Dear Sales Leaders,
I posted my thoughts yesterday about what social selling is and is not. And now, I have another perfect illustration of how focus on technology while ignoring the basics of creating relationships, earning trust and selling value is a big problem.
For the first time, I’m leaving in the person’s name and the company, although I got rid of their email address.
“On May 10, 2013, at 4:47 AM, “Marry ” wrote:
Hi - I hope you don’t mind the direct contact, however, I have an offer I thought might be of interest to you.
This is Bryan Blair; I handle the pre-package list division of my company Realbase Marketing Group. We specialize in B2B marketing lists that will enable the growth of your company by adding new contacts to your marketing database.
Regards, Mary”
I couldn’t help myself and responded with…
“Actually, I do mind. If you had bothered to do a little homework, you would know that in the work I do, I rail against these horrible approaches to trying to sell something. This is SPAM email that doesn’t even conform to federal law regarding email marketing.”
In case it isn’t painfully obvious, let paint a picture of what is wrong with this sales message.
- It comes from Marry. Her name is Mary. Can’t even ensure that her own name is spelled right?
- Not personalized and addressed to me.
- Hi. I hope you don’t mind? Stupid.
- I have an offer that might interest you. Really? What is it?
- I’m Bryan Blair. Hum. Well, which is it? Are you Mary, Marry or Bryan? I’m getting confused.
- You specialize in B2B marketing lists that will enable the growth of your company by adding new contacts? Sure. You spammed me. Is that what you encourage your clients to do? You are breaking the CANN-SPAM Act rules of email marketing folks.
- Regards, Mary. Again, who is sending this email? Bryan, Mary?
Honestly, you may read this post and think…no way, my sales people do not do that. Are you sure? Do you really know what you sales people are saying and doing?
I wish that I could say that this email was an exception. It isn’t. I receive messages like this every day, several times a day.This is why I fervently believe that if you hang your hat on the technology (think CRM), as the way to increase sales without making darn sure your sales people are sending relevant, targeted, customer focused messages, you have a serious problem on your hands!
Barb,
I received the same email. Exactly as you copied. I was incredulous that someone would actually bother to take the time to send this until I realized that someone else had probably already responded. One would think that even the dumbest “marketer” would not continue unless they were met with some meager success.
Makes me even more incredulous to think that some people DO respond to these really badly done offers.
Cheers,
Marc
The SAME email? Now that is worse than bad! When will these companies learn?
Same email also. So I responded that I was very interested and could you please send me more information.