Mark McGuinness - Resilience: Facing Down Rejection by Mark McGuinness Page B

first.
Include a one-click ‘unsubscribe’ link in every email you send.
Use a professional email service that will automate the signup and delivery process and help you manage the list. See the Resilience resources page for recommended services: http://lateralaction.com/resilience-resources
Invite people to sign up to the list and explain what’s in it for them—on your website, when you speak in public, when you meet them in person.
Remember: give more than you ask for! Send them valuable information, tips and advice; share the news that matters to them ; surprise them by delivering more than you promised.
Don’t just treat it like a sales channel! (Or a ‘request channel’ if you’re not selling anything.) Sales messages and requests are fine, as long as they are super-relevant and they aren’t all you send. Otherwise people will unsubscribe in droves.
Write compelling subject lines. Most people scan their inbox, so a message like ‘April newsletter’ is hardly going to inspire them to open your email. Give them a reason to open it, with a subject line that explains (a) what’s inside and (b) why it matters to them. For example, ‘Tango for beginners—free class Monday 12th April,’ or ‘Four simple strategies for tackling any problem.’ To learn how to write better subject lines, read Brian Clark’s series on Writing Magnetic Headlines: http://www.copyblogger.com/magnetic-headlines/
    8. Make it sustainable
    Building an opportunity magnet takes time, and the rewards are not immediate, so you need three things to sustain your efforts long enough to see them bear fruit:
     
Passion You MUST be passionate about the subject and about connecting with your audience, in order to put in the time and effort required to make it a success.
Organisation Finding time for a medium-to-long-term project is rarely easy. To do it, you’ll need to be good at organizing your time—my free ebook Time Management for Creative People will help you: http://www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/2007/12/03/time-management-for-creative-people-free-e-book/
Support As your project grows, it may well get to the stage where it’s impossible for you to run it all by yourself. Fortunately, this can only happen if you’re attracting plenty of enthusiastic people who share your passion—so don’t be too proud to ask for help!
    9. Brace yourself…
    You will be doing something wrong if you don’t get plenty of praise and enthusiasm from the people you have set out to help. Enjoy it. And brace yourself for the inevitable criticism—we’ll look at how to handle that in the next section…
    Notes:
    Speaking Out, http://speakingoutevents.com
    Seth Godin, Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers , (Pocket Books, new edition 2007)

Criticism

23. Dare to be a tall poppy
    The seventh and last King of Rome was Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, known as Tarquin the Proud. According to the historian Livy, one day the King received a messenger from his son Sextus Tarquinius, asking for advice on how to deal with the city of Gabii, east of Rome.
    Tarquin said nothing to the messenger, but went out into the garden and swept his stick in an arc, cutting off the heads of the tallest poppies growing there.
    Puzzled, the messenger returned to his master and reported what he had seen. On hearing the story, Sextus grasped his father’s meaning and ordered the deaths of all the most powerful men in Gabii.
    The memory of that bloody episode survives today as tall poppy syndrome —the idea that people who distinguish themselves from the crowd by their talents or achievements are liable to be resented and criticized (or worse).
    As soon as you try to achieve something original, you start to stick out like a tall poppy. Rise too high and some people will inevitably start itching to cut you down to size. But it’s the nature of some poppies to grow tall, just as it’s your nature to dream big.
    Dare to be a tall poppy.
    Note:
    Titus