My favorite lunch spot, the Mediterranean Restaurant that doesn’t serve any Mediterranean food—that’s another story—used to employ a short order cook, Miss Lou.

Miss Lou was an older lady who grilled the owner’s, Pete’s, hand-patted, freshly ground hamburgers, cooked up all style of eggs, and fashioned plates with sandwich or meat, vegetables and garnish.

She went about her work every day with the efficiency of someone who’d been doing that job for years.  She was on auto-pilot.

And as such, Miss Lou used to talk to herself. A lot. She’d mutter about what she was cooking, who she was cooking it for, or maybe what she thought about them.

She was talking all right.

But was anybody listening?

I don’t think Pete paid her much mind, as we say here in the south.

And people in the booths couldn’t hear. Too far away.

You could hear, though, if you sat at the counter, a slightly less comfortable option. But quick. The counter was quick. And that’s why I sat there often.

And I listened to Miss Lou chatter away.

Sometimes she was talking to a higher power. And sometimes she sang gospel tunes.

It didn’t matter a whole lot if anybody was listening. Miss Lou was in her own little world. She wasn’t crazy. Not by a long shot.
She was pre-occupied. And multi-tasking.

If you were tuned into it, you might be amused. You might be informed. You might be entertained. But you always felt you were eavesdropping.

And you might be.

But it didn’t matter because Miss Lou wasn’t really in the muttering business. I mean, she wasn’t in business to mutter.

Are You in Business to Mutter?

Are you?

Do speak to your customers and prospective customers and clients?
I mean really speak?

Do you send out a regular email?

Do you blog at least once a week?

Do you make a point when you communicate via email and blog?
Or do you just jabber on about anything?

If you want to be effective you do need to communicate regularly, in a longer length than a tweet. Or a Facebook page post.

You need to regularly communicate with your list.

If you’re new to online marketing you might wonder “Why? Why do I need to do anything other than social media?”

And you’d be right to ask.

But I’d be right in telling you, “You need to communicate via a signature method—your branded email—that the reader expects on a certain day. And looks forward to. That’s how you begin a business relationship that’s deep and ultimately profitable. Because people like to buy from people they like.” Like me buying from Pete. And Miss Lou.

Your email is your way of communicating with your customers and your prospective customers because they’ve given you permission to talk to them.

They’ve raised their hand, so to speak, to have you send them information about what you’re up to. About what you can help them with.

You don’t have that captive audience with Facebook or Twitter because there is so much posted that it’s easy for a reader to miss.

But email? That’s their inbox.

It’s like their mailbox. It IS their mailbox.

So, let’s see now—you’ve got someone who’s opted in to hear from you. You have a direct line to them through their inbox.

Wouldn’t you be discounting yourself and your business if you didn’t take them up on the offer to talk to them?

Don’t Let This Opportunity to Reach Out go to Waste.

Don’t mutter. Start a valuable line of communication. With your reader, I mean.  Share what you know, tell what you think they need to hear.

There’s more to say about blogging but I’ll save that for next week.

But for now—ask yourself “Am I speaking to my readers?  Do I have something to say? And are they listening?”

Tell me about your email outreach in the reply section below.