A Man and his son were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said:

“You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?”

So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their way. But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said:

“See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides.”

So the Man ordered his Boy to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn't gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other:

“Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along.”

Well, the Man didn't know what to do, but at last he took his Boy up before him on the Donkey.

By this time they had come to the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them. The Man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at. The men said:

“Aren't you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor donkey of yours and your hulking son?”

The Man and Boy got off and tried to think what to do. They thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the donkey's feet to it, and raised the pole and the donkey to their shoulders. They went along amid the laughter of all who met them till they came to Market Bridge, when the Donkey, getting one of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the Boy to drop his end of the pole. In the struggle the Donkey fell over the bridge, and his fore-feet being tied together he was drowned.

“That will teach you,” said an old man who had followed them:

“Please all, and you will please none.”

So, what's the lesson in regard to business?

Well, you can't possibly make everyone happy. There's NO way – no matter how hard you try. And, no matter how many times people say “I love what you're doing, and thank you so much!” There will always be some who aren't happy. No matter how much you second-guess yourself and try to offer value – someone will not appreciate what you're doing.

This is applicable in all areas of business, but nowhere will you feel it more than with your mailing list.

To mail or not to mail? That is the question. And, what the HECK should you mail?

Awhile back, I posted about List Building Lessons – and we touched on this topic. (That's a great blog post. Read it if you haven't yet. One of my favorites.)

After that, I started experimenting a bit. I knew that I had people on my list who wanted to hear from me more frequently, but also that I'd lose some people if I tried.

Added to that dilemma is the fact that my lists are in several places (between Aweber and my shopping carts) so there is some overlap there – people may get multiple emails.

And, to add a little more confusion is that I have autoresponder messages set to go out weekly with tips and special deals in most of my lists. So, they might get a double email from me without me sending two – just because of that autoresponder message.

So… how do you manage all of that?

Well, by offering value, I guess. And, in knowing that the people who love you want more from you. I have asked for feedback on several occasions from friends, customers, affiliates and normally I get 99%  of this…

“Yes, keep the good stuff coming!”

“I love it!”

“Nicole, I trust everything you send.”

And, then I get the ONE… well, who in no uncertain terms said that he or she would rather not hear from me as often and how DARE I send so many emails? 

So, what do you do when that happens?

Two things –

1. You look at the numbers.

For me, mailing more often caused my open rates for emails to increase while my unsubscribes actually decreased. Why? Well, I'm guessing that people started to get to know me better and/or look for my emails to come.

2. You learn that you can't please everyone.

After you stop feeling like you've been kicked in the stomach. (Yes, it always feels like that – even when it shouldn't.) Then, you objectively look at what you're doing. And, if your goal is to provide value and you see that you are — and the numbers also say that your readers, customers, affiliates — enjoy your content, then ignore the ones who you will never please.

After all, you're no donkey. lol.

Big hugs and thank you for being part of my day!

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

PS. This story also has a huge moral in being UNIQUE and not trying to please everyone because then it's harder to stand out. But, I'll save that for another day.

Friday is the day where I give you free content that you can use on your blog. Hurray!

Today, I have a new rebrandable report ready. It's the transcript of my interview with Melissa Ingold.

Here's an excerpt:

Nicole Dean: The next question is, what advice would you give to your own mother, sister, or best friend to help them succeed in their online business?

Melissa Ingold: My sister is getting into building a business and one of the first things I said to her is that she really, really has to want it. It’s the only way that she’ll stick it out and get to a point where she’s actually a success. You have to really, really want to make it happen.

I see and hear so many people they come online, but they expect it to just be so easy…

To Rebrand the report, see instructions below.

There are SEVERAL opportunities to profit with this report. However, only ONE link is required to brand this report.

Before you Begin, Make Sure You’re an Affiliate of CoachingPLRContent.com:

If not, sign up here: CoachingPLRContent Affiliate Program Signup

You can find your affiliate ID in your account by looking for the number that appears after the “r=” as shown below:

Once you’ve got that number handy, you’re set. Just follow these instructions .

1. Open this .exe Rebrander File. Your security settings may ask you to confirm that you DO want to run this.exe before you can open it. It’s an “all in one” rebrander, so it’s much easier than the old style ones.

You’ll see this screen –

2. Click on each program that you’d like and enter your affiliate link.

Required Field:

• CoachingPLRAffiliateIDHere (Here’s where you enter your ID from Coaching PLR Content)

Optional Affiliate Programs: Enter the ones you want and leave the rest blank.

For each of the programs below, you’ll enter your URL for that site – leaving off the “http://” portion. You may enter redirects if you like, but you MUST leave off the “http://” portion of all of the links that you enter.

Links will open in a new window so you won’t lose your place.

• HostGatorlink (For HostGator.com hosting.) – Click here for details.
• Amemberlink (note this is for Amember, the membership site software) – Click here for details.
• QuickSaleslink – Click here for details.
• AweberARlink (this is for Aweber – the autoresponder) – Click here for details.

Optional field:

• ClickbankID (this is your username for Clickbank)

3. Next, click the “Rebrand” button.

4. A pop-up will ask where you want to save the new file. Save it somewhere you can find it.

5. Please open and check the rebranded pdf to make sure everything branded correctly. Just open the rebranded pdf and mouse-over the links inside. Also, click on one or two of the links inside to ensure everything is working as it should be.

6. Now the fun starts! Spread that report all over the internet for maximum exposure and profits!

If you've never done this before, here's a video that I recorded for another rebrandable report that demonstrates how the software works:
Example How the Branding Software Works

Of course, if you have any questions, contact my help desk and we'll help you out. (Please include your Clickbank ID and any other links if you need help with branding.)

That's it for today. Have a great weekend!

Warmly,
Nicole Dean

How often do you check your RSS feeds? (Me? Never.)

How often do you check your bookmarks and favorite blogs? (Me? A few times each month, maybe.)

And how often do you check your email? (Uhh… lots!) Point made.

We also know that someone who visits your blog once and leaves may never find you again.

So, what's the solution? Do you copy and paste your important blog posts into an email and blast it out once in awhile? Or do a weekly recap email?

Sure, those are options. But, a much easier solution is to have your blog automatically email the people who want your info, right? Anything that saves me time also saves me money, so that'd be my preferred choice over doing it myself or paying someone to do it for me.

As I teach in Outsource Weekly:

Always Automate Before you Delegate — Unless you're Delegating the Automation!

Translation: Don't pay someone to do something that should be done by a computer, if the two services offer equally good results. The only exception would be paying someone to help you to automate a task, of course.

This is a case in point.

If you're counting on your website visitors to use RSS or bookmark a page — you're losing a lot of repeat visitors which means that those people are walking away without becoming a customer or even a fan of yours.

NOT GOOD.

So, how do you set up this automatic blog post notification system? Easy.

My preferred way is to use Aweber as you can then also take advantage of other features, they work really hard to get emails actually delivered, and you'll own your list.

The great folks at Aweber have put together a tutorial for you to show you how to set this up:

How to Send Your Blog Posts via Email

First, you'll create a signup form and place it on your blog as I have. (See in my side navigation?)

If you don't know how, again, Aweber has put together more fantastic tutorials.

How to Send Email Notifications from my WordPress Blog With AWeber? – Please note, this is for WordPress.org blogs which are the kind that you host on your own hosting account, not WordPress.com which does not allow email marketing.

How to Send Email Notifications from My Blogger Blog With AWeber? – This is for a Blogger blog. If you're using Blogger, you'll know it. Blogger is owned by Google and your original domain was probably .blogspot.com

Then, you'll find the Blog Broadcast tool in your Aweber account and will set it up to automatically send an email with new blog posts to subscribers as often as you wish. I chose a daily broadcast, since some of what I send it time-sensitive. Plus, who wants to wait for Weird Niche Wednesday? Not me!

The beauty of this system is that you can bring back your visitors again and again to build a relationship with them. And, Aweber offers click tracking and open rates so that I can see which of my blog titles are most enticing and which of the blog posts that I write get the most clicks.

We shall see when this one goes out whether you'd like more information on this topic or not, depending on how many of you open it and comment.

Here's hoping it was helpful!

Warmly,
Nicole

PS. You can set up email notifications from Feedburner, too, but I really recommend using Aweber because of the long-term potential of your list and the value of having control over it.