Haters, Heroes and (dis)Honor

Life in the Substack world

I got a hater but I’m loving it (sort of)!  Haters are a good problem to have. More on that in a minute. But first…

Hi,

How are you?  Karen here, back from travels and ready to jump back into your inboxes. Hope you’ve had an awesome two weeks.

Today I want to talk about haters and share a heroic moment. But first, since you’re here to learn about Substack, I wanted to share a helpful post from the earliest days of Pubstack Success.

Okay, back to the haters…

Why I love haters

Here’s why I (try) to love haters when I get one.

• You only get haters if you get lots of eyes on your work.  So haters are a sign you are getting bigger.

• You get haters when people get “triggered” by you.  To trigger people you need people to notice what you are doing (that’s kind of hard when you’re a tiny fish on the big ‘ol internet).

• You get haters when people commit their dollars to you and your work.  For every hater, 100 not-haters are delighted to pay for your work. It’s a numbers game.

… this is what I tell myself anyway (coz haters do sting a little, of course).

This week’s hater was a Subtack creator who purchased a ‘Help’ call with me and then didn’t book the actual call.  She complained that I “plummetted” her inbox with emails telling her to purchase more products and that I was therefore “without honor”.

Fair enough, except that I only have one follow-up email in the purchase sequence (pause while all marketing experts gasp in horror).  And the only thing it asks people to do is book their call time, with the promise of a full refund if they can’t find a time that works for them. 

One follow-up email, no further sales pitches: it’s true, I suck at digital marketing.

Since this person thought I was bombarding her inbox, I wonder if she maybe had me mixed up with someone else?  Or perhaps my usual once-per-week emails from Substack and Medium were bothering her?

My guess is that she had used traditional spammy digital marketing for her own services in the past and felt uncomfortable doing it (me too!) and now gets triggered when she thinks someone else is doing it.  Hey, we all got issues!

Unfortunately, amongst all the “plummeting” emails supposedly raining down on this poor person was the only email I personally sent, I handwritten note in which I told her I had noticed she hadn’t booked her time yet, said I was worried that she might have missed the follow-up, and gave her a fresh link to my booking system.

Guess she didn’t get that email. Sometimes ya just can’t win.

What to do with haters

If your publication is growing and you start getting haters, think of it as a ‘good problem to have’.

• If you are getting haters in your online world, they are a sign your circle of influence is getting larger: Congratulations!  Here’s what to do with your haters…

• Treat them with sincere kindness and respect – they are obviously having a shitty week.  If money’s involved, refund without hesitation. 

• Don’t argue, don’t complain.  Definitely don’t complain that refunds are expensive due to lost fees.

• Review your system to make sure there are no actual problems.  If you find any, fix them.

• File the incident in your mental Haters folder and empty it straight in the trash.

I’m feeling heroic (in other news…. )

I have just spent two weeks glued to my desk building a new thing to help Substack creators and, hooray hooray, it’s (just about) finished!

I’m so excited about it (but I DESPISE the look of the videos!)

This thing is going to let me help heaps more people while I put time into my paid newsletter, which, if I’m honest, has been suffering lately, while my attention has been elsewhere.

I’ve been fighting the tech gremlins recording videos all week…

What I’ve built is a program based on the experience I gained doing audits of other people’s Substacks.  These audits aren’t about me being the ‘expert’ but instead they’re a process of looking systematically inside a publication and seeing ‘gaps’ and strengths that aren’t obvious to its creator.

I love doing audits and wish I could do more, but I haven’t had the time to commit to as many as I want.

Instead, I’ve packaged up my audit process into a program for anyone to follow whenever they want.  The aim is to help Substack publication owners look objectively at their work, benchmark it against best practices and discover what needs to be done to close any gaps. 

It’s going to be super helpful, and I can’t wait to share it. 

Here’s a sneaky peek inside. (Don’t know what was going on with the lighting in this vid…🤔)

Okay, that’s it for this week. 

Have a great one.

Karen

P.S. Have you had any haters?  Did you see it as a good sign… a sign that you are getting seen in more places? (I hope so)  What did your hater complain about?  Let me know in the comments.