I sent out my holiday newsletter yesterday. Based on the responses I’m getting already, it surpassed (by far!) newsletters I sent in earlier years. Usually I get a pretty anemic response rate–people are busy and some of them follow me all year long on Facebook and here–so this year I didn’t expect anything different: a kind of benign indifference.

 

What a surprise!

 

It has to be the goat pictures and the awards. In years past, my holiday newsletter didn’t have baby goat pix on the front page at all, let alone in abundance. I also didn’t have three writing awards and a “Disrupting Normal” award to display (as small banners). So see, I really had NEWS this year–enjoyable, positive, uplifting news.

 

Of course the other comment I’ve received most frequently is how ‘pre-punctual’ I am this year.  My thought in issuing it early is that I may get swamped soon with work and be unable to issue a newsletter later in the year, so while I had the time, I decided to do it.  It isn’t just a matter of writing it; it’s also a matter of sending it out to hundreds of present and former clients, friends, business associates and family members. It took hours yesterday to do the deed.

 

In the past three days new clients have come to me that I had no way of anticipating. One of them came from a business card I tacked on  a bulletin board at Tractor Supply Company in Puyallup (a place we regulars still call Del’s). Two other potential clients came from Thumbtack when I got back into my archived files to send a follow up “keep me in the loop” to people whose projects I submitted a quote on. I always follow up with the ones who don’t assign their projects to someone else. Once in a blue moon someone actually gets back to me to say, “yes, let’s engage…” so it’s worth my while to take this extra step at least once a month. In this case, two clients wanted to follow up, so I hit the jackpot this month.

 

This morning at 10 I’ll be talking to an engaged Elance/Upwork client who wants me to make a corporate website more friendly and engaging.  I need to make sure he’s the final arbiter of the copy; he may not be.  He has agreed to my vision for the new copy, but I’m not sure his partners have, and I won’t engage unless everybody is on board with the vision.  Most corporate websites in the niche are mind-numbingly BORING, so I’ll be writing outside the box and that might scare a bunch of people. I don’t want to work hard on something and then have another ‘decider’ nix the vision.  It has happened before and I don’t want it to happen again.  If businesses want to keep shooting themselves in the foot by putting yawnsome copy and content on their sites, I’m all for letting them–or, let’s put it this way: I’m NOT for abetting them. I know what works (this is far from my first rodeo) and that doesn’t work!

 

Anyway, it’s a great feeling to know the recipients of my holiday newsletter liked it well enough to actually get back to me and comment on various aspects of it.  It makes my day to know I’ve given someone grins!