Evan Carmichael sorts incoming messages into four types: fans, haters, spammers, and people you have to decline. Always thank fans, try to convert haters but drop them if they won't budge, delete spam, and for requests you can't fulfill, respond with alternatives and explain your time constraints.
Chapters
How to write back when you have to say no. So recently I made a video called Write Back where I encourage people to, on their social media channels, when people write to you, to write back, right? Just this kind of common decency. And one of my YouTube viewers, love you guys, Sharon, wrote in to say, great video, what is your advice for writing back when you have to say no 'Or that you don't like something. I find it easy to respond when it's a nice thing, but harder when it's not. How can I stay positive in these responses without seeming insincere? Thanks again, love these videos. Sharon.' So Sharon, this is a great question, and I tend to lump these kind of incoming communications into 4 categories, okay? The first one is your fans, and these are the ones that you love responding to. These are the positive comments. These are what motivates me every day when I wake up and turn on my computer and I'm eating my lentils for breakfast and I see your comments coming in. The fans are supporting you, and just doing that, just responding to the positive ones, already puts you ahead of most people, which is shocking. It blows my mind. It's shocking, but just doing that— I can't tell you how many people I've written to on Twitter or commented on a YouTube video and say just saying, "Hey, great stuff. Congratulations. You know, love your book, love your video, great points," whatever, and you hear nothing back. I get nothing. I don't know. I'm used to responding to people, and just doing that seems like a basic thing for me. Anyway, respond to your fans. Okay, number 1. Number 2 is going to be your haters. The little man. The people who nitpick at the stuff you're saying, who find faults with everything, who try to poke holes in your argument, who just hate. Instead of making something great and doing something good with their lives, they focus on negativity and tearing other people down. And unfortunately, there's a lot of these people in the world. And that's up to you. Do you respond or not? Up to you. You know, typically what I'll do is I'll tend to respond and I'll try to turn them around. And sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't. And if I'm in the emails a couple emails deep and they're not changing and they're not understanding, then I'll let it drop. But I'll usually respond a couple times just to try to bring them back, you know? Don't be so negative, man. Like, don't focus so much on the specific words, but focus on the idea and do something positive with your life. A lot of times it's just helping them see that they have potential. You know, they could do something great and nobody has ever believed in them probably in their whole life and so they're so negative. But it's optional. You know what, you don't want to be surrounded by negative people? Don't respond. The third group are the spammers. Spammers. I get so many emails that are, you know, "Dear Michael, love your website. We have a great promotional offer for you. You can sell your Audience, our great pet food. It's like, are you kidding me? Really? Like, did you even look at my website? Do you even know my name? Do you look at who I serve? Are you kidding me? Do a little bit of research. Spammers, whatever, that gets deleted. That's not going to get a response. And then the fourth are the group of people who you have to let down, you know, the ones you say no to. Often I'll get people write into me and, you know, I value my time, okay? I have a lot of stuff on the go, a lot of projects. I'm working on tons of stuff, and I value my time, and I can't say yes to everybody, right? I can't say yes to everybody, but I don't want to just ignore people. And so people write into me and they want me to review their book, or they want me to speak at an event, or they want me to— I get a lot of people say, hey, can you call me? Can we have an hour phone call to talk about something? Like, I don't— I I would love to, but I don't have that time. I can't do that, right? Otherwise I'd just be bombarded. It's too much. And so you can think about— well, what I'll do is I'll think about an alternative, right? If somebody wants me to call them, say, well, I can make a video response for you if you have a specific question, and let them know I don't have time to call everybody individually. Or if they want me to review their book and I just don't have time for it, I'll say, you know what, I'd love I'd love to, I appreciate it, thank you for thinking of me, but I just have too much on my plate right now. Good luck with the project. So I'm being honest, you know, like I want their thing to succeed, I just don't have the time, right? Or I don't have the interest, or it's not a fit for what I'm doing right now. And so if you are, you know, you're still positive in that you appreciate them for reaching out to you, you're still positive in that you're wishing them good luck with whatever what they're trying to do. You know, hopefully they're doing something important and give them the best wishes, but you let them know that you can't help out right now. You know, you don't have to attack them. You don't have to say, hey, that book, that's a crappy idea. I don't want any part of it. Say, thank you for thinking of me. I've got just way too much on the go right now. Good luck with the book, right? That's a lot nicer, more positive vibes being sent out than having to slam somebody. So those are the 4 types of people who, who write into me and how I respond, and hopefully that helps you. Believe. For those of you watching, like the video, let me know how you deal with these people, leave a comment below. If you like this video, you can click on the support me link in the description and click on my face, subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much, I'll see you soon.
