Have You Heard of the "Let Them" Strategy?

Let’s begin today’s little reminder with a story: I was scrolling through Instagram when I stumbled on a video from motivational speaker Mel Robbins who was talking about adding the phrase “let them” into your life.

Kids don’t want to go to sleep? Let them. Your friend doesn’t want to have brunch with you? Let them. Your boyfriend breaks up with you? Let them.

Robbins said “let them” is a way to stop putting your unrealized expectations onto the very real actions of others. You can’t control what someone else is going to do, and you shouldn’t want to, but you can control how those actions impact your mindset.

It’s a cool concept and it got me thinking: How would a “let them” strategy work in business and content marketing? Maybe something like this:

• Someone unsubscribes from your newsletter? Let them. Your email list is now more exclusively aligned with people who really want to receive the unique information you deliver.
• Someone unfollows you on social media? Let them. If they weren’t engaging with your content, they were hurting your ratio of followers to likes/comments/shares anyway, which is a determining factor in how social algorithms organically boosts your content to others outside your follower sphere.
• Someone decides not to work with you? Let them. A mentor of mine once told me he would walk into a listing presentation and tell the prospective client: “One of two things is about to happen. Either you’ll decide to work with me or you won’t - and both options are fine.” A ‘let them’ strategy exudes the kind of quiet confidence that people gravitate toward. (He’d go on to say that if they did work with him, nobody would work harder on their behalf.) And if a prospective client feels their needs are better served elsewhere, it’s best to let them figure things out on their own. If you really are the perfect fit for their business needs, they’ll find their way back to you.
• Someone ends your marketing partnership or collaboration. Let them. I’ve discovered that the most fruitful experiences often sit on the other side of the opportunities we think we’ve lost.

I’m not saying a “let them” strategy works for everyone, or that it’s even practical for every type of business, but I am saying that a “let them” strategy might just be one of the most freeing content creation techniques you can adopt. You write what you want and create the kind of content you love because you’re not worrying about if it’s trendy or if people will like it or how your audience will respond. The worth of your content is defined solely by you and your instinctive, experienced gut instinct that this particular thing you’ve created is worthy of sharing with the world.

When you let them what you’re really doing is letting go.