80 | How to Handle Negative Feedback about your Newsletter

0:00 Hi there. Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman. I'm an herbalist and nutritionist. And in this podcast, I share little tips and tidbits that might be helpful for other practitioners. So today, I wanted to share with you a little bit more about what happens when somebody writes back to your newsletter with something kind of crappy to say. And I went back and forth about whether I should share this at all, because as some of you know, I just finished writing a book about writing newsletters to bring in more one-on-one clients. And I know so many people who are starting newsletters, and it's a very tender, vulnerable place. There's already a lot of courage that it takes to send something out there, especially if you're writing a newsletter that feels like you, that talks about things that you care about, that's an expression of the work that you do, that's your attempt to reach out and be a healing presence in the world, it does feel like, wow, I'm just putting it out there and just sending it, especially when you don't have very many readers or subscribers, already feels vulnerable. And I was like, you know what?

1:08 I don't want to make this scary. I don't want to make this harder than it already is. So I thought like, oh, I don't know. Do I really want to share this? Maybe not, maybe. And then I thought, you know what, I think it can still serve. And I want to say before I get into any more detail here, that I've been writing a weekly newsletter for years. And I've only ever had this happen a handful of times, fewer than five. Okay, so if you are just starting your newsletter, I can almost guarantee you that this is not going to be a predominant experience that you have, especially if you're doing a good job explaining what your newsletter is about and people are signing up on purpose because they know a little bit about you and want to stay in touch. I really don't anticipate this being a problem.

1:52 However, I wanted to address it in case this happens to you or somebody else, because it can feel really isolating and pretty yucky to have somebody write back in a negative way about your newsletter. And I'm not talking about here people who are writing kindly to say, hey, I think this might have come off across a little bit wrong, or this link is broken, that sort of thing. I'm talking about yucky things. So let me just give you an example so we can perhaps be on the same page. This is something that happened, I don't know, a couple months ago. And somebody who I don't know, you know, I have no previous connection to this person. They had only been subscribed to my list for a couple of weeks.

2:34 They replied to one of my messages with a very long response, like multiple paragraphs. There were all caps involved, etc. And the gist of the response was, A, that they were disappointed in me because I had shared a link about how much America hates women. This was post-election and they said that I was contributing to the problem of the mental health crisis in America and blah blah blah I actually didn't read the whole thing because it went on and on and on and first of all I just want to acknowledge this just never feels good it feels a little bit like an attack to get something like this because the immediate response at least for me I'll speak for myself the immediate response is to say oh but wait let me explain like have you read anything that I've written?

3:19 Did you read the thing I linked? Did you read? Did you just read the headline? Or did you actually read the piece to see what it was about? You know, like, but here's how I feel, you know, like, the immediate response is to write back and do like a bulleted point by point rebuttal to each thing that the person had to say. So I just want to share what works for me. First of all, is to just let that fire flow through you and to just be like, yes, They're very wrong, in my opinion. Like, clearly, A, this person's only read two emails I've ever written. B, just by saying something negative, that doesn't contribute to the mental health crisis in America. I don't think that brushing things under the rug and pretending they don't exist and not talking about them is, you know, is a viable solution forward.

4:06 And C, if that is what you think, then writing to somebody and telling them that you're disappointed in them and that they should do a better job. Is also contributing to the mental health crisis in America and thus extremely hypocritical. So anyway, I could go on and on about the different points, but that's not the point I'm trying to make here in this podcast. The point I'm making is like, what do you do about these things? So A, just let it burn through you. Come up with all your rebuttals and like, do not write the email. That's my recommendation. Do not respond to this person, especially if you do not know them. They're not your person, right? The whole point of writing an email when you're doing it from the perspective of bringing in more clients, is to find your people. Because if somebody is not your person, they're not going to work with you.

4:48 They're not the kind of person who's going to support what you're doing and who you can support in equal measure. They need to find somebody else who's more aligned with their vision, who doesn't upset them and trigger them, et cetera, et cetera. And that's totally fine. That's not to say that you've done anything wrong or that they've done anything wrong. arguably they may have, but they're just not your person. So it's not by convincing them, by saying, well, here's what I meant and blah, blah, blah. You're just fueling something that's not really designed to go anywhere. So my recommendation is that you just delete. If you really can't delete, file it away. Talk to a friend about it. Tell somebody else all of your issues and why you talk it through with maybe a therapist or a friend or somebody else.

5:33 But you don't owe somebody a response. Just because they replied to your newsletter, you are not required to reply back. Especially as your newsletter gets bigger and more people are on it, you'll probably get more responses. And of course, especially if it's somebody who seems like a great fit for your newsletter that you're interested in getting to know more about, that you feel is part of your community, of course you can respond to them. And that goes a long way towards exactly what you're trying to do with your newsletter, which is building a network in a community of people for mutual support. However, when somebody has an objection to something. The options are, A, thanks for letting me know, period, end of story.

6:13 If you want to reply and acknowledge that you've received it, you can just be saying, thanks for sharing your thoughts. You can totally delete and ignore, or you can write back and start a conversation. I just want you to think through what is the best use of your time. In my opinion, focus on the people who really appreciate your work and who can get something out of it. Again, if somebody has a legitimate concern or complaint, and it's something where you're like, that's kind of true, it's got a grain of truth in it. Like, this may be something that's affecting other people, I would have a different recommendation. What I'm talking about here is just people who clearly are not aligned with the type of work that you are doing and want to do.

6:53 Especially if you get a vibe from somebody's response that like, wow, if this person signed up for any of my programs, they would be a problem child. Some of us thrive with problem children, Some of us are problem children. However, if you're already getting like that, please don't sign up for anything I ever have offered. Just ignore. With this person, I ignored and I unsubscribed them from my message. So I was like, I just, I'm not your person. I don't want to spend my time. I have very limited time right now. I don't want to spend it arguing with you about the link that I sent out. You always have a choice not to read the link and not to click on it. You always have the choice to unsubscribe without sending people a multi-paragraph tirade about with all caps and so forth.

7:34 And you always have the choice to frame how you're expressing your concerns in a way that is likely to be heard well or received well by the person who's getting it. So I just think about some of these things. I'm like, you know what? We all have our moments where we just sort of let loose in ways that in retrospect, maybe wasn't a good idea. So I like to say like, this person may have done that. They may have been frustrated about other things and just it bubbled to the surface on the exact moment they got my message and they just decided to write back and spend a lot of time writing it all up. And that doesn't mean I need to take that on. Okay. I don't need to think necessarily bad things about this person. I just know they're not my person. I might think bad things about them for a few minutes, just to be totally honest.

8:16 But then I want to let them go and not worry about that person at all, because I have so many amazing people who are on my list and who are in my network and who do write back with lovely thing about various messages. So I want to focus my attention there. I want to point my energy there. I want to be moving in that direction. And I don't want to be dragged backwards, spending lots of time writing out careful emails where it's unlikely to have any productive outcome. Okay, so I hope, again, that this is not dissuading anybody from writing a newsletter or from sharing things that may be controversial. I think it's so important to just be who you are. And the people who appreciate my work and want to be on my email list, either they're going to be like, oh, cool, I'm glad to have this link or this message or whatever it is that upsets somebody.

9:03 Or they're going to be like, oh, that's part of what Camille does that I don't resonate with, but I like this other stuff, so I'm going to stay on the list. I think we are all capable of making those decisions and they also can unsubscribe and that's totally fine. Okay. So there we go. My intention in sharing this is to just acknowledge that this happens. If it does happen to you, I promise you will get through it. And it just means that you're being yourself enough to turn some people away, which is great because that means you're being yourself enough to bring the right people in. And those two things happen simultaneously. Like the right people know you well enough to say, oh yes, I'm aligned. And the wrong people are like, oh no, this is not for me. And they can leave. And that's great too, because it helps you get a group of people who are interested and aligned with what you're doing.

9:48 All right. If you have any questions, if you have any thoughts about this, I would love to hear them. If this has happened to you and you need some help processing it, please let me know. And if you have questions, other questions not related to this that you want me to answer on the podcast, you can go to intheclinic.com. There's a little area there to submit your question. I would love to answer it. I'm excited to answer more questions this year. And wrapping up, I did mention earlier that I just finished writing this book. It's called Write Better Newsletters, and it's going to be out on January 30th. You can actually pre-order the e-book right now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, a couple other places, but the paperback will also be available in late January. So if you have appreciated my work and would like to support what I'm doing in a relatively small way, I would so appreciate it if you would buy a copy of the book.

10:36 And especially if you would leave a rating, even if you don't want to type out a review, just a rating of however many stars you want to give it would be amazing. That would be incredibly valuable to me and would put a huge smile on my face. All right. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful rest of your day and I will be back soon.