Win. Fail. Give. October 7, 2011

Since last week’s Win. Fail. Give. I’ve noticed myself assigning the words to lots of little events and activities.

Having lunch with friends in Grand Rapids – Win.

Getting a grumpy email from a fired client – Fail.

Waking up early and subsequently getting a lot done – Win.

Finding an affiliate earning notice in my email box for more than usual – Win.

Discovering that some jerk has spoofed one of my business emails and is sending out spam – Fail.

Yep, every day in a hundred different ways we experience small Wins and Fails.  It’s not always ‘my’ Win or Fail, but they’re affecting me.  I suppose so long as the Wins outnumber the Fails we feel pretty good about our day and when the Fails outshine the Wins we probably feel lousy.

But I don’t want you to feel lousy when things go wrong – failures aren’t automatic bad mood indicators.  They’re opportunities to learn and grow.  You’re in charge of your mood so why not decide to keep a positive attitude the next time failures start mounting up?

This Weeks Win:  I bought a cool WordPress plugin called Platinum Popup.  It’s working out great.  I’m using it to display a popup on my blog network.  First it as promoting a contest, it displayed info about the contest and offered viewers the ability to ‘like’ us on Facebook right then and there.  Very nice.  After that contest was over, I changed the pop up to show a little squeeze page optin form.   You can see it in action here.  I really like Platinum Popup and recommend it if you’re looking to display popups for a variety of uses on your WordPress blog.

Popups you ask as you wrinkle your nose?  Popups? Aren’t popups a sin for bloggers?  No, not if they’re done right.  This plugin let me configure all sorts of settings so that I am displaying my popup one time every few days, so returning readers aren’t bombarded by it.  The pop up has a large X in the corner so it’s clear that it can be closed – and it closes automatically if the reader clicks anywhere else on the page.  Very polite little popup it is.

This Weeks Fail:  I bought a cool WordPress plugin called Platinum Popup.  Yes, my Win is also a Fail.  Since the purchase just over a week ago, I’ve received three marketing emails from the seller. After the second, I wrote back and asked if I could opt out of the marketing emails but stay on a list for announcements relevant to my product purchase.  The answer? No.  And that is a Fail.

I have dozens of customer lists, one for every product I sell.  I communicate with those customers when I have something to share that is directly relevant to the product their purchased – and not very darned often so that I don’t wear out my welcome. I never assume the customer wants to be subscribed to my main mailing list. They found my product after all, I’m positive they’ll find my list sign up box if they want to.

Does their marketing make my regret my purchase? No.  I still love the plugin.

This Weeks Give: I’m hosting a free webinar on Monday, October 17th about starting your first mailing list.  You can sign up for it here. I found a volunteer who let me help them set up a mailing list from start to finish and I’m going to share the process with everyone.  All who sign up for the webinar will have a similar opportunity to get help with their first list set up.

What’s your Win. Fail. Give. report?  You can leave a comment here, tweet them with the #solosmarts hashtag or post them on your own blog just like I am here.