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Once there was a king who wanted to bathe in a giant swimming pool of milk rather than water… He had heard it was great for your skin, but it was too large a task to do alone.

He first told some of his workers to dig a pond. Once the pond was dug, the king made an announcement to his people saying that one person from each household had to bring a glass of milk during the night and pour it into the pond. So, in his estimations, the pond should be full of milk by the morning.

After receiving the order, everyone went home. One man prepared to take the milk during the night but milk was very rare in this town and he wanted to keep it. He thought that since everyone would bring milk, he could just use a glass of water and pour it inside the pond instead. Surely, because it would be dark at night, no one would even notice. So he quickly went and poured the water in the pond and came back happy.

In the morning, the king came to visit the pond and to his anger, the pond was only filled with pure water! What happened was that everyone was thinking the same thoughts as the other man that “I don’t have to put the milk, someone else will do it.”

When it comes to business help, do not think that others will take care of it all for you. I’m not saying not to accept help where you can get it. Help is important, but remember that it starts with you. If you don’t do things for yourself or at least oversee them, no one else will do it and if they do, you can’t complain that they did it wrong because you used something or someone outside of yourself to make it work.

There are only so many experts, workers, software, systems etc. that you can use to get ahead, all that will come later when you are rolling in your fortune. Meanwhile, if you want quality, get your hands dirty, do the learning, do the work and feel genuinely rewarded from it. This will avoid mistakes caused by others, it will encourage you to take responsibility and it will give you a sense of achievement.

If you have many automatic processes working for you and they are performing well, that’s great. But if there is anywhere in your life that you can step in and say – “Can I do more here? What can I do today that I didn’t bother with yesterday? What extra mile of work can I put in just for now?” Then every day will have purpose and every moment will feel in your control.

Life and business is all about what YOU put into it, so be sure you are doing everything you can every single day to actualize your full potential. Yes, leverage the help of others along the way when needed to improve efficiency, but never fully rely on others. Your life is what you make it, so make it ALL that it can be!

It might seem strange to think of icons as helping with your email marketing efforts. After all, it’s the message that’s important, right? But anything that can help you to better convey your message is something worth looking into.

Icons can highlight your company’s benefits and show the positive effects of your offer. They can demonstrate particular features or characteristics of your product or service. And they can be used to split email blocks, making the message easier to read.

What else can icons do for your emails?

1. Icons help organize the content.

No doubt you’ve seen this on webpages but perhaps not as often in emails. Imagine if your email has three options:

→ Ask a Question
→ Share Feedback
→ Get More Information

Each of these can have an appropriate icon that helps to organize and clarify the options. “Ask a Question” can be a question mark; “Share Feedback” might be a talk balloon and “Get More Information” could be a video icon, a book icon, a person icon or whatever, depending on the format of the information.

2. Icons help express ideas.

There are times when an icon can be used either in place of – or in conjunction with – a keyword to clarify the meaning in a more straightforward manner. For example, a play button icon is so universally understood, it makes more sense to use that than to use the word, “Play.”

3. Icons can replace heavy images.

Images in emails are great… until they aren’t. Images need to be downloaded, they can be blocked by email clients and unfortunately their appearance changes in different apps. While icons are less expressive, there are times when they are a better choice than stock photography.

4. Icons support your brand identity.

If you are using a particular set of icons on your website and advertising, it pays to use them in your emails as well to maintain your overall design and brand strategy.

I’ll bet there are certain businesses that you recognize by icons (for example, social media sites). If you received an email from them that did not contain those icons, it wouldn’t look authentic. In fact you might even suspect it was a phishing email to steal your info.

5. Icons reinforce interactive elements.

When it comes to things like call-to-action buttons, icons can reinforce the action you want taken by the reader. And they can also be animated to draw attention to something important, like the “Check it out” or “Grab your copy” button.

If you’re just getting started in email marketing, give icons a pass until you master the basics. But if you’re looking for a way to increase your email readability and conversion rates then I highly suggest you spend the next week observing how others are using icons in their emails while you devise your own strategy.

It’s surprising what a few little icons can do for your business!

You send out an email and someone writes back that you’re a liar. You post on your blog and someone says you’re an idiot. You create a new product and someone says it stinks and it doesn’t work. Congratulations, because you are doing something RIGHT.

If you’re trying to please everyone, you’re pleasing no one. People who are having a real and positive impact on the world are inevitably met with trolls and haters.

If no one experiences discomfort when they see your work, then your work isn’t having an impact.

Think of every successful person and company you know. Every single one of them has trolls and haters. And likely every single one of them knows that those trolls and haters are clear indications that they are on the right track.

Maybe you don’t have ‘haters’ after all. Maybe you have ‘fans in denial.’ It’s all a state of mind. Remember, when people hate on you, it’s often because you have something they want.

And here’s how to have fun with your haters: Realize that the less they like you, the more religiously they will be checking your page. So smile. And maybe write them this note:

“Dear haters, I have so much more for you to be mad at. Just be patient.”

A tiger doesn’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.

Is someone trying to bring you down? They’re already beneath you, and they probably secretly wish to BE you.

So love your haters.

They are often a true measure of your success.