I had to eat myself some humble pie last week.

You see, I thought I’d try something clever… which turned out to be something quite stupid.

What did I do? Well, in my e-mail newsletter service, there’s an option to split subscribers into different groups. So I thought…

“Hey, it would be great if I could combine my different newsletters into the one, and that way I could send a newsletter to combinations of those groups depending on what they signed up to find out about? Yeah, that’s a great idea!”

So I went merrily along, and imported my *bespoke* list and my Crafting a Business list from JessicaVanDen.com into my Epheriell Designs newsletter (the one people subscribe to here).

I was happy and merry… until I went to send my ED newsletter last week. That’s when I realised my oops.

You see, I’d imported the e-mails BEFORE I set up the groups, and so my lovely subscribers – people who had TRUSTED me with their precious e-mail address – were now all lumped together in one big list.

I may have said something along the lines of &*#$, &#@%, &*$@.

You see, I get that most people don’t subscribe to newsletters unless they really really love something – they want to be kept in the loop, they want to be entertained, or informed, or get access to special deals and discounts about things they love.

What they (and I) don’t like is when people take your e-mail without your express consent and use it to start sending you e-mails you don’t want. Seriously - it’s hard enough keeping up with the e-mails we DO want!

I felt terrible. But what to do? I couldn’t go through and delete the e-mails I’d added, because some people would have already subscribed to more than one list, so I’d be knocking them off altogether!

This is when I decided it was time to eat my pie.

In my last newsletter, I wrote all the usual lovely things – and then at the bottom, I wrote this message:

Important Announcement –  I’ve been working on my various mailing lists, and I moved some of you across from the *bespoke* list, thinking I’d be able to send e-mails to you separate from the others – but it looks like I made an oops in that regard!

Also – those of you who signed up for my Crafting a Business e-mails – this newsletter and that one have now been merged, as I’ve ceased writing on that blog, and have brought my crafty biz thoughts and tips over to Epheriell Designs.

So if you’d no longer like to receive my Epheriell Designs newsletter, please unsubscribe below. (For those of you on the *bespoke* mailing list, don’t worry, you’ll still be on that one if you unsubscribe here).
I sincerely apologise for the inconvenience – the last thing I want to do is spam anyone! Ick!

Did I feel like a numpty? You bet.

But how much worse would I have felt if I had pretended like nothing had happened – that I hadn’t made a mistake?

Did I have some people unsubscribe? Yep. Out of the 1,206 people who ended up being subscribed… 12 chose to unsubscribe.

Am I sad about that? Hell to the no.

Why? Because I informed those people about my mistake, and made it clear that they had a choice. I didn’t try to sneak under their radar in an icky-marketer way and pretend like they’d signed up for this e-mail.

And if they choose to unsubscribe, it’s because what I’m offering doesn’t have value for them. And that’s fantastic.

Wait, what?

Yep. You heard me right.

I only want to e-mail people who DO value what I have to offer. Because they are my Right People. And my Right People are the ones I want to make happy.

So, if you got that newsletter and stayed subscribed… thank you. You rock, and you’re obviously one of my Right People (or, you didn’t open it yet… that’s okay, guess I need to work on making my e-mails more epic!).

So while I momentarily felt like an idiot, my conscience is clear – and in my business, that is a core, core value.

So, in the end, I ate my humble pie… and it was damn good for me.

Have you ever made a mistake in your business? How did you handle it? Please share in the comments!

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Image from Cutest Food via Pinterest.