Technology makes it too easy for stupid people.
Too cheap and easy to find you. To reach out to you. To spam you with their junk.
Take this pitch that I received yesterday (illogical sentence flow and poor punctuation included):
Daria, What makes an association truly world class?
The ability to communicate and educate your members to give them the competitive edge needed.
You can achieve this goal while also reducing your costs and putting your information flow into hyper speed with [company]. We will demolish the barriers of time, distance and cost.
Your Association’s mandate is to inform educate and offer a constructive platform for peer information sharing the only way for you to truly fulfill this mandate is to partner with [company] at NO cost to your Association…
With over 10 years’ experience delivering content through webinars on behalf of the world’s leading organizations [company] is here to assist your Association.
There’s so much wrong with this.
1. I’m not an association. Nor do I work for one.
2. It assumes every organization has the same core mission or objectives.
3. Is says nothing about what my challenge might be–or how this product might help me address it.
4. All this gobbledygook is about Webinars? Seriously?
5. It was signed by a “VP, Business Intelligence.” Need I say more?
Every time I saw the words “your Association” I thought that someone had intended them to be a placeholder for an actual company name. Not that this would have helped.
The bottom line: Be relevant. Be targeted. Be literate. Don’t write this sales pitch.
Photo by Leland Francisco (Flickr).
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I received a two-paragraph e-mail the other day from someone looking to connect with me at an upcoming event. She spelled my name right, told me it’s her second time going to an event put on by this particular group, and said she hoped we’d get to meet.
