Holy Smokes!

Readers Rock!  I should have conducted a poll or asked for your feedback ages ago!  There was more reaction, emotion and comment than anything I’ve written in ~ 25 years of distributing this enewsletter.

(For context – that’s approximately a 500-page novel!)

As a reminder, I shared a draft of an email to a prospect and asked if I should send it or not.  Here’re the results:

• Send – 20 said send, but fully 60% of those suggested I modify the message to tone it down.
• Don’t Send – the 18 responses were somewhere between “no way in hell” to it depends on the size of the prospect.
• Neutral – there were six replies that didn’t address the question at all.

Forty-four replies with an overall newsletter open rate of 39% - easily Beyond the Horizon records.

Especially gratifying was that 13 of those responses came from readers who had never done so before!

Here are a few of the highlights from both camps:

SEND

From a friend and now retired major metro Publisher says, “…Yes.  This or something similar is warranted!”

A friend and fellow partner to the media world says, “Brilliant!  Love it!  Send away!”

Retail Ad Director said – “Wow – what a great approach.  That should raise an eyebrow and get a response.”  He went on to suggest I use the phrase “what I find most difficult to understand”, rather than, “…what I find completely unacceptable.”

DON’T

A friend and consultant cautions: “Don’t even think about it!”  Then, went on to offer specific suggestions of a much more positive nature to get a reaction.

This was an especially fun reply from a friend and well-regarded industry partner: “The reality is the prospect is communicating when they don’t respond…we all have these frustrations, so I think of the prospect as a girlfriend.  If she doesn’t respond, how would you interpret that?”

A good friend offered this insight: “…I think it may depend on the importance of the prospect?  If it is a whale, keep hammering.”

There were FIVE total pages (single-spaced) of responses and guidance – sincere thanks to all.  You are marvelous!  Give yourself a fist bump!

So, what did I do?

Didn’t send.

While I’ll never know if this is true, my HOPE was that one or more of my hot prospects might actually read this and wonder if they owed me a reply?  To my knowledge, this has not happened.

We live in an age with growing demands on our ever-decreasing attention span.  This will only get accelerate.  (Anyone notice the uptick in spam calls of late?)

As a sales professional I MUST perpetually strive to be more direct, better understand my prospects and their needs and do an infinitely better job of articulating how solutions I offer can be easily implemented and either drive significant revenue or audience or, preferably, BOTH.

In other words, it is my job to get them to say, “Yes!”, not their job to worry about my tender feelings.

‘Nuff Said.