When I was about 18, I had a house share with a teacher. We lived in a tiny cottage in the grounds of an English castle. Trust me, although beautiful, it wasn't that great - it was permanently bloody freezing and there were so many planning laws, we couldn't make changes.

She was a real "girly girl". She drove a pink Citroen 2CV, embraced fluffy pink stuff decades before it was ubiquitous and always wore Laura Ashley dresses.

You're going to work out how old I am now... but it would've been the year both Thelma & Louise came out - and the Terminator.

She popped off to the shops to treat herself to Thelma & Louise (VHS!) and we opened the wine and crisps and settled in for the night.

If you can't already see where this is going... yep, a mix-up at the shop had resulted in the Terminator being loaded into the box, not Thelma, Louise and the delicious young Brad...

Poor June* (*identity changed to protect her dignity!) ran up the stairs to bed crying with Soraya and I howling with laughter and gleeful at getting to watch the film we really wanted!

June wasn't everyone's cup of tea - but she was deliciously June. Unapologetically June. Brilliantly June.

Much like Sarah Connor... she never much struck me as the type who worried about rubbing people up the wrong way! Literally shooting from the hip!

Then you've got the Terminator and the Rise of the Machines.

One mission. One 'personality'. No deviation from The Plan.

Or... like these email and funnel templates so many employ. Devoid of personality, devoid of personalisation - in fact, more akin to an IKEA trip right now where you're DOUBLY-funneled around the store. True story: Took my kids to IKEA last month and let them take control of the satnav and give me directions. 4000 extra miles up and down the Edinburgh bypass. 

When your customers receive newsletters and emails for you, they know if they're just a number - or whether you're writing to them. Warts and all. Your emails might not be that great, but they're you and you need to start. Inaction and waiting for perfection will be your biggest downfall.

Nobody wants to get an email from you which could be from literally ANYONE but it just shoving you down their funnel to buy.

It's not natural and it's not authentic.

When you resort to convoluted funnels and PRESSURE it doesn't work. Your people will never feel truly connected to you. When your message resonates, you don't NEED to sell with pressure.

People want to know about you, what makes you tick, what makes you different. Your commonalities with them, your up days, your down days - and your deliciously weird stuff.

In a crowded marketplace, you have to be YOU to stand out.

I know it's cliche, but nobody does YOU the way you do.

Long Story Short: don't use copy & pasted email templates. Your customers are not the lamb to your wolf BBQ!