This is more of a personal email, as I am taking a break with the family. The subject line for this email I overheard on one of my first jobs, where a furious salesperson shouted down the phone at a would-be (and I’m guessing never was) customer 😬. It was a curious sales tactic, which got me thinking.
Most days, I receive 5-15 sales emails. How I respond is a function of:
😬 Sleep deprivation 😬 Workload 😬 Grumpiness
And just a smattering of rational analysis.
Some do make me smile. Like one I received a few weeks back, using a sketchy Gmail address (b2btopdatalists) to sell me the names of delegates to a global fraud prevention conference. Selling (most likely) fraudulently obtained names for a fraud conference to people you’ve identified as preventing fraud is a ballsy move…
Then there are the emails I keep because they’re inspirationally hopeless, like this:
Should I let this person take over the weekly newsletter!? They’ve done their research by scraping the LinkedIn bio line and abridging it unintelligibly, then pasting it wonkily into a bad email editor. Nothing says attention to detail quite like a botched intro. But, to their credit, my first name is right (Rubert is a standard first salvo).
I try to remember there is a poor soul (or maybe a bot?) behind these emails, so while I may feel grumpy, I never act on it.
I had that happen to me in year one of this business (someone objected to a LinkedIn advert we ran where the call to action was a button consenting to be contacted about scheduling a possible demo titled, “Book a demo”). This person looked me up and wrote, “Clicking that link should’ve given me information, not tricking me into getting a demo. That’s distasteful, bordering on unethical.” 🤷🏻♂️
Receiving that email was chastening. I’ve been working in risk since 2001, and before that, I only ever had one project go wrong (in 2006, a sensitive undercover intelligence-gathering operation where an asset nearly got burned). I remember that day vividly; it was not pleasant. Receiving the message above, 13 years later, suggesting “tricking,” was tough to take.
A few weeks later, on LinkedIn, I saw a mutual contact had liked a post by the person who sent the “tricking” message as they announced their involuntary redundancy and requested help finding a new role. Maybe the ad was unclear, but my timing had been inadvertently awful.
There is a point to the rambling. I hear from my clients that you receive many sales emails, too. That is seldom framed as a positive. We all have so much going on in our lives (good and bad). So, how should I reach people sensitively?
70% of our work is referrals; the rest comes from this newsletter, free assessments, public speaking, LinkedIn, or social proof (seeing someone else’s testimonial). With that in mind, here’s a quick survey to try and help me help you by getting better quality content to you; tell me what you want and need:
- You have my eternal gratitude!
~washing is becoming dirty
Greenwashing is a daily subject (in my news and social media feeds). During a recent interview for a magazine, I was asked about bluewashing. Confusingly, it can mean greenwashing, specifically around water (oceans, coasts, waterways), but also human rights ‘washing’ (more here on all the types of washing ).
I appreciate that distinguishing between violations helps frame a corporate naughtiness taxonomy. But - and maybe I’m showing my age here - isn’t it better to be specific? When we have to be exact - i.e., detail the alleged misrepresentation or fraudulent assertion - we necessarily need to present data, ideally in context.
I work in this area and am already fatigued by how casually these terms are flung around and how poorly solutions are articulated. Please stop ‘washing’ and give us the actual dirt.