How do you contact prospects? Do you call them on the phone or send them an email? More and more salespeople are using email to contact prospects. Some are certainly not getting the results they want.
I recently got this email. It simply said, “Hey, could you tell me more about the services you offer?”
I didn’t know this person or his company. I usually notice whether the signature is a Gmail signature. I delete the email if it is. This one wasn’t. The domain was a legitimate url.
The idea that someone would start an email with “Hey” as a salutation was a turn off for me. I thought twice about whether or not to respond. The only reason I responded was I decided first to go to the website.
The website looked professional in that there were no typos. The grammar was correct and didn’t appear to be written by someone who didn’t speak American English or English as a second language. I overlooked the informality of the “hey” because I attributed it to a millennial who thought that was appropriate.
The work of this professional was consulting to build midsized businesses.
I replied to the email with a short response. I said:
Hi John,
I work with business and sales professionals who want to increase sales. My work includes:
-Effective sales strategy development and execution
-Sales skill improvement
I do this with sales training and consulting. How did you learn about me and my work?
I got back an email with an interesting response. The response was a suggestion to redesign my website. Here’s what it said:
Got it.
I checked our your site and I think you did a really great job with content. It’s good stuff! However… the design could be better. (just my honest opinion).
So, I had some free time and I created a handful of draft designs.
(The site is not coded yet… it’s just visual)
Here’s the deal:
I don’t believe in asking for your business.
I believe in earning your business, so just pick the design you like, I will code it for you for free, create a live demo, fill it up with your content and logo.(pretty much a ready-to-go version of your site, just much better looking). If you love it, let’s talk about replacing your old site with this new, impressive one.
Not only it will dramatically increase your brand authority, but the site’d be easily customisable by a non-techy person and it’d rank higher in Google because of it’s SEO properties.
Please let me know which one is the coolest! 🙂
I shouldn’t have been surprised that someone who thought he could start a business relationship with “hey” is thinking I make sales decisions on what is coolest.
I did look at the designs. I was shocked that the design was so different than what I would have ever thought effective for me which is a business-to-business audience.
Then I got another email from John. It was the same email as before which began with “Hey.”
The spelling of “customizable” should have alerted me that this was an off shore email. The second email confirmed it was spam.
You can sell using these tools. The reason why spammers exist is that it works. It’s a numbers game and there are enough people who sign on.
Don’t be fooled if you get similar messages to sell to you. Be vigilant about creating a professional image in the language you use and the tone of your correspondence if you use email to prospect.
Email can be an effective selling tool. It can also be the fastest way to be ignored as a sales professional.