Somehow, unbeknownst to me, I opted in to receive emails from 1-800-Flowers after I ordered some holiday gift baskets.

I realized it mighty fast when I received (and I’m not exaggerating) 8 emails in a 3 day period.

In their defense, it was the weekend before Christmas so there was a bit of a deadline involved but;

8 damn emails in 3 days. The shame of it was that prior to having my inbox blasted, I absolutely loved the experience!

Verizon does this on pretty much a daily basis too and if I were in the mood to “out” several other companies, I could go on for a while.

Here’s the point . . .

Instead of positioning themselves as a helpful friend, they did a great job of looking like an annoying relative that keeps inviting them self over for dinner!

1) That kind of frequency is asinine.

2) Not one of the emails offered a helpful tip or resource. The gist was always “Buy our ___________ product”

3) It assumes that I care so much about buying their “stuff” that I’d want to hear from them several times a day. Think again!

And yet, I have this vision of some marketing genius, citing some kind of study that underscores a “beat your customer/prospect into submission” approach.

Before we continue to cast stones at the marketing department, sales people have a really bad reputation for, how shall I say, being a pain in the ass too!

Some of you don’t like voicemail so you keep calling, all day long. Some of you don’t block your number so the prospect sees you calling them like a jealous ex boyfriend, 10 times over the next few hours. The more they avoid you, the more the competitive part of your brain kicks in and you persist.

Some of you immediately send an email after your voicemail.Congrats, you just interrupted someone two times in 90 seconds.

Somewhere along the line, you misinterpreted persistence and thought that the definition is calling/emailing someone multiple times each day/week and . . .

Always a variation of “Let’s set up an appointment” or “Buy my widget” and let’s not forget “I wanted to ‘check in'”

If you were the recipient of this type of message would you appreciate the same message, from the same person, way too many times day/week.

The shame of it is, is that we condition our potential clients (and clients too) to ignore, block, delete and disregard.

Perhaps We’re Guilty Of Thinking In Extremes?

We justify putting intensive amounts of artillery fire on others because we don’t want to slack or miss an opportunity. Somehow, anything less than INTENSE is slacking but . . .

Sometimes going “middle of the road” is your best bet.

“Court”your potential clients, DON’T attempt to beat them into submission.

And make sure you continue to “court” your clients too.

Being a pain in the ass is a shortsighted strategy!

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