I have watched Simon Sinek’s TED talk many times, in fact so many times I can recite parts of it by heart. The TED talk: “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” explains the Golden Circle of “Start With Why”. In fact I have it playing right now as I type this. If you haven’t listened/watched here is the link.
How then does it seem Simon Sinek hacked my emails last week?
Here’s what happened. Last week I’m sending an email to a small group of people on one of my email lists. I work with people who are starting their own business, or thinking about starting their own business and at every opportunity I recommend people watch Simon Sinek’s TED talk and I often send the link. I had mentioned to this particular group that The Simon Sinek TED talk is a great way to understand the importance of getting to their “Why?”. Why are they starting their own business?
I had offered to send the them link so I was setting up the email in my Campaign Monitor account.
Here’s my first mistake: I’m setting up the email. Me. I have a perfectly good assistant who sets up my emails and for some reason I’m doing it myself.
I’m setting up the email in my Campaign Monitor account at 9:30 pm.
Here’s my second mistake. It’s 9:30 pm. What am I doing setting up an email at 9:30 at night? Apart from doing my own email (when I have a perfectly good assistant) I’m doing it late at night after a long day. Compounded by the fact that I’m a natural early bird – some nights I’m actually asleep at 9:30 and here I am setting up the email.
I’m setting up the email in my Campaign Monitor account at 9:30 pm and there are multiple links to multiple other web pages. Truly, what am I thinking??!!
I sent out the email to the right people with all the right links.
Then I wanted to forward the email to a few other people so I did. This is where Simon Sinek gets into my email.
The next morning I received an email from one of my new clients: “Hi Ingrid, thanks for your email. I’m trying to pay for your upcoming session and I’m clicking the link and it keeps taking me to Simon Sinek’s TED talk. Is that where it is supposed to take me?” Hhhmm that’s strange.
During the day I received a few more of the same email “Hi Ingrid, I cannot book our session with that link, it keeps taking me to Simon Sinek’s TED talk”
I couldn’t help thinking: “Why is Simon Sinek hacking my emails with his TED talk??
Of course he wasn’t hacking my email, he hadn’t and there is no way he would!!
Some how when I forwarded the emails to my other clients the links became out of order – nothing to do with Campaign Monitor either. Everything to do with me doing my own emails, late at night and thinking I knew what I was doing with the multiple links.
Big Lesson!!
- Stop doing things in my business! I have other people to help me do these thing.
- Don’t think I can do things in the middle of the night.
- ALWAYS email the test to myself to look at preview and test every link before sending out.
Fortunately for me my clients value what I do and want to be part of the sessions. Big Lesson!
I’m Ingrid Thompson and thank you for reading this post.
My guess is that you are here because you are curious about what it might be like to start a business?
Perhaps you’ve been wondering if you have what it takes? If your idea will work or even how much it actually costs to build a successful business?
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Happy reading!