This dude just created the first mobile version of his blog and really thinks he’s all that… he thinks everyone is sitting around thinking about it too.
Guess what? You aren’t nearly as important as you think you are. Your stuff isn’t nearly as central to the lives of your audience as it is to you. Sound ugly? It’s not. It’s a basic business and blogging truth that everyone learns either by listening when someone tells them, or the hard way in the School of Hard Knocks & Bruised Egos.
First, let me explain what I mean. We work very hard on our blogs or in our business. We think about them constantly. They consume a lot of our time, energy, and emotion. So it’s perfectly natural to overestimate the amount of time other people think about us, our blog, and our products. But remember: they have their own lives, their own interests, and their own things they are highly invested in. We are fortunate to get ANY of their focus and thought time.
So What?
Why does this matter? Why is it an important lesson? First, it keeps things in perspective when we don’t get the success, attention, and recognition we think should have already arrived at by this point in our blogging career. Our stuff is not nearly as monumental and life-altering to others as it is for us personally. Be patient. Think “snowball.”
True Story
Second, it helps us keep stress, problems, and crisis’s in the right perspective. Sometimes we think WAY MORE people are sitting around thinking about us than is actually true. So we alert them to problems, mistakes, and concerns that most of them otherwise were oblivious too and frankly don’t care about unless we all of sudden make it a big issue. Here’s a true experience to illustrate this point:
I’ve got multiple subscriber sites, some with almost 50K subscribers. When I first started doing those sites, with my desire to be transparent, honest, fix mistakes,and let people know I cared about them (customer attention was paramount), I would do this: when a problem with a site occurred, I would immediately send out emails and put up notices assuring people that I was on the job, aware of the problem, was VERY VERY VERY VERY sorry for any inconvenience to them, and that I was doing everything necessary to “get it right.”
What I didn’t realize was this: I was thinking 98% of my subscribers were aware there was a problem, hacked off about it, and were about to bail out on me.
What I learned was this reality: 99% of them weren’t even aware of the problem, didn’t even care to be alerted to it, and my frantic emails just made them have a concern they otherwise wouldn’t have had.
I later figured out that by simply jumping on the issue and fixing it, 99.99999% of my subscribers stayed completely happy and didn’t know or care about some “problem” that had occurred.
“You’re not that important.”
I don’t say that to insult you. I say that as a matter of PERSPECTIVE. We tend to WAY OVERESTIMATE how much other people are thinking about our business, our mistake, our ________. Conscientious bloggers and online business owners want to bend over backwards to correct a mistake or problem. That’s a GOOD thing. It can be bad when we publicize it to people who were completely unaware to start with. That doesn’t mean there are not times for public alert, apologies, etc. There are. But don’t jump the gun.
Ask yourself: are you making a problem bigger than it has to be? Does it really require a mass response, or just a response to the handful of people who noticed? Can I build goodwill with a public notice and apology? Or will it simply make me look incompetent?
Don’t be afraid to be human – to be transparent. Failures and mistakes reveal us to be normal people who our audience can relate to. But unnecessarily alarming people or going overboard with an apology can erode their trust in us.
What do you think? When is a public alert to a problem necessary? When should you apology to everyone in mass? Does it help? Does it hurt? Have you ever experienced the “I’m not as important as I thought I was” revelation?
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Okay, don’t think I’ve been put in such a position. Except maybe with my kids once. I asked my son to help me out when I was really sick and to let his oldest daughter stay with me for a few days and he never bothered calling back & he went to his wife’s friend’s house for the weekend instead. I was furious that he chose that over his mother. So maybe I wasn’t as important as I thought I was,but in all realty maybe he chose his family over me which as it should be. Is that what you mean? As far as a Public Alert to something I think it should be when it concerns everyone’s well being & same for an apology. I personally don’t think a massive apology makes one feel better. An apology should be made for the same reason again in that when it concerns everyone’s well being. Okay, so I don’t think so get this early in the morning.
Have a great day!
As a human, we are all replaceable. Thinking back, the first time I realized this was the first time I was fired from a job that I didn’t think no one else could do near as better as myself. Or the first b.f. that broke up. ha Course it all triggers some hurt ‘feelings’ but those feelings pass & one must move on.
Apology & Errors in Mass production, I really don’t believe is ever necessary – why? 100% ppl don’t care or notice period! The 2 – 3% that do, are REAL friends. 
Great article. Thanks for sharing Brent!
Lol
I think I started from the very beginning knowing that my blog was a blip on the radar for other people, at BEST! But I’m sort of in a small niche, and I started out small too. Now I’m actually amazed that I have as many comments and followers as I do 
Just goes to show that you have to keep at it and keep improving your blog to get the attention you want!
But I think it’s great that you are reminding bloggers of this seldom acknowledged truth. Some of them do seem to think you are there reading their posts every day and you should be totally aware of everything going on in their lives! Yowza, like we’ve got time for that!
The human ego and pride being what it is, it’s something we need to remind ourselves of routinely. Br
Very good post and very good point. I do tend to be more transparent than is probably needed at times. I definitely need to back up and think it out first. Thanks Brent.
Debbie
Sometimes its not a pleasant feeling lesson to learn, and often we have to learn it more than once. BR
I am a habitual ‘sorryer’ I say sorry for things that aren’t my fault! I am learning that when things are beyond my control it is not my ‘job’ to say sorry, but to empathise on a need by need basis – ie I respond to those who notice when things go wrong, and spend my time fixing first and apologising later – I much prefer to send a blanket message of ‘this has happened, its been fixed, sorry to those that were inconvenienced’ In my experience affected users/people want to know that its fixed when its fixed rather than stating the obvious or the irrelevant – something you cannot know in advance who is who
There can definetely be times for a public “to everyone” apology but there are two times I think it unnecessary: 1) when the scope of the situation was small and you will just needlessly raise concerns for unaffected users and 2) when you are using an apology as strategic manipulation. If you don’t understand #2, then it probably doesn’t apply to you anyway. Thanks for commenting Michelle, I think I’ll just give you $20 Comment Cash. Send me your Paypal address and I’ll send you your cash.
LOL!!! My problem is that I under estimate how important I am to others! But I know MANY people who fall into the category you just mentioned! Very good info! Only 4 responses…you know what that means…lol!
It’s a balance… we are important in the way we help others, that is for sure. BR