Letters, We Get Letters, We Get Lots and Lots of Letters

Letters, We Get Letters, We Get Lots and Lots of Letters

First, I swear that all that follows is true. I have not made it up.

I offer both paid and free subscription services, in text, audio, and/or video. Invariably, the people who pay are less demanding, more polite, and more flexible in their expectations. However, overall, 99 percent of all subscribers are either highly positive or not heard from at all.

But, brother, that other 1 percent! Again, I am NOT making this up.

• A woman scolds me that she did not get her free audio download within 48 hours or ordering. I told her it was within 48 hours of the actual teleconference, still a month away, and that I could hardly send her a download of something that hasn’t yet taken place.

• “I wanted to tell you that the end of your video has you in a pose as if you’re grabbing something, and Steve Jobs would not have approved of it if you’re trying to tell us you’re a million dollar consultant.”

• “I’m writing to tell you I disagree with you.” (He never said about what.)

• In response to my suggestion that the critical nature of his email revealed great defensiveness: “I am NOT DEFENSIVE!”

• “I’ve found nine typos in your books. Why don’t you correct them instead of selling them this way?” (These were published by Wiley and McGraw-Hill.)

• “My system can’t open your mailing. Would you send separate mailings to me each week using this address?”

• A free subscriber: “You owe it to your customers to listen to our feedback and use it. If you don’t do this, I’ll have to unsubscribe.”

• Him: “Why did you unsubscribe from my mailings?”

Me: “Because I have tens of thousands of subscribers and if I accepted all of their mailings and newsletters I’d be swamped, so I accept none.”

Him: “Well, mine is better than everyone else’s so if that’s your attitude unsubscribe me!”

• “There is no link as promised in your mailing.”

Me: “The link is in the first line, and it’s in the very document you’re returning to me here.”

• Him: “You neglected to send this week’s edition of Common Sense Consulting® Weekly Video. I scrolled to the bottom, and it’s not there.”

Me: “That’s because it’s on top.”

• “When will the hour teleconference starting at noon end?”

• “You telling me that the email address I used to register is the one I need to access the publication each week, but I don’t know my email address.”

• Her: “I’m putting in my email address and unsubscribing but I keep getting your newsletter.”

Me: “You’re not in my system. Someone else is forwarding their copy to you.”

Her: “Well, tell them to stop.”

© Alan Weiss 2013