+JMJ+
There’s a line that Catholic business owners need to draw in the sand and never cross, and I don’t think it’s going to make me popular with certain groups of people …
But I don’t care.
It has to be said, so I said it in my 11-Teen Marketing Trad Rules for Writing Better Emails & Making Your Mom Proud.
It’s Rule 10 …
Don’t email your list on Sundays.
Why?
It’s the Lord’s Day.
I’m old enough to remember a time when no businesses were ever open on Sundays.
The culture was a lot more Christian back then. I’m not saying everyone was a Saint, because they weren’t, but society, as a whole, hadn’t degraded as far as it has today.
The Sunday shopping laws were a nod to the practice of keeping the Sabbath holy.
Not only did it provide an opportunity to give people the chance to worship God on the day that was sanctified by the Resurrection of Jesus …
It gave workers a day of rest, a day where they could be free from labour, and I remember benefiting from this when I was a young man.
Back when I was trying to pay my way through school, I worked at this bar that I thought was pretty cool … because it was!
We’d have bands come in from Thursday through Saturday, and we’d be rockin’ during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The food was great, especially the chicken wings and ribs …
I even got to help break up a few bar fights!
I loved that place for a lot of reasons, partly because it was where I first developed the strong work ethic I’d carry over into my broadcasting career …
The breaking news industry has nothing on a dinner rush during the Christmas party season when it comes to multitasking and coping with pressure.
Anyway, the place first opened its doors in the 1970s, before the Sunday shopping laws were overturned, which meant they were always closed on the first day of the week.
A couple of decades later, when I started working there, they maintained the tradition, which I appreciated as a student, because I could sleep a little later after a busy night and still have time for homework. (Regrettably, I was far away from the Church at that point in my life, which is an email for another day.)
You don’t see that in a business too much these days.
I guess Chick-fil-A does it. They close their doors once a week and still rake in the dough, which means …
There’s a good chance your own business can survive doing the same, so there really is no good reason I can think of to send a sales email on a Sunday.
Give the day to the Lord and spend it with your family, because your business isn’t just about a bottom line …
It’s a blessing you’ve been entrusted with on your path to Heaven, it’s only temporary and you’re the steward …
So, steward well.
Stay holy my friend and God bless.
Vic
The Marketing Trad
Post Scriptum – Book your paid consultation today, and we’ll see if we can come up with a plan that works best for your business. Your fee goes directly toward whatever deal we negotiate. The best way, and the only way, you can reach me is at [email protected].
Post Post Scriptum – It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for your penultimate edition this week of everyone’s favourite email tutorial on QUAS PRIMAS, the papal Encyclical on The Feast of Christ the King by Pope Pius XI. Here’s today’s quote:
His kingship is founded upon the ineffable hypostatic union. From this it follows not only that Christ is to be adored by angels and men, but that to him as man angels and men are subject, and must recognize his empire; by reason of the hypostatic union Christ has power over all creatures. But a thought that must give us even greater joy and consolation is this that Christ is our King by acquired, as well as by natural right, for he is our Redeemer. Would that they who forget what they have cost their Savior might recall the words: “You were not redeemed with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled.” We are no longer our own property, for Christ has purchased us “with a great price”; our very bodies are the “members of Christ.”