Sometimes things come at us out of left field. Back in 2019 at a rodeo I meant a woman who at the time I thought worked for a well known magazine. I have come to learn that is not the case, I came to learn this when she approached me about an opportunity with her magazine, one that I have said no to at this time.
As a business sometimes saying no to things like being feature and published is hard, I mean we work hard and dream of these moments so saying no is like a small death. And it was hard it took me two weeks of questions, responses, deep thinking, anxiety and stress before I reached the conclusion that saying yes wasn’t going to benefit me in the right way.
Also if it takes that long to reach a decision it is probably best not to say yes.
At any rate a lot of my reasoning came from the fact I had never seen or heard of the publication, there was no social media and not even a website. For me this was the initial red flag because who doesn’t have some kind of presences somewhere? Especially this day and age!
Now do I think it was a scam. Honestly no, I remember meeting the woman, she was older which means social media and the internet aren’t something I consider in her wheel house. Do I assume she started a magazine and is just starting out? Yes. However I was worried about subscribers, reach, potential and a host of other things. I have no way to know when she started the publication but I have had friends start publications that have all the things I was looking for freely available and easy to find (websites and social media accounts).
These friends magazine is going into the second year of publication and guys I can purchase it quarterly at Books A Million. It is published in New York and both print and digital, so yes I have high expectations, I do realize this.
Saying no didn’t hurt me in anyways I know because I have no idea if saying yes would bring more clients or yield no results. I am no further behind or ahead then when her initial email came to my inbox.
Sometimes saying no is a good thing, in the past I would have done it, scared I wouldn’t succeed if I didn’t but now I am willing to risk failure to run my business my way without bullying myself and forcing myself to take every offer than comes my way.
Evaluate and think before jumping in and saying yes, sometimes no is also the right answer.
