The best way to get a response

Bonjour from France 👋

This week I’m on a retreat with the team at ConvertKit.

On the way here I met a man from Texas who sounded like a man from Boston.

He was very nice and very confident.

Confidence that landed him in a first class seat.

He was concerned about the seat size, looked for an opportunity, and when a passenger didn’t like their seat he said: “I’ll move to that seat in first class so they can sit here.”

And it worked!

Some would think he was a pushy opportunist, but I saw it differently. The lesson I took away was that you often don’t get what you really want if you don’t ask.

This applies to your email list as well.

How often do you ask your subscribers to take action?

Do you ask for feedback?

Ask for replies to start a conversation?

Share your product or service asking for sales?

A vast majority never do. They tiptoe around the subject, putting links to things and implying what they want, then getting frustrated when nothing happens.

Sometimes you have to ask for what you want.

I know you're a kind person so you're probably saying: "I don't want to be pushy"

Let's reframe that a bit...

Pushy is an expectation.

When someone is "pushy", they keep trying to make you do something.

They won't give up until you do what they want.

The key is to not EXPECT the person to take action.

• Ask without expectation
• Be delighted with the response you get
• If it’s not what you hoped for… keep iterating.

One more thing to keep in mind about asks...

Be thoughtful and strategic about your asks.

Everything you ask your subscribers to do uses up some of the good will you've built with them.

If you constantly take more than you give, you will lose out when it comes to the important asks (like buying a product or giving you a review).

So maybe that guy on the airplane was on to something after all. What do you think?