Brian Basilico March 11, 2021 
There’s a lot of talk these days about something called Cancel Culture. As far as cancel culture goes, I would love to cancel my subscription to Boys Life Magazine, I just can’t find where to do it. I’d love to cancel those Pharma commercials that say, “Don’t take this drug if you’re allergic to this drug.” How do you know if you’re allergic to it if you don’t take it? I don’t know. And I want to cancel my extended car warranty. I don’t have one, but they keep asking me if I want it. I want to cancel them calling me.
What I want to talk about today is you being part of a cancel culture. But not the kind that has green eggs and ham or potatoes in it. No, I’m talking about canceling things that you may not need in your business. There are three key things I want to talk about, subscriptions, meetings, and notifications.
Cancel Subscriptions
I don’t know about you, but way back in the 90s, maybe it was the 80s, we had Columbia House and you could subscribe to their CD of the month club by getting 12 free CDs, but you had to purchase X amount in X amount of time in order to keep them and not get charged. That’s the way that cancel culture works today. You sign up for certain things and you’re subscribed to them without even knowing.
One of the things that you want to try to unsubscribe from is things that you’re not using. Do you have magazines you’re still getting? Maybe you’re subscribed to online newspapers, or maybe you’re subscribed to TV channels like Netflix or Hulu. I mean, we subscribed to Disney+ just to watch Hamilton. Then we immediately unsubscribed after that because I don’t plan on watching a lot of Disney cartoons or programs. It’s not my thing, baby. S
Next, you want to look at is canceling email subscriptions. Some of those you may have signed up for on purpose, but lately, I’m finding myself subscribed to a lot of emails I never wanted to be on.
And yes, you want to take the time to unsubscribe to as many of them as you can, that you’re not reading in your inbox. All it’s doing is taking up space and brainpower. There are certain emails that you will get when you do unsubscribe. All it really says is, “Hey, this is a legit email, let’s add them to more.” But better to try than just let it go on, because either way, your email is out there.
The last one that I want to talk about usually goes like this. You download a plugin for WordPress, then all of a sudden, without knowing it you’re subscribed to an annual subscription.
This happened to me twice last month. One of those two actually gave me a refund because I did not realize I was subscribing to an annual subscription. The other one said, “Oh, it’s active on your website and we are going to keep charging you for it.” So, you have to actually go figure out how to unsubscribe. And it’s much easier under PayPal to do that because PayPal has subscriptions in it where you can actually turn that off.
Cancel Meetings
I belong to a lot of different networking groups, but as my business has evolved over the years, I’m asking myself, does this group contain the perfect niche for my business?
A lot of the time we like to show up to these just because we’re popular in them, but the key question you have to ask yourself is this: Is being popular making you money? If it’s not, then maybe it’s time to unsubscribe from some of those networking groups.
The other meetings I’d love to unsubscribe from are discovery calls. This is when somebody connects with you on LinkedIn and it says, “Hey, we have a lot in common. We could definitely help each other’s business.” And it’s like, “Oh, really? Well, who do you know that I know? What is it about our businesses that you think that you could help me and I could help you?” Nine times out of 10, they’re just looking for somebody to sell their stuff to.
And the last meeting which is really hard to unsubscribe from is cold calls and robocalls. Those are the ones that no matter how hard you try to unsubscribe, there’s nothing you can do. You can try waiting for their entire spiel to press nine, to be unsubscribed from our list, but the chances of that happening are slim to none.
Cancel Notifications
I don’t know about you, but I get a lot of notifications all day long. I know you can easily turn those off if you want to. But to cut down on some of those annoying email notifications and social media notifications, one of the simplest things you can do is just leave groups.
If you’ve joined groups because friends have coaxed you into it and you’re not actively working in those groups or going to those groups and commenting and posting and being active in them, get rid of them. You can always join again later.
Similar to that on LinkedIn, you may have thousands of connections that have absolutely nothing to do with your business as it stands today. There is no reason why you should feel guilty about unconnecting with people that you don’t want to be connected with. I’d rather see you be connected to 100 people that you engage with than 10,000 or 30,000 people who are just going to clog up your newsfeed and your inbox and everything else. So, go ahead, disconnect from people if you’re not communicating with them or they’re not in your niche.
And lastly, I want you to disconnect from social media and tools that you no longer use. If you go into Facebook and you go under settings, there’s something called apps. And you may find that there’s a bunch of apps connected to your Facebook page that you no longer need or use. Some of it can be nefarious, like some of the games that you may have played like Farmville. But some are still collecting information about you and your activity and your likes. And they’re using that to get your name out into places where you don’t want it. So, it’s a good idea to go in and disconnect those tools from your Facebook account.
And by the way, if you’re not using things like Pinterest or Instagram, go ahead and close your accounts. Don’t leave that stuff hanging out there because it’s just another annoyance.
Final Thoughts
Let me leave you with a final thought and this. There are things that you may be paying for personally, that you can run through your business. Now, you need to talk to your accountant about this, but maybe you can have your cable or internet or phones run through your business as long as you have a good business case for them. So, have fun and start canceling.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas, or questions about cancel culture. Have you had to overcome any of the presented concepts? What worked and what did not live up to expectations? Do you have any ideas or advice you could share?
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