We all get sold to. We all sell. Whether we do it professionally or not is irrelevant. Cold calling and cold selling is an art form all its own and one that I’m personally terrible at which is why I do what I do (not sales). I get unsolicited emails on a daily basis both to my personal inbox as well as to my work inbox. Not sure how these folks find me but I’m guessing through LinkedIn. They typically just take a stab in the dark at my email address and once you know my name and who I work for it’s not too big a leap to figure out my email address.
I hate to do it, but I’ll admit that 9 times out of 10 I delete those unsolicited emails without responding. Sure, sometimes I respond to my spam, but more often than not I don’t bother. I realize it takes time to send these emails and I do feel bad about not responding… but not really.
I recently received one that I simply had to share. I’ll edit out names to protect the sender:
Hi Chewie,
Over the last couple weeks, I have put quite a bit of effort into reaching you and introducing our Load Testing and Web Performance Monitoring software, but as of yet I haven’t succeeded.
That makes me wonder: Why are you not responding?
I’d assume it’s one of these reasons:
- I am too busy.
- I’m not interested because I’m not the right person.
- I’m not interested because I already have a solution in place.
Here are my answers to these reasons:
- I completely understand that you are busy. Perhaps we could schedule some time to speak later next month?
- Thank you for letting me know. Would you happen to know who is responsible for the performance of your website(s)/application(s)?
- That’s great! But what we have to offer is most likely more robust than what you are currently using and MOST DEFINITELY comes with more flexible payment terms.
All I am asking is that you let me know either way.
If you would like to schedule a 30-minute introduction to the solution, please email or call me.
If you would like to stop receiving emails from me, PLEASE just tell me.
I can handle it.
Now I have to commend this guy for sending this email but he’s a BIT overzealous. First of all, I’ve never heard of the guy or his company. That tells me that if he HAS in fact been trying to contact me as he suggests, he really sucks at it cause he’s been calling and not leaving a voicemail. That’s irritating in and of itself.
Secondly, if I’m NOT the right person, it takes some balls to assume that I’d just point this guy in the right direction, effectively pawning him off on one of my co-workers.
As for his close where he asks if I’ve like to stop receiving emails from him, a simple one word answer should suffice. In the words of WWE World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan, “YES!!! YES!!! YES!!!”
