When you are in direct marketing long enough, you eventually get haters.
Of course, a lot of what haters say are lies and projection. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say they weren’t right about me sometimes, too. Like, for example, the people hating on me for my deadline rules.
Yes, dear reader, I am a dick about deadlines.
One guy even called me a “Deadline Nazi”, which was amusing.
And they absolutely are right about that.
I simply don’t care the excuse, or circumstance, or the person asking me to make exceptions for my deadlines. Long time customers, peers, and even good friends, or just people I highly respect up in this bid’niz, have been denied access to premiums & discounts due to missing a deadline. I have no doubt left much “spreadsheet money” on the table as a result. But spreadsheet money is a pittance, in my experience, to the long term sales that come from the benefits of enforcing deadlines.
Even good friends have wondered if I do this just for the sake of being an arsehole.
But that has nothing to do with it.
I do it first and foremost to serve the very people who think I am being a jerk.
What I mean by that is this:
By being a “Deadline Nazi” people who missed out from their not being able to tell time or from just being flakey or even from legitimately missing out for legitimate reasons beyond their control (which is rare, it’s almost always from them not paying attention, not the deadline itself)… are often the first people to buy the next time I have a special offer or launch something or sell something as an affiliate with a clearly defined deadline attached to it.
And, I have long noticed they develop better overall attitudes, too.
In other words:
Obnoxiously enforced deadlines not only make them better customers… but better people, too. I have seen this enough times to know this is not a fluke. The mentally unstable ones will keep hating on me for it. But the normal people, who I want to deal with, are the opposite.
And a big part of that is sticking to my deadlines.
Added to which it’s rather selfish of people to ask to make exceptions in the first place.
Why should someone who played the flake (my affiliate, product launch, and special sales campaigns are almost always at least 4 if not 5 days — plenty of time to buy) get special treatment over someone who was a responsible adult and grown up and bought within the deadline time, didn’t wait until the last 30 seconds where a cart can hiccup or a card can be rejected for any reason or no reason at all… and respected my time and business?
The answer:
They shouldn’t.
They should be punished.
And that punishment, like when punishing any bad behavior, leads to good behavior. Or, at least, makes it more likely to result in good behavior. People want to mystify this but it’s just plain common sense. The small thinking and Needy mind cannot comprehend it, though. And the small thinking and Needy are usually the haters and trolls anyway.
That is no coincidence in my opinion.
Anyway, I don’t know where else I’m going with this other than to throw some red meat to the responsible and curious.
For more on the paid Email Players newsletter go here:
Ben Settle
