The Sales Vault

How to Respond to a Snarky Email

I was just noticing that I didn’t have a blog written for this week and as I sat down to start writing, an email came in from a reader. It’s a subject I’ve written about before but bears repeating:

Dear Bill,

I’m a long-time reader/viewer, first time writer…

I recently received the following out of office message from a prospect:

**I am unavailable today and probably tomorrow too.

If you are trying to sell me something, just stop and pull me off your list. 🙂

I’m not interested.

No. Seriously. Stop. Please.

Take the 15 min you wanted to spend speaking with me and go have a coffee or tea instead. If you are going to SPAM me, bother someone else. Even better – try inbound marketing. It’s a more cost-effective way to generate MQLs and pipeline.

Have a great day!**…

…Before reading my response, consider what you would do. Then, read on…

Here’s what I wrote back:

Good morning…I LOVE this message. I can think of three responses, two of which are fun and one is obedient:

    1. If your name goes on the back of your paychecks (in other words, if you don’t own the company you work for and therefore cannot speak your mind): Either ignore entirely or keep it lighthearted with something like, “Thank you for the laugh. This is a clever response. But, ponder this: You don’t know what you don’t know and a better solution to your business challenges might have come from our relationship.”

If you own the company, you can be a bit more direct…

    1. “Thank you for the heads up. I have no desire to work with close-minded people.”Or, if you want to take that step even further…
    2. “Thank you. I work very hard to help my customers find their customers and, more relevant to your email, defeat their competition. My next call will be to yours.”

A few years ago, I wrote a whole column on this subject. Here’s the link to that article  @piworld.com

Thanks for writing…

Bill

Prospects and customers have the right block sales attempts, but there is a line of professionalism and courtesy. You can’t sell to ignorant, nor do you want to. This prospect is screaming, “I’M A JERK TO WORK WITH” and we need to listen to him. But, before we move on to the next one, you might want to push back a little…or a lot!

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