August 14, 2025 • 20 mins
Stop Being Afraid of Annoying People: Just Send the Email
In this episode of Imperfect Marketing, I sit down (solo!) to talk about one of the biggest email marketing myths: the fear of being annoying. If you've ever hesitated to send emails to your list because you don’t want to "bother" people—this one’s for you.
I’m sharing real client stories and lessons from my own experience with weekly emails, including how I got over my own fears and how email marketing has driven serious growth for my business.
We discuss:
The Fear Factor in Email Marketing
- Why being afraid to send emails is holding your business back
- How unsubscribes can actually help your business
- What it really means to add “value” in your emails
Real Stories, Real Results
- A client who started emailing weekly and saw direct replies and engagement
- Why staying top of mind matters, even with a 24-month sales cycle
- How relatable personal stories (yes, even stubbing your toe!) build stronger connections
Strategies to Stay Consistent and Relevant
- How weekly emails turned my “sometimes” list into a revenue generator
- My approach to writing emails that feel like coffee chats, not sales pitches
- The “Homework for Life” technique to never run out of stories
Key Takeaways for Email Marketers
- Unsubscribes = market research, not rejection
- Email marketing doesn’t have to be epic—everyday stories connect best
- Consistency is more important than perfection
- Your audience wants to hear from you—don’t make that decision for them
Whether you're new to email marketing or trying to get back on track, this episode is your permission slip to show up, send the email, and stop worrying about being annoying.
Are you ready to ditch the fear and grow your business through simple, authentic emails? Tune in and find out how.
Connect with Kendra Corman
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendracorman/
Website: KendraCorman.com
Looking to leverage AI? Want better results? Want to think about what you want to leverage?
Check and see how I am using it for FREE on YouTube.
From "Holy cow, it can do that?" to "Wait, how does this work again?" – I've got all your AI curiosities covered. It's the perfect after-podcast snack for your tech-hungry brain.
Watch here
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Kendra Korman .
If you're a coach, consultantor marketer, you know marketing
is far from a perfect science,and that's why this show is
called Imperfect Marketing.
Join me and my guests as weexplore how to grow your
business, with marketing tipsand, of course, lessons learned
along the way.
Hello, and welcome back toanother episode of Imperfect
(00:27):
Marketing.
I'm your host, Kendra Korman,and today I'm really excited to
be talking to you about how tostop being afraid that you're
going to be annoying and justsend the emails.
Right, that's the key here,because I get this complaint all
the time.
Well, I don't want to annoypeople, I don't need any more
email.
Therefore, I don't send anyemails to my prospects, my
(00:50):
clients, my referral partners,you name it.
The regular weekly emails, ormonthly emails or bi-monthly
emails just aren't happening,and that's not good.
I have a client who finally,finally, finally, finally agreed
to do email marketing, andactually there's three that
(01:11):
happened over the summer.
So the first one focused onsocial, some activity, invested
in some business developmenttools, but also started doing
email and started gettingreplies after the first couple
of emails.
Staying top of mind, stayingrelevant, was hugely important,
(01:34):
right?
And one of the really bigthings there is.
She's getting replies, and notall of them are leaves.
Not all of them are the perfectclient or the perfect piece of
business, but what it reallycame down to was that she is top
of mind.
Now another client this summerset up his email marketing
(01:54):
campaigns and started working ona weekly cadence.
For him also, the issue was ishe was actually looking to
expand his sales team and hiremore people?
He didn't end up hiring morepeople and started doing email
just to stay top of mind withthe people he wasn't getting to
and to keep them engaged right,telling real stories, engaging
(02:16):
with people in a way that theywanted to be engaged with, so
that they saw his name and whenthey were ready to purchase his.
He has a longer purchase cyclecould be anywhere from six
months to 24 months and so thatwas really important to stay
relevant for him.
I get a lot of people.
Well, I'm so worried becausewhen I send emails, people
(02:37):
unsubscribe, and I don't wantthem to unsubscribe.
Those people weren't buyingfrom you anyway, and so I don't
want you to be afraid of that,and I don't want you to be
afraid that you're botheringpeople unless you truly are
bothering people and not sendingany value.
A lot of people talk aboutvalue and I've heard that I
attend webinars and differenttrainings all the time and I do
a lot of testing.
(02:57):
So let's talk about the wordvalue first.
What you're sending doesn't haveto be like a free tip or a list
of things or anything you wantit to be right.
It can literally just be astory.
You're adding value to people'sday by entertaining them, by
sharing your thoughts, gettingto know them and really building
(03:19):
that relationship.
Not everything has to end up inyou giving them something for
free, so let's just cover thatoff first.
I talking about that valuepiece.
I'm not always adding a ton ofvalue, right?
I'm not always giving myaudience a free tip or checklist
or things like that.
Sometimes it's a story thatthey can relate to, so that they
(03:41):
can relate to me and tells themhow I got over it.
So one of my emails this summerwas about how I spent a whole
weekend reading the entirefourth wing series, which if you
haven't read it, you totallyneed to, because I mean, my
heart was racing.
I was really mean to everybodyin my family because I was so
(04:03):
stressed out.
I mean dragons and everything.
It was way more important thanthe marketing, that I had
scheduled that weekend to do mysocial.
And so I went dark for a littlebit because that was my social.
Thank goodness for processesand the podcast, because I was
actually able to at least postonce a week on my personal
profiles.
But what really it came down towas I was sharing an example of
(04:28):
how I fell off the wagon on mymarketing.
Right, I kept the must-dos,which one of my must-dos is
email but I didn't do the niceto have.
So my social was lacking a lot.
Social was lacking a lot, likea lot, a lot.
(04:49):
Nobody emailed me complaining,right, I was still present.
I was posting at least once aweek, so I wasn't totally dark.
So people still knew I was inbusiness and alive, but that was
about it.
That cadence was able to keepme afloat and the email was
really about doing somethingother than what you were
supposed to do, and thatsometimes it's okay, right?
(05:11):
So I was authentic.
I shared a story of how Ididn't do what I was supposed to
do.
And you know how do they getout of that, that rut that
they're in if they ever findthemselves in that kind of rut
like I did, and the interestingpiece about that is I got a lot
of emails about how many peoplelove fourth wing.
So, again, if you haven't readit, definitely check it out
(05:32):
Again.
It's creating connections.
So it's more than just addingvalue.
You're adding value to therelationship and having a
conversation just like you wouldwith anybody else.
So think about what wouldhappen if you shared your real
Tuesday instead of just thehighlight reel.
When was the last time thatsomeone's imperfect content
(05:55):
connected with you?
Were they talked about asituation that you could relate
to?
That's the type of stuff youwant to do.
So let me bring you to a littlepiece about my email philosophy.
That might surprise you alittle bit and it deals with
unsubscribes.
So I want you to think about.
I get four to five unsubscribesper email and I think that
(06:18):
that's a success.
My goal is that my overall, mylist continues to grow right.
So I have to bring on four tofive new people every week and
that's okay for me.
I'm good with that, becausethose four to five people were
never going to purchase from me.
I was paying for them to be apart of my list, because you get
different brackets based uponhow many people you have on your
(06:41):
email list.
I'd rather have engagedsubscribers than passive ones.
Any day, when someone opens youremail in Outlook or Gmail or
Yahoo or AOL, wherever theyhappen to be, it sends a signal
to that email service providerthat the email you sent to them
(07:02):
was wanted and desired.
So they opened it.
Maybe they filed it for later,maybe they clicked on a link all
of those interactions thatemail service provider sees Any
of those actions are great.
It's the one that just hitsdelete or puts you in the spam
folder.
That aren't good.
Those are the ones that givethe email service providers
(07:26):
flags that your content isn'treally wanted by their
subscribers and so that's got abigger chance of you ending up
in that spam filter.
So getting those engagedsubscribers and getting those
unsubscribes off of your list istotally fantastic.
So I know that in my world Ithink I had a heart attack.
(07:50):
I'd been told you need to sendweekly emails.
You need to send weekly emails.
I'm like, oh my gosh, I am notsending weekly emails.
Who wants to hear from me oncea week?
Several thousand peopleactually, which surprises me
that they actually don't mindhearing from me once a week.
They engage with my emails.
Every now and again, they'llsend me an email letting me know
that they like my emails, thatthey like getting my emails and
(08:13):
everything that goes along withit, and I think that that's good
.
My unsubscribe button ishelping me find my true audience
.
So, as I continue to grow withfreebies and different offers
and different ways that Iconnect with people and add them
to my list the ones that aren'tsupposed to be there that
unsubscribe button gets them offand out so that they're not
(08:36):
annoyed by my emails, and I'mokay with that.
That fear of annoying people.
That's costing you a lot.
I want you to think about allthe money that you're leaving on
the table because you're nottop of mind when somebody is
thinking about you, leaving onthe table because you're not top
of mind when somebody isthinking about you.
There's also the belief thatemail is old school or, again,
(09:01):
bothersome.
You know that newsletterphilosophy that we had way back
in the day, where everything wasstructured as a newsletter.
Well, it shouldn't be that way.
It should be structured as anemail to one person, like you're
talking to a friend over coffee.
It's actually part of my AIvoice when I'm using and
leveraging my email to have itdraft and I give it my big brain
dump.
It says it's like you'rechatting with a friend over
(09:21):
coffee.
That's what I want my emails todo.
I want them to feel likethey're creating a connection.
My business continues to growfrom my weekly emails.
Nobody is ready to purchasefrom me at any and all times.
There's a lot of emails thathave really not much of a call
to action.
They'll drive to my podcast orthey'll just ask a question, not
(09:44):
really selling anything.
I still get replies off ofthose emails and people will say
to me I was just thinking aboutyou, thank you so much for
sending me this email.
And then something totallyunrelated to the email that they
were thinking about.
But again, I needed to be topof mind to get that business
inquiry right, to get thatreferral, to get that lead, to
(10:05):
have that conversation.
Email does that for me and Ithink it's so, so important.
Now I will say that I used tohave a sometimes once in a while
email list.
So sometimes once in a while Iwould email them because I
didn't feel like I needed toright and I didn't want to
bother them.
And I will tell you that mybusiness has grown exponentially
(10:29):
since I started sendingconsistent.
At first it was monthly andthen it became bimonthly and
then it became weekly emails.
The more consistent I was, themore business I actually got,
because I was top of mind andnot everybody on my email list
is ever going to buy from me,and that's okay.
Some of them just like myemails and I like that and I
(10:51):
want to continue to be that.
So again, I used to think I wasbothering people who wanted to
hear from me.
Turns out it's several thousandpeople, like I said, and the
ones that unsubscribe I'm okaywith.
I mean, sometimes I get annoyedbut because I'm like don't you
want my really good emails, itjust means that I'm not the
right fit for them and that'sokay.
(11:12):
I want the fear of beingannoying to be put out of your
mind.
Have conversations withindividuals.
Pretend you're writing to yourideal client and send that email
and then your unsubscribebutton.
Don't even look at those.
I had Sina of Sina C, the fishcompany, on previous episode
(11:36):
that we'll link to in theYouTube description and the show
notes for you, but in thatepisode she really talked a lot
about how she's totally goodwith unsubscribes.
Those people are not going tobe buying from her and she 10x'd
her business with just email.
Yes, she's a product, but I'm aservice and that works for
(11:59):
either of us and I want you toreally think about that and how
much power that can have.
You show up when you want to inpeople's inboxes, not when
they're necessarily chose toscroll through social right.
That's got a lot of power.
Now, I'm not saying socialmedia is bad by any stretch of
(12:19):
the imagination.
Social media is fantastic forreach.
That's one great way to getpeople on your email list.
So invest the time in social toreach people that you haven't
met and don't have their emailaddress.
Your goal is only to get themon your email list.
So again, I want you to thinkabout sending content right.
(12:43):
Sending conversations it can beshort, it can be long.
Whatever your style is isreally where you want to focus.
I recently got a question.
Someone's like well, I don'thave as interesting stuff as you
do, kendra.
I stubbed my toe and I think Ibroke my pinky toe several
months back and I sent an emailabout that because I was
(13:04):
cleaning.
Cleaning is not my thing.
My husband actually said thatmy father-in-law calls me Grace
for a reason, and it's notbecause I'm graceful.
You know I talked about stayingin your lane Everyday.
Activities can become thosestories, can become that point
of view that you shift into whatyou want to share with your
(13:26):
email list.
And again, that's something Iwould complain about around the
water cooler at work.
Or I would discuss when I washaving a meeting with a client
hey, be careful.
Or I'm wearing these uglysneakers because they're
comfortable, but also because Ithink I broke my pinky toe and
it gets into the conversation.
(13:46):
Right.
That's the kind of conversationI would have in real life.
So that's what my emails havein them and don't be afraid to
do that and to show that From.
Episode 295 was also on and wetalked about storytelling, and
one of the things that I'vestarted to do and become
addicted to is one of the thingsthat she brought up, which was
homework for life.
(14:06):
So you can Google it.
It's a TED Talk and it's abouttaking five minutes a day to say
if today was a story, whatwould that story be?
So at the end of every day andI think he said at the end of
every day, like at night, I domine at the end of every workday
right now.
Note down if today was a story,what would that be?
Five minutes, that's all hedoes.
(14:28):
Right, it's got hundreds andthousands of stories, things
that you might not remember whenyou go back to think about it.
But if you have it in an Excelsheet or Word document or I
think the guy that did foundHomework for Life actually has
an app for that.
But I think, again, that'simportant.
And in his TED talk he talksabout how it's about those small
(14:51):
, everyday stories that otherpeople can relate to.
Not everything needs to be someepic moment.
That happened, right, he hadsaid that he was homeless and in
jail and had a ton ofinformation in his stories, but
that's not the story he startedoff his TED Talk with.
He started off with talkingabout his kids throwing food.
(15:14):
More people could relate tothat than being homeless or in
jail, and people felt bad forhim, right, people felt really
bad for those stories and headmitted that.
But he said I started withsomething relatable, something
that everybody in the audiencecould connect with.
So I want you to start thinkingabout those stories and how you
can connect.
You're not gonna be botheringsomebody by sharing this
(15:37):
information with them, right?
You wanna tie it to an offer,tie it into what it is that you
do, but again, you definitelywant to be tying it into you,
right, to stay top of mind.
And you wanna be sending it andmost likely you wanna be
sending, probably weekly, maybeevery fortnight, if you don't
like the bi-monthly or bi-weekly, and you wanna be sending it
(15:58):
and most likely you wanna besending, probably weekly, maybe
every fortnight, if you don'tlike the bi-monthly or bi-weekly
, because that always confusesme.
So every other week, twice amonth, weekly, whatever you can
handle, is what you wanna dobecause you wanna stay top of
mind with your audience.
All right, so let's go aheadand wrap up what I talked about
(16:18):
today.
I want you to get over thinkingthat you're being annoying.
People need what you have tosay.
Start sending emails.
Unsubscribes are not personalrejections, they are business
research.
They are business intelligence.
It is very powerful and it ishelping get more of your target
(16:40):
audience on your list and lessof those who are not a fit for
your business off of your list.
Small stories can create bigconnections.
Stub your toe, fall on stage,kids throwing food at the dinner
table, reading the fourth wingseries and not doing what you're
supposed to be doing bingingsomething on Netflix Again.
(17:01):
All of that is real and canhappen and people can connect
with it.
I really want you to thinkabout how can you connect with
your audience, how can you startsending emails that don't feel
salesy, that don't feel over thetop.
You can still add tips andinformation and tie them into it
, but you definitely need atleast a little bit of story,
(17:22):
because storytelling isimportant and it doesn't have to
be big.
So I want you to go ahead andget rid of that fear of annoying
, because it actually costs youmore than being occasionally
annoying to four to five peopleevery week.
Then unsubscribe, start thatemail you've been putting off.
(17:44):
If you don't have an emailmarketing system, you can check
out Kit, formerly known asConvertKit.
It's the one I recommend formost business-to-business
service providers.
Then begin documenting thatdaily moments with homework for
life, that homework for lifeapproach.
We'll have a link to the TEDTalk in the comments also and a
link to Renee's episode.
(18:05):
And then I want you to reframeyour next unsubscribe and
celebrate it.
It is market research and thatperson is not right for you.
And then ask yourself whatquestion do I get asked?
What question do I wish I wasasked and make that into content
.
You get asked tons of questions.
(18:27):
You wish you got asked a tonmore questions.
What are those questions?
Answer them.
Answer them with a little bitof story and experience, tie
them together and go ahead.
I want you to send an email outthis week to your list, even if
it is three to five people andthey're all family, just to get
(18:49):
started.
It may feel a little bit scarybut in the end, trust me, I know
it is going to make adifference in your business.
So thanks so much for tuning into another episode of Imperfect
Marketing.
I hope you learned somethingtoday and if you did, it would
really help me out if you wouldrate and subscribe wherever
you're listening or watching.
Until next time, have a greatrest of your day.
Hi, I'm Kendra Korman .
If you're a coach, consultantor marketer, you know marketing
is far from a perfect science,and that's why this show is
called Imperfect Marketing.
Join me and my guests as weexplore how to grow your
business, with marketing tipsand, of course, lessons learned
along the way.
Hello, and welcome back toanother episode of Imperfect
(00:27):
Marketing.
I'm your host, Kendra Korman,and today I'm really excited to
be talking to you about how tostop being afraid that you're
going to be annoying and justsend the emails.
Right, that's the key here,because I get this complaint all
the time.
Well, I don't want to annoypeople, I don't need any more
email.
Therefore, I don't send anyemails to my prospects, my
(00:50):
clients, my referral partners,you name it.
The regular weekly emails, ormonthly emails or bi-monthly
emails just aren't happening,and that's not good.
I have a client who finally,finally, finally, finally agreed
to do email marketing, andactually there's three that
(01:11):
happened over the summer.
So the first one focused onsocial, some activity, invested
in some business developmenttools, but also started doing
email and started gettingreplies after the first couple
of emails.
Staying top of mind, stayingrelevant, was hugely important,
(01:34):
right?
And one of the really bigthings there is.
She's getting replies, and notall of them are leaves.
Not all of them are the perfectclient or the perfect piece of
business, but what it reallycame down to was that she is top
of mind.
Now another client this summerset up his email marketing
(01:54):
campaigns and started working ona weekly cadence.
For him also, the issue was ishe was actually looking to
expand his sales team and hiremore people?
He didn't end up hiring morepeople and started doing email
just to stay top of mind withthe people he wasn't getting to
and to keep them engaged right,telling real stories, engaging
(02:16):
with people in a way that theywanted to be engaged with, so
that they saw his name and whenthey were ready to purchase his.
He has a longer purchase cyclecould be anywhere from six
months to 24 months and so thatwas really important to stay
relevant for him.
I get a lot of people.
Well, I'm so worried becausewhen I send emails, people
(02:37):
unsubscribe, and I don't wantthem to unsubscribe.
Those people weren't buyingfrom you anyway, and so I don't
want you to be afraid of that,and I don't want you to be
afraid that you're botheringpeople unless you truly are
bothering people and not sendingany value.
A lot of people talk aboutvalue and I've heard that I
attend webinars and differenttrainings all the time and I do
a lot of testing.
(02:57):
So let's talk about the wordvalue first.
What you're sending doesn't haveto be like a free tip or a list
of things or anything you wantit to be right.
It can literally just be astory.
You're adding value to people'sday by entertaining them, by
sharing your thoughts, gettingto know them and really building
(03:19):
that relationship.
Not everything has to end up inyou giving them something for
free, so let's just cover thatoff first.
I talking about that valuepiece.
I'm not always adding a ton ofvalue, right?
I'm not always giving myaudience a free tip or checklist
or things like that.
Sometimes it's a story thatthey can relate to, so that they
(03:41):
can relate to me and tells themhow I got over it.
So one of my emails this summerwas about how I spent a whole
weekend reading the entirefourth wing series, which if you
haven't read it, you totallyneed to, because I mean, my
heart was racing.
I was really mean to everybodyin my family because I was so
(04:03):
stressed out.
I mean dragons and everything.
It was way more important thanthe marketing, that I had
scheduled that weekend to do mysocial.
And so I went dark for a littlebit because that was my social.
Thank goodness for processesand the podcast, because I was
actually able to at least postonce a week on my personal
profiles.
But what really it came down towas I was sharing an example of
(04:28):
how I fell off the wagon on mymarketing.
Right, I kept the must-dos,which one of my must-dos is
email but I didn't do the niceto have.
So my social was lacking a lot.
Social was lacking a lot, likea lot, a lot.
(04:49):
Nobody emailed me complaining,right, I was still present.
I was posting at least once aweek, so I wasn't totally dark.
So people still knew I was inbusiness and alive, but that was
about it.
That cadence was able to keepme afloat and the email was
really about doing somethingother than what you were
supposed to do, and thatsometimes it's okay, right?
(05:11):
So I was authentic.
I shared a story of how Ididn't do what I was supposed to
do.
And you know how do they getout of that, that rut that
they're in if they ever findthemselves in that kind of rut
like I did, and the interestingpiece about that is I got a lot
of emails about how many peoplelove fourth wing.
So, again, if you haven't readit, definitely check it out
(05:32):
Again.
It's creating connections.
So it's more than just addingvalue.
You're adding value to therelationship and having a
conversation just like you wouldwith anybody else.
So think about what wouldhappen if you shared your real
Tuesday instead of just thehighlight reel.
When was the last time thatsomeone's imperfect content
(05:55):
connected with you?
Were they talked about asituation that you could relate
to?
That's the type of stuff youwant to do.
So let me bring you to a littlepiece about my email philosophy.
That might surprise you alittle bit and it deals with
unsubscribes.
So I want you to think about.
I get four to five unsubscribesper email and I think that
(06:18):
that's a success.
My goal is that my overall, mylist continues to grow right.
So I have to bring on four tofive new people every week and
that's okay for me.
I'm good with that, becausethose four to five people were
never going to purchase from me.
I was paying for them to be apart of my list, because you get
different brackets based uponhow many people you have on your
(06:41):
email list.
I'd rather have engagedsubscribers than passive ones.
Any day, when someone opens youremail in Outlook or Gmail or
Yahoo or AOL, wherever theyhappen to be, it sends a signal
to that email service providerthat the email you sent to them
(07:02):
was wanted and desired.
So they opened it.
Maybe they filed it for later,maybe they clicked on a link all
of those interactions thatemail service provider sees Any
of those actions are great.
It's the one that just hitsdelete or puts you in the spam
folder.
That aren't good.
Those are the ones that givethe email service providers
(07:26):
flags that your content isn'treally wanted by their
subscribers and so that's got abigger chance of you ending up
in that spam filter.
So getting those engagedsubscribers and getting those
unsubscribes off of your list istotally fantastic.
So I know that in my world Ithink I had a heart attack.
(07:50):
I'd been told you need to sendweekly emails.
You need to send weekly emails.
I'm like, oh my gosh, I am notsending weekly emails.
Who wants to hear from me oncea week?
Several thousand peopleactually, which surprises me
that they actually don't mindhearing from me once a week.
They engage with my emails.
Every now and again, they'llsend me an email letting me know
that they like my emails, thatthey like getting my emails and
(08:13):
everything that goes along withit, and I think that that's good
.
My unsubscribe button ishelping me find my true audience
.
So, as I continue to grow withfreebies and different offers
and different ways that Iconnect with people and add them
to my list the ones that aren'tsupposed to be there that
unsubscribe button gets them offand out so that they're not
(08:36):
annoyed by my emails, and I'mokay with that.
That fear of annoying people.
That's costing you a lot.
I want you to think about allthe money that you're leaving on
the table because you're nottop of mind when somebody is
thinking about you, leaving onthe table because you're not top
of mind when somebody isthinking about you.
There's also the belief thatemail is old school or, again,
(09:01):
bothersome.
You know that newsletterphilosophy that we had way back
in the day, where everything wasstructured as a newsletter.
Well, it shouldn't be that way.
It should be structured as anemail to one person, like you're
talking to a friend over coffee.
It's actually part of my AIvoice when I'm using and
leveraging my email to have itdraft and I give it my big brain
dump.
It says it's like you'rechatting with a friend over
(09:21):
coffee.
That's what I want my emails todo.
I want them to feel likethey're creating a connection.
My business continues to growfrom my weekly emails.
Nobody is ready to purchasefrom me at any and all times.
There's a lot of emails thathave really not much of a call
to action.
They'll drive to my podcast orthey'll just ask a question, not
(09:44):
really selling anything.
I still get replies off ofthose emails and people will say
to me I was just thinking aboutyou, thank you so much for
sending me this email.
And then something totallyunrelated to the email that they
were thinking about.
But again, I needed to be topof mind to get that business
inquiry right, to get thatreferral, to get that lead, to
(10:05):
have that conversation.
Email does that for me and Ithink it's so, so important.
Now I will say that I used tohave a sometimes once in a while
email list.
So sometimes once in a while Iwould email them because I
didn't feel like I needed toright and I didn't want to
bother them.
And I will tell you that mybusiness has grown exponentially
(10:29):
since I started sendingconsistent.
At first it was monthly andthen it became bimonthly and
then it became weekly emails.
The more consistent I was, themore business I actually got,
because I was top of mind andnot everybody on my email list
is ever going to buy from me,and that's okay.
Some of them just like myemails and I like that and I
(10:51):
want to continue to be that.
So again, I used to think I wasbothering people who wanted to
hear from me.
Turns out it's several thousandpeople, like I said, and the
ones that unsubscribe I'm okaywith.
I mean, sometimes I get annoyedbut because I'm like don't you
want my really good emails, itjust means that I'm not the
right fit for them and that'sokay.
(11:12):
I want the fear of beingannoying to be put out of your
mind.
Have conversations withindividuals.
Pretend you're writing to yourideal client and send that email
and then your unsubscribebutton.
Don't even look at those.
I had Sina of Sina C, the fishcompany, on previous episode
(11:36):
that we'll link to in theYouTube description and the show
notes for you, but in thatepisode she really talked a lot
about how she's totally goodwith unsubscribes.
Those people are not going tobe buying from her and she 10x'd
her business with just email.
Yes, she's a product, but I'm aservice and that works for
(11:59):
either of us and I want you toreally think about that and how
much power that can have.
You show up when you want to inpeople's inboxes, not when
they're necessarily chose toscroll through social right.
That's got a lot of power.
Now, I'm not saying socialmedia is bad by any stretch of
(12:19):
the imagination.
Social media is fantastic forreach.
That's one great way to getpeople on your email list.
So invest the time in social toreach people that you haven't
met and don't have their emailaddress.
Your goal is only to get themon your email list.
So again, I want you to thinkabout sending content right.
(12:43):
Sending conversations it can beshort, it can be long.
Whatever your style is isreally where you want to focus.
I recently got a question.
Someone's like well, I don'thave as interesting stuff as you
do, kendra.
I stubbed my toe and I think Ibroke my pinky toe several
months back and I sent an emailabout that because I was
(13:04):
cleaning.
Cleaning is not my thing.
My husband actually said thatmy father-in-law calls me Grace
for a reason, and it's notbecause I'm graceful.
You know I talked about stayingin your lane Everyday.
Activities can become thosestories, can become that point
of view that you shift into whatyou want to share with your
(13:26):
email list.
And again, that's something Iwould complain about around the
water cooler at work.
Or I would discuss when I washaving a meeting with a client
hey, be careful.
Or I'm wearing these uglysneakers because they're
comfortable, but also because Ithink I broke my pinky toe and
it gets into the conversation.
(13:46):
Right.
That's the kind of conversationI would have in real life.
So that's what my emails havein them and don't be afraid to
do that and to show that From.
Episode 295 was also on and wetalked about storytelling, and
one of the things that I'vestarted to do and become
addicted to is one of the thingsthat she brought up, which was
homework for life.
(14:06):
So you can Google it.
It's a TED Talk and it's abouttaking five minutes a day to say
if today was a story, whatwould that story be?
So at the end of every day andI think he said at the end of
every day, like at night, I domine at the end of every workday
right now.
Note down if today was a story,what would that be?
Five minutes, that's all hedoes.
(14:28):
Right, it's got hundreds andthousands of stories, things
that you might not remember whenyou go back to think about it.
But if you have it in an Excelsheet or Word document or I
think the guy that did foundHomework for Life actually has
an app for that.
But I think, again, that'simportant.
And in his TED talk he talksabout how it's about those small
(14:51):
, everyday stories that otherpeople can relate to.
Not everything needs to be someepic moment.
That happened, right, he hadsaid that he was homeless and in
jail and had a ton ofinformation in his stories, but
that's not the story he startedoff his TED Talk with.
He started off with talkingabout his kids throwing food.
(15:14):
More people could relate tothat than being homeless or in
jail, and people felt bad forhim, right, people felt really
bad for those stories and headmitted that.
But he said I started withsomething relatable, something
that everybody in the audiencecould connect with.
So I want you to start thinkingabout those stories and how you
can connect.
You're not gonna be botheringsomebody by sharing this
(15:37):
information with them, right?
You wanna tie it to an offer,tie it into what it is that you
do, but again, you definitelywant to be tying it into you,
right, to stay top of mind.
And you wanna be sending it andmost likely you wanna be
sending, probably weekly, maybeevery fortnight, if you don't
like the bi-monthly or bi-weekly, and you wanna be sending it
(15:58):
and most likely you wanna besending, probably weekly, maybe
every fortnight, if you don'tlike the bi-monthly or bi-weekly
, because that always confusesme.
So every other week, twice amonth, weekly, whatever you can
handle, is what you wanna dobecause you wanna stay top of
mind with your audience.
All right, so let's go aheadand wrap up what I talked about
(16:18):
today.
I want you to get over thinkingthat you're being annoying.
People need what you have tosay.
Start sending emails.
Unsubscribes are not personalrejections, they are business
research.
They are business intelligence.
It is very powerful and it ishelping get more of your target
(16:40):
audience on your list and lessof those who are not a fit for
your business off of your list.
Small stories can create bigconnections.
Stub your toe, fall on stage,kids throwing food at the dinner
table, reading the fourth wingseries and not doing what you're
supposed to be doing bingingsomething on Netflix Again.
(17:01):
All of that is real and canhappen and people can connect
with it.
I really want you to thinkabout how can you connect with
your audience, how can you startsending emails that don't feel
salesy, that don't feel over thetop.
You can still add tips andinformation and tie them into it
, but you definitely need atleast a little bit of story,
(17:22):
because storytelling isimportant and it doesn't have to
be big.
So I want you to go ahead andget rid of that fear of annoying
, because it actually costs youmore than being occasionally
annoying to four to five peopleevery week.
Then unsubscribe, start thatemail you've been putting off.
(17:44):
If you don't have an emailmarketing system, you can check
out Kit, formerly known asConvertKit.
It's the one I recommend formost business-to-business
service providers.
Then begin documenting thatdaily moments with homework for
life, that homework for lifeapproach.
We'll have a link to the TEDTalk in the comments also and a
link to Renee's episode.
(18:05):
And then I want you to reframeyour next unsubscribe and
celebrate it.
It is market research and thatperson is not right for you.
And then ask yourself whatquestion do I get asked?
What question do I wish I wasasked and make that into content
.
You get asked tons of questions.
(18:27):
You wish you got asked a tonmore questions.
What are those questions?
Answer them.
Answer them with a little bitof story and experience, tie
them together and go ahead.
I want you to send an email outthis week to your list, even if
it is three to five people andthey're all family, just to get
(18:49):
started.
It may feel a little bit scarybut in the end, trust me, I know
it is going to make adifference in your business.
So thanks so much for tuning into another episode of Imperfect
Marketing.
I hope you learned somethingtoday and if you did, it would
really help me out if you wouldrate and subscribe wherever
you're listening or watching.
Until next time, have a greatrest of your day.
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