Why it's OK to ignore bad tempered old gits

I don’t know if you caught Nathan’s post on Copyblogger? It was typically good, but the comments were world class! Take a look, but get a coffee first – there are quite a few!

Image: Maggie Smith / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The ones that really struck me were those posted by Brian Clark and Sonia Simone. They were saying that we shouldn’t try to market our blogs to everyone, that we should focus on the smaller number of people who we can really connect with. And that kind of switched a light on for me. Let me explain why:

Some of you may have caught the comment on this blog from Harl Delos on my “Three words for 2010” post. To save you the trip, the post was about the three words I want to use to inform my blogging in the coming year. They are Service, Warm and Connected. Here’s what Harl put in his comment:

“Mike, when I filled out the form at the bottom of your page, it said it would send an email with confirmation instructions. It never arrived. I went to a different email account, and sent an email to that address. It's receiving mail perfectly. I came back here, and filled out my name and address again, in order to get you to send another email. The message I got scolded me for not following the instructions in the email THAT I NEVER GOT, and told me that as punishment, I would have to wait half a day to try again to subscribe.
That's warm?
That's service?
That's connected?
I could answer all those questions with TWO words, instead of three, but I prefer not to use such language. Mike, I am not going to sit here for a dozen hours, waiting on you to accept my request that you send me some bleeping advertising. I think you better rethink your attitude. Not only will I NOT be back in twelve hours begging for crumbs, but I'm removing you from my RSS reader, and I'm unfollowing you on Twitter.”

Pretty strong, no? I have to tell you that I broke out in a cold sweat when I read that. It really cut me to the quick. I reacted swiftly by replying with an apology, then I sent him an email. After waiting an hour and getting no response, I thought maybe my email was being blocked by his spam filter, and I figured that would explain why he didn’t get the confirmation link in the first place from my Aweber account.

So I sent another email from a totally different account. Again, after a couple of hours, no reply. In desperation, I visited his site (Drupal! Hooray!) and found the contact form, which I duly completed. In each contact, I apologized for the inconvenience and asked how I could help. I offered to simply send the free book all subscribers get if that was what he wanted. All I got back was an auto response to the contact form telling me he’d get back to me quickly. Then nothing.

I agonized over this for five days. Call me sensitive, but I hate being called out as a fraud, which is basically what his comment was suggesting. Particularly when it was over something as difficult to control as email deliverability.

And then I read Brian’s and Sonia’s comments. It dawned on me that whatever lead to Harl reacting so strongly probably happened some time ago. If I’d managed to really connect with him, to make him part of my small community, then he simply would never have behaved in the way he did. He would have dropped me a quick email to tell me there was a problem somewhere, and we would have dealt with it. And if I’d built any kind of connection with him, he would at least have replied to my numerous attempts to get in touch with him.

Harl was never going to be a real part of the Mike’s Life community, and I shouldn’t have wasted so much time trying to keep him in the fold, or stressing about his lack of response.

Mike’s Life people are passionate, warm, interesting, full of life and vitality - they’re fun! And they understand how email works. They aren’t bad tempered old gits.

If you aren’t a crusty pensioner with a full beard and an interest in obscure logging tools, then please consider joining the Mike’s Life community. Just put your first name and email in the boxes top right, and I look forward to chatting with you!