How Email Topic Affects Client Trust and Rapport

Sometimes when I write something to a client, it answers a deep question that wouldn’t have been fleshed out without the question.

I wrote this in response to a client asking me to mail an article of theirs (a great article, by the way) to my list.

Here’s what I wrote:

Yes, I would agree, that’s an amazing article!

however, I want to share something – teach something – about the business – that will be a teaching moment for you, and also explain why I may not mail this article to my list . . .

here goes:

when you build a list based on a certain topic, you earn the right – and the trust – to communicate with folks. And that right initially is conditional on their want or need to learn more about that particular topic.

Anytime you deviate from that topic, you risk losing or degrading trust.

So you have to be very very careful how you manage your own relationship with your own subscribers.

Now, here’s why my own list comes in . . .

you see, my list isn’t a cash register or lottery machine where I can just mail anything . . I have to evaluate anything I mail not only for it’s “goodness” (which your article passes with flying colors” but also for it’s relevance to the people on the list IN THE CONTEXT IN WHICH THEY TRUST ME

and for this article, it just doesn’t connect with the primary communication I do with my list . . which is entrepreneurial, email marketing, coaching topics etc.

now, you might ask, well what about your spiritual teaching?

and for 1, I always take a risk of reducing trust with some individuals – a risk I’m willing to take.

But keep in mind also the care and respect with which I introduce each faith based call, to let folks know it’s not required, if you don’t want to be here, etc . . .

And of course over time I’ve developed a cohort of clients who look to me for spiritual guidance, and so I’ve earned to right myself to share those thoughts.

I hope all of that is helpful . . .

and I think if you look at the article I DID mail for you ,. . . it connected very tightly with the purpose in the mailings so my own list . . so even though I didn’t explain all of this at that time, you can see that the mailing of THAT article met my criteria for sharing to my list 🙂

Sean