If you’re already offended by the censored expletive then it’s time to hit that nifty back button. After all, you came to a site called Income Bully. I’m sure you didn’t expect me to hold your hand and shield you from the harsh realities of the business world, did you? I’m not your mother.
This is a post I’ve been debating on whether I should type up or not.
At first I was going to make it more about attitude, and how you need to adjust your attitude in order to successfully run a business, but I’d rather not beat around the bush.
In this post… You can expect a little bit of ranting, some light-hearted insults, and maybe some good points you can pick up here and there.
That Thin Skin Doesn’t Look Good On You!
It seems like this is becoming more of a world wide trend where it’s “cool” to be offended by absolutely everything. In the United States, and North America in general, it’s gotten really bad.
Luckily…
In business, nobody cares if you’re offended. Your competitors don’t care, your customers don’t care, nobody cares.
Getting offended is not something a business owner can afford.
Here’s a story that some of you may be familiar with….
My most recent post was on the shake up in local and organic SEO. As with all posts I have on the blog, I send an email letting subscribers know about it.
This email broke the record for open rates and click thru rates in the history of the blog.
It also brought me some hate mail, hate comments, and unsubscribes.
The title of the email was, “Local SEO Have You Shakin’ Like Michael J Fox?”
I expected to get some blow back from people without a sense of humor. I didn’t expect people to accuse me of making fun of everyone in the entire world that has a disability, but I guess that shouldn’t have been a surprise.
Here are some quotes from people responding to the email:
Susan, the “Ethical Vegan” Credits given to Mobileto.ca / http://mobileto.ca/about-susan
I have unsubscribed to all your lists.
Apparently anything is fair game to you, even mocking people with serious disabilities. – Susan, The Ethical Vegan
You really need to grow up. – Susan The Ethical Vegan
Seriously??
Michael J Fox has Parkinson’s disease and you think this makes a funny or catchy headline? This is just disgusting and offensive.
– Susan The Ethical Vegan
I cannot believe the subject line in your email. Do you find it funny to make fun of someone with a disability? I find it extremely offensive and in VERY POOR TASTE – UNSUBSCRIBE ME IMMEDIATELY. – Louise Johnston Canadian Lady That Couldn’t Click The Unsubscribe Link Without Help
Your subject line “Shakin like Michael J Fox” was in extremely bad taste. Lost all credibility in my eyes. – Another Susan, From Moms-Make-Money.com
“Have You Shakin Like Michael J Fox?”
You, sir, are an asshole. – No Name Respondent.
Here are the facts.
87% of the people that visit this blog, are men. Most don’t have the time to get offended by something.
Women, aren’t as plentiful in the marketing arena, and unfortunately not as common in business as well. Men are my target audience, they’re more likely to subscribe, more likely to buy, and more likely to enjoy the blog posts I publish.
I’m not saying that I don’t appreciate the women visitors and subscribers here. I am saying though, that women vegans aren’t exactly my target market, and those that are sensitive and thin skinned are definitely not my target market and good riddance to all of those that decided to unsubscribe instead of absorbing the actual content. For the ladies that frequent this blog and don’t mind risque featured photos, and a bit of a brash attitude… in honor of Donald Trump, “I cherish you”.
I did enjoy the one comment, “You, sir, are an asshole”. Why, yes I am, thank you!
My job, has never been to care about whether something offends someone else, because the answer is always yes. Yes, no matter what you do, someone will be offended.
As a marketer, a business owner, and an entrepreneur, my job is to get results with whatever form of marketing I am implementing. In this case, it was an email with a subject line that may have been in poor taste, but it worked. It received 35% more opens than my best performing email and 85% more clicks than my best performing email.
Offensive? Sure… But I don’t give a damn. It worked, and if something works, nobody’s sensitivities or thin skin makes a difference to me.
A few months back, I wrote about Neil Patel, and how he was receiving flack from guys like Rand Fishkin and others about his marketing style. People accused Neil Patel, of encouraging the existence of sexual abuse in the SEO industry simply because he used a clever ad with a playmate of the year saying “Neil showed me how to make money without taking my clothes off”.
Accusing him of encouraging sexual abuse in the industry, accusing him of being sexist, is more offensive than anything else in my opinion. He’s a marketer. He’s not teaching a class on ethics in marketing. If you have a problem with him, don’t read his stuff.
It’s incredibly stupid to ignore useful content because you dislike the method of marketing or maybe disagree with a marketing message. To me, it’s a sign of lower intelligence.
People Will Try to Stomp On Your Success
When you have a business, you have to market yourself and your company. When you put yourself out there, prepare to get stomped on by other businesses, competitors, and sometimes negative family members that disagree with your unconventional outlook on life.
You guys that have been cold calling, already know this. How many times do you get hung up on each day? How many times do people insult you on the phone? It happens all the time. I still remember one of the first things someone said to me when I was cold calling “Why don’t you get a real fucking job”?
Pretty harsh… Not going to lie, more time passed between calls after I talked with that person. I couldn’t let it affect me for long though, because it was either make some sales or I won’t have a place to live. Guess what I chose? I decided to not let that bother me, and keep making calls. Even if 100 people aren’t interested, all it takes is 1 that is.
When I was first building a large list of business owners for cold emailing, I was using Mobile Renegade, scraping every business I could across the United States. I built up a pretty large list, but at the time when I first started really implementing cold email marketing, I only had a few thousand emails.
I remember the first mass email I sent after using Mobile Renegade.
I got a call, the first call, and my heart was pounding, I enthusiastically answered the phone and it was a woman from Kentucky. If memory is correct, it was a tree service company calling in response to my email.
Unfortunately, it didn’t take long to realize she wasn’t interested in what I have to offer. She was irritated, actually, she was pissed off because I emailed her. She said that’s not a good way to get business and if that’s all I’m doing I better find a new line of work to get into.
So much for southern hospitality.
I received a few other emails in response, saying “fuck off”, “go eat shit”, “stop spamming me you fucking parasite”.
I could have responded saying how offended I was, and how disgusting they are, but what good would that do?
I look back at that time, and realize things could have gone an entirely different way for me if I was thin skinned. Would I have ever started a real business? Would I have made my first sales after the guy on the phone told me to get a real job? Would I have built a massive email list, scraping the entire country for business emails? If I listened to that lady from Kentucky, would I be able to generate numerous sales with a few clicks?
I don’t believe it’s possible to be a thin skinned business owner and entrepreneur. Actually, I should add the word successful in there.
A week after I sent that email that caused the fun email responses, and the phone call with Ms. Kentucky, it was time for another email. I still remember sitting in my chair in front of my laptop, thinking about whether I should send another email.
Everything was typed up, and all I had to do was schedule the broadcast.
I probably sat there for 10 minutes before taking a smoke break, and chain smoke 3 cigarettes in a row before coming back inside and hitting the send button, then going back outside to smoke some more.
In the next 20 minutes, the phone started to ring. This time, it wasn’t some menopausal lady telling me how much of a failure I was. It was an interested business owner that ended up buying on the first call. A handful of other leads called in that day as well, and 3 other sales closed that week.
Once I launched my office, email marketing was a big part of my strategy. Always scraping, always sending, and I would still get the haters responding or calling, but the strategy was already proven. It makes money, whether they all like the message, subject, content, or not… it works. If they don’t like it? Good riddance.
Bottom Line
Running a business is not about being the most politically correct, or calculated person when determine whether something you say, do, or write is offensive.
Whether you offend someone or not, should be the last thing on your mind.
Your focus should be on making sales, generating awareness, getting attention. Your competition isn’t going to care if your feelings are hurt. Your competition doesn’t care if you don’t have food on the table. Your competition doesn’t care if you have kids depending on you.
Instead of getting offended, or allowing someone else to walk all over you so they can appear a step higher, thicken up your skin. Don’t let their nonsense get in the way of your success.
So what are you? An Entrepreneur? A Cry Baby Wannapreneur? Choice is yours.
Here’s something to cry about….
Right on man. I used to care what people thought. My sales improved once i stopped. If people dont like what you share fuck em. No time for bullshit.
It’s amazing how well you can do with sales when you stop caring about one specific lead. When you don’t care if someone buys or not, because you have an entire pipeline full of other leads, it seems to make people even more interested in doing business with you.
Right on Nathan! I love marketers who don’t hold back. It shows that you are true and real. That’s why I love Gary Vaynerchuk so much!
I appreciate it Bones!
“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”. You didn’t like what I said, oh I’m sorry. I’ll move on to the next person, who will appreciate it. I had to realize this early in my sales career, in order to put food on the table for my family. In sales you have to man up, be 10 feet tall and have bullet proof skin. Some people are just professional offense takers and you will do your head in worrying about them. I think you have to look at the bigger picture and find those who are receptive to your message. However, if the message is causing mass disruption, then by all means change it. If not, then Meh, too bad, so sad.
Yep, I agree 100%. You let little things bother you, it can ruin your life.
As a woman and someone who has followed your posts for years, I appreciate your brash in your face, tell it like you see it style. The world needs more of this, not less. I have a family member who deals with the shaking, and we have learned to laugh about it too.
I remember seeing the Neil Patel ads, that Rand Fishkin complained about, and I remember thinking those ads were great. Neil taught her how to make money without taking her clothes off! We should celebrate her accomplishment. As a woman I call Rand’s comments “complete BS”.
I was in corporate sales for years, the only woman, and I had to develop a thick skin and learn how to focus, in sh*tstorms created by my colleagues. I don’t tolerate crude behavior, but I learned how to let a lot of other things go.
I don’t abide weakness, and you my friend have HEART, love it!
I’m glad you have not let this get to you. I really enjoy your blog and look forward to each new post. Keep being you and doing what you do.
Thanks Aunt D 🙂
Only losers can afford to get mad over something as minuscule as a subject line. I’ve never seen a happy or successful person who got upset by stuff like this, they have more important things to spend their emotional bank account on.
I think political correctness and all this other BS that is going on is simply a sign of people with low self-esteem, you only have to look at 99% of feminists and SJWs to see it.
LOL, I agree. When did all this start? I don’t remember it being like this as a kid, or as a teenager. The cool thing now seems to be getting offended by everything. I think the cool thing is when you don’t get offended by anything at all, lol. People that don’t care at all, seem to be my favorite people.
Sheesh Nathan! I’m with Aunt D above and all the rest. I, sometimes, get a little butt hurt when someone doesn’t want to do business with me, but in reality, it’s more about my wanting to make that sale than it is that they said no. I hope that makes sense. I really don’t care if they’re still struggling to get business and think that “word of mouth” is still the best way to get them out of poverty.
I have been working my tail end off, improving my businesses and hey, guess what? IT’S WORKING! If I were to let some fool get under my skin, I’d still be where I was a few months ago.
I’m never mean to people, but I have always been someone that prefers direct, to the point kind of stuff.
Oh, and the picture above? Hilarious.
Theresa
Haha, thanks Theresa.
Glad to hear things are going good for you! Keep it up, consistent action always gets results.
I’m deeply offended by…..
1. You used a small image at the end of your post, instead of a large one.
2. You misspelled F*#!ING, everyone knows that is supposed to be spelled FU(l<ING!
3. You didn't leave an obvious link for us to sign up for Susan, The Ethical Vegans, mail list, so we could unsubscribe from it when she offends us by destroying plant life for her nourishment.
4. And lastly, your obvious promotion of smoking as a form of motivation…
(Note: Sarcasm Intended)
Another awesome post. Hope no one is offended because I think Nathan is awesome…
Mister Diggles, I have seen the error of my ways. I guess I should repent and make things right… lol.
Nathan, you are the man. I always enjoy your stuff. Let the offended wussies be offended. I for one, am so sick and tired of everyone and their bullshit being offended. This country has gone soft. Keep up the good work my friend.
mak25
Thanks Mak!
To the people who unsubscribed, BYE!!!!
That means I will have an edge on you by reading Nate’s content on his blogs and buying his products and product recommendations, lol.
Marc
^ Thanks Marc… sounds good to me! lol.
Yeah people are too thin skinned…Personally I wouldn’t reference MJF in that way because I believe what goes around comes around, and I would put myself in the position of asking myself: “Would I have the guts to say what I said in FRONT of MJF himself??
Not me, lol, at the same time I believe in free speech and I WILL defend that wholeheartedly.
So anyway, I sense you are the TRUTH when it comes to IM no holds barred, and overall I admire that…BTW I’m kinda new to IM, and my passionate interest is do ”rank and rent” sites…If you know of anybody that teaches that other than the outrageously expensive but amazing ”Job killing” course, give me a holla…businesses are WAITING for my help, so someone help me to get this crappy American economy rolling again, point me in the right direction, and help me help others, businesses are waiting for their savior in my local area. Take care.
this is inspired me, thanks for sharing !