. Again, I mean no harm or offense to anyone … this email just happened to spark the thoughts and became a good example. Besides, we all learn by example, don’t we?