I’m like the proverbial lone wolf howling in the cold wilderness about this.
But over the years, certain of my customers have admitted they have a hard time wrapping their heads around my policy of blocking people who quit your continuity programs, not letting them come back later when they think they are finally this time “ready!”, and exiling them forever into the Outer Darkness of your business, never to be allowed back.
The reasons for this are many and beyond the count of mockery.
But, following are 17 reasons I do so:
1. People who quit are reliably & consistently and often immediately replaced by better, higher quality, and less in need of hand holding & being coddled customers. It’s an almost eerily predictable phenomenon I see happen all the time, and twice just yesterday, in fact. This alone makes allowing people back completely counterproductive for my business.
2. If they cite money as having left when they try to come back, they are almost certainly not telling the truth, and it’s not a good idea to do business with such people. After all, even a street bum rattling a dirty coffee-stained cup full of sticky change can “afford” $3.23 per day. But, instead of putting the info into practice to make that modest sum back in multiples so it would not “cost” anything… they cling tightly to the skirt of price – or worse, their wife’s skirt, in far too many cases – to justify their inaction or avoiding admitting to themselves they are simply not ambitious enough or interested enough to apply the info. It is hard work, after all…
3. It makes the newsletter legitimately more exclusive.
4. I don’t cater to quitters.
5. The mere existence of my policy rattles my trolls, as well as other new product junkies (i.e. people addicted to the dopamine drip of buying new products, but never implement anything), marketing hobbyists, and other contemptible opportunity-minded buyers who lack the character to stick by a decision long after the excitement of the moment when they subscribed has passed.
6. I prefer 4 quarters to 100 pennies. i.e. fewer high quality customers vs many low quality customers.
7. I have been carefully building a small All Star roster of customers that are taking over their markets, and letting low quality quitters return would reduce my customer base and my brand to Bush League or T-ball level, like everyone else’s who accepts the “I will be back!” types.
8. I like having more customers for life – which is, I hear, a great way to amp up the LTV (lifetime value) of your list for those who obsess over such metrics.
9. Quitters make for great Orc heads to display to warn away other orcs (like this email is doing) from bothering to waste their money or my time.
10. Makes for better people — as the policy forces people to take responsibility for their actions & decisions. This is something sorely lacking in today’s victimhood-celebrating society.
11. Makes people far more likely to take what I teach and then consume, implement, and succeed with it.
12. Identifies the players vs the spectators for future would-be affiliate, JV, client, and other potential deals down the road should I ever look for such opportunities.
13. I don’t like encouraging new product junky-ism.
14. I can’t realistically help people in the long run if they have a quitter mentality. It’s like someone taking a supplement for having better workouts and not being jacked after month one, and then quitting saying “this doesn’t work!” then trying to come back later, with the same loser mentality. What I teach in “Email Players” is a lifetime marathon, not a sprint. Some of it works fast, some of it takes months and even years to see a payoff. But none of it works if it’s not consistently applied day in, and day out over months and years.
15. Wards off the newbies & non-forward thinking types who I can’t help anyway.
16. Makes for overall greater long term profits, I have found over the years.
17. It helps protect the integrity and value of what I am building. There is a reason ancient societies exiled those they deemed unworthy and disrespectful of their laws, customs, and rules. Ain’t nothing new under the sun…
Again, there are many more reasons.
These are just off the top of my head.
And, my reasons for doing so will likely not jibe with most people’s personalities or goals, and that’s fine. I’ll be writing more about this next year in an extremely expensive book I am going to sell about my publishing model.
But until then, let’s move on:
If you sell a subscription/continuity offer, there are many financial — immediate and long term — reasons to create content meant for and that will only probably appeal to 10% of your customers, ie the ones who are likely making up 80-90% of your profits, and who are also very likely making up the vast majority of those who promote you and refer to you in abundance.
Thus the purpose of this long email you just spent all this time reading.
Which brings me to the December “Email Players” issue.
Like I mentioned yesterday, it will be one of the more revered & reviled issues. I suspect many will despise it and hopefully leave… never to waste my time trying to return. While others will love it and profit from it beyond the dreams of avarice for years & decades into the future.
The difference in the two types of people will be night and day.
As will be, I further suspect, the state of their business affairs.
Whatever the case, here is the link to subscribe, if you dare:
Ben Settle
