How to write a correction email.

Hello. Me again.

At some point in your life, you’re going to have to write an email similar to the one I’m writing now.

It’s the “I made a mistake” email. Or, if you embrace casual Fridays with the same spirit that we do, the “I shat the bed” email.

I love emails, but the finality of clicking that “send” button is like nothing else on the internet. You can’t jump in and make a quick edit. You can’t delete the post and start again either.

You can only hold your hands up, be honest, and try to impart some sort of value if you can.

The link I just sent probably doesn’t work for you.

It turns out I’m not the domain expert I thought I was. Up until last week, I thought DNS stood for Drunk ‘n’ Stupid.

I’ll be sending a new, improved link as soon as I figure out how. In the meantime, here are three pieces of advice should you find yourself in a situation like mine:

1) Stay calm. Nobody cares about your mistake as much as you. Most of your recipients won’t have noticed.

2) Don’t get too apologetic. Mistakes happen and, like I said, nobody really cares anyway. “I’m so sorry you couldn’t get early access to my playbook” sounds hollow.

3) Own it. Don’t blame the intern or insist it was the email service provider. Be a human about it. (Although if anyone asks, this was all James’ fault).

Be in touch soon,

Jamie