Today’s a big day in history.
Two brothers.
Doing it for the very first time.
Out in the open. In front of a crowd of gawping onlookers.
And they only lasted 12 seconds.
Now, to be fair though, I think 12 seconds is nothing to be sniffed at.
After all, you can have a lot of fun in 12 seconds if you know what I mean.
And if I’d been in their shoes… doing it for the first time… with a crowd of folk watching me, no less… I’d be lucky to last 3.
Especially considering I don’t know the first thing about building airplanes.
Wait… You thought I was talking about something else?
Behave yourself!
I’m talking about the Wright brothers, who made the first-ever successful powered flight, 121 years ago today.
Sure, it wasn’t glamorous.
Flying 120 feet in 12 seconds? Most of us could run faster than that.
But those 12 seconds changed the world.
And they proved something important that many folks today still forget:
It doesn’t have to be perfect to take off.
The Wright brothers didn’t hang about waiting to build the “perfect” plane. Nor did they faff around forever trying to make their first successful plane fly faster, further, or look pretty.
They built something they thought could work…
Then they launched it to see if they were right.
And this is a lesson you can apply to countless things in life, including email copywriting.
If you spend hours staring at a blank screen, struggling to come up with the “perfect” email idea to send to your list…
Or if you’ve got a dozen half-written email drafts cluttering your laptop, waiting for you to polish them ‘til they’re just right…
You’re making the same mistake as everyone who told the Wright Brothers to wait.
Perfection is just procrastination dressed to the nines in a fancy suit.
But it’s still procrastination, nevertheless…
And you ain’t gonna get better at writing emails if you never send any. You get better by writing fast, hitting send, and getting your reps in.
Just like I’m doing now.
I sat down at my laptop at 14:03 pm with no idea what I was gonna write about today…
So I spent no more than a couple minutes Googling what happened in history on this day, and hey presto, I found the idea for this email.
(Yes dear reader. This post is originally an email I sent to my list.)
Now it’s 14:27 pm, this email is almost finished, and it’ll be loaded up in my email software to be sent out at 3 o’clock.
Quick and simple.
And if you apply this approach to your email writing, too — your emails might not be masterpieces… but that’s okay.
Because the more you show up and just write…
… even if it’s fast and scrappy…
… the better you’re gonna get.
So the next time you’re procrastinating through perfectionism, remember this email and remember the Wright Brothers, and send it!
Enjoyed this?
Well if you want more fun and informative email copywriting tips from me, go here:
https://kennethturnbull.com/email-newsletter
Stay sharp,
Kenneth Turnbull