Today I was talking to the owner of a successful Facebook ads agency. She said something interesting about a potential client she turned away.
I asked if I could reprint what she told me in my email and use her name.
She refused. At least the name part.
“Never ever name me,” she said. “Not my real name. Give me a cool name, some exotic dancer’s name.”
So let’s call her Misty Mirage.
And yes, you now have the right to feel I catfished you into reading this email, because this is as close to exotic dancers as this story is going to get.
You have every right to close down this email or even to unsubscribe in frustration.
But you might still want to read on, because what happened was short but steamy.
So Misty Mirage was talking to a potential client today. They were talking about a private dance, aka. a Facebook ads campaign that Misty would run.
Except, the guy didn’t have the money to pay Misty her usual exotic rate. He was trying to negotiate some kind of payment plan.
Normally, Misty would try to accommodate a broke but nice client and still do a little dance for him. But perhaps because of the alignment of the stars and the moon, today she refused.
As she told me:
“Normally I would have tried to help this dude for free, and done a ton of work, and then he would have ended up disappointed and so would I. Because it wouldn’t have worked without a lot of effort and a lot of money. If this guy doesn’t have the money to pay me, he’s not gonna have the money to run ads properly. So I told him, ‘Can’t do it for you.'”
I’ve previously suggested choosing clients and customers by asking yourself, “Would I bet on this person? If I could only get paid if they end up successful, would I still take their money upfront?”
I still think this is a good question to ask. But apparently it’s not good enough.
Like Misty’s case shows, even successful business owners will do work for free just to be nice.
Maybe it’s not always “free” free work.
But it’s free work nonetheless — selling their products or services for cheaper than they could sell them, or giving away consultations or good advice, or simply not charging for all they do or all the time that they invest.
I know I’ve done it in the past. Sometimes I still catch myself doing it. Maybe you’re doing it too.
So I’m here to tell you, it’s okay to stop.
It’s okay to say no.
It’s okay to send people away, even if they’re nice, because they simply have too many pieces missing for you to really help them. It can be genuine charity. And it will also help your business.
And now:
Since I love to apply the ideas I write about, I would like to announce that tomorrow I will give away something for free.
But it won’t be anything of my own.
It will be a free, time-limited bonus for anyone who has bought my Simple Money Emails course. This free bonus is currently selling for as much as Simple Money Emails sells for. But you get it for free, if you are a Simple Money Emails buyer.
More info on that tomorrow.
But if you’d like to get Simple Money Emails today, both because it can show you how to write steamy, burlesque-like emails like this one, and because you want tomorrow’s free bonus, whatever it may be, then head on over here: