Some people are natural contrarians — wired to go against the flow.
I’m a bit that way. I don’t know why.
One of the earlier contrarian moments I remember was in middle school.
I was normally a pretty quiet kid. Just keeping my head down.
But when it came to issues of fairness… well… it was like someone lit a fire under me.
One time we had a student teacher for a few weeks.
And she did something — for the life of me I can’t remember what it was — but it was something that us students were strictly NOT allowed to do.
So my internal “fairness” alarm bell rang. And my hand shot up.
“Yes, Chris”, my usual teacher said.
“How come she’s allowed to do that, but we’re not?”, came my to-the-point question.
I didn’t get my answer… because I spent the rest of the day out in the hall by myself. Supposedly thinking about my actions for “being so rude”.
I still don’t get the logic. I mean: fair’s fair… right?
Oh well.
Then in high school my contrarian thinking struck again.
By then I had developed a philosophical objection to homework.
It’s like this:
They make us come to school for the best part of the day. It’s not my problem if they can’t teach us properly!
Plus I’ve got more important things to do with my out of school time. Like immersing myself in computers and programming.
Perhaps that kept me from top grades. But did set me up for a life of geekdom… plus a decade of software development jobs.
It’s not about swimming against the tide just for the sake of it. Although I see why it could be misunderstood as attention seeking.
But I say: It’s good to have people that don’t conform to expectations.
They help us see that there’s different ways to solve problems.
They help us question our assumptions.
They help stretch our minds… giving us food for thought.
It’s kind of like this with daily email — my current contrarian thing.
There are many experienced marketers and business people who have built their businesses on it.
I’ve hung around them a lot. So am busy practicing what I’ve learned.
But it’s still a niche kind of thing. Rather contrarian.
Those people who love to go with marketing “best practices” frown from the other side of the aisle and trot out the usual reasons not to do it like: “You’ll burn out your list”.
But I wonder why they don’t seem to look at the examples of people who have successfully taken on this model — and made it the core of their businesses — and who aren’t living these horror stories.
Daily email works because it’s about relationships.
And it’s NOT about trying to be all things to all people.
It’s about being yourself. Attracting people who are like you and like what you do. And naturally repelling people who aren’t like you and don’t like what you do.
Obviously there’s plenty of nuance to all that… which is way too much to include in this email.
It’s one reason why I’m thinking of putting together a short, low-priced ebook… a “howto” guide on writing daily email.
And if I go ahead with this, I’ll definitely explain more about why daily email works.
This product will provide a helpful way to get into a regular daily writing routine as a freelancer — writer or not.
In it you’ll find things like:
Why write daily email? And the benefits for your freelancing business
Why having an audience is a MUST (it can’t just be a convenient family member!)
How to ignore just about every bit of copywriting advice you’ve ever learned for emails. And why this will make your daily emails SO MUCH BETTER.
How forgetting about images and design in emails can work to your advantage. And your audience’s.
My toolkit for writing and emailing daily. Including why I use BerserkerMail. And I’ll also point out some free options that won’t leave you pulling your hair out (too much, anyway!)
How to leverage daily email writing practice as a core part of your business.
If you’d find an ebook like this useful… let me know by clicking here
If you think something other than an ebook would be helpful. Click the link AND ALSO reply with your ideas. I’m all ears!
Have a great rest of the weekend!
Ready to build your email list? Go here…
EmailForTheWin.com
Chris Milham