Don’t Email Like A Sales Weasel

You know one thing I hate when doing business with people? When you email someone, thanking them for meeting with you (even if they’re the one trying to sell YOU something), and that person doesn’t even return the common courtesy of emailing you back. What’s worst are sales weasel’s that not only turn disrespectful once they realize they won’t make money off you, but then add your email to their business spam list.

I meet with someone a few weeks ago that was trying to sell me something. After our meeting on the drive home, as a courtesy, I emailed him and thanked him for taking the time to meet with me. But let’s be straight here… I was the one who took time out to meet with this guy to hear his pitch, so he should have been thanking me. But that’s how I do business, I always try to show people respect. But not only does this dude not send me a “Thanks for meeting with me…” email or phone call, but he doesn’t even bother responding to my email. He realized I wasn’t going to buy into anything he was selling, so “why waste 30 seconds returning his guy’s email on a dead-prospect” is what he thought I’m sure. But that’s business… the majority of people doing business lack the fundamentals of courtesy.

But then today, I receive an email in my inbox. Who’s it from? The sales weasel. So not only does this person not respect me enough to return my email, but oh… he added me to his spam list? And I’m going to keep getting crap from him so I now have to add a filter to block all email from him. Nice…

What Impression Is Mass Email Giving Your Company?

What do you think my impression is now of this guy and his company? I had forgotten about not getting an email from him, or some of his rude attitude towards me after I decided I wasn’t interested, but now he’s taking time out of my work schedule to setup a filter for his emails. It only takes less than 30 seconds. But do you get the point? Because of this guy’s lack of respect and this unsolicited business spam, I know have a lasting bad impression.

Give Careful Thought Before Implementing Mass Email

So if you’ve got a business, you really need to think carefully about using an email spam system. It can hurt the credibility of your business. If you view yourself as a respectable person and view your business as a respectable one, then if you must do email business spam, choose your email addresses yourself. Don’t use an automated system to automatically select any email that comes to you. Or you could always be real with people, shoot them out a two sentence email like this…

“Hi [person's name], I’ve got some information I would like to send you that I think you’ll find interesting. Mind if I sent it to you?”

I’ve never once had someone ask me this. Honestly, if someone asked me this, I would be a lot less inclinded to simply setup a filter to instantly delete all mail from them.

Peace, JbB