I know I’ve said it before.. calling a inane letter or email the worst ever.. so I won’t proclaim that here.
Then again, this one is certainly a candidate:
Hi, Warren.
GuiltyInc has been talking with your company intermittently about helping address your company’s vague requirements. I am currently planning a trip to your area in March. Is it possible for us to meet to talk about your vague strategy?
GuiltyInc is the largest vague firm headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. Since we are very familiar with your company’s products and technology, I think we might be able to contribute meaningfully to your vague program.
If you feel it would be better for me to talk with one of your colleagues, I would appreciate your letting me know the name of the appropriate person to contact and forwarding this email.
Thank you for your help and I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
GuiltyInc Rep
![letter_writing[1]](http://www.bestsellerauthors.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/letter_writing1.jpg "letter_writing[1]")
I’ve changed the company name to GuiltyInc and their vague description of what they do to vague.. not to protect them, just to keep us from discussing that technology. But trust me when I tell you that there is no way that they know anything about my “products and technology” as I don’t have such things!
I imagine that you could look through your standard business letter books and find this letter as a template. The sender likely spent as little time putting in their company name as I did changing it to post here.
Don’t Be a Dull Salesperson When You Talk About Your Book
I’m a firm believer in sending cover letter, introductory emails and any other means of getting you and your book in front of prospects for publicity or sales. Just remember, we all get tons of spam, bad letter and inane requests. It take just a moment to be real and open a dialog with people.
Just use my marketing mantra .. listen and love
1) Find out something unique about your prospects. They have a web site or blog, read it first.
2) Comment to let them know you read up on them.
We all know that people approaching us have business interests and selling desires. We accept that if you have just a modicum of personality. If you can approach the media, book distributors, prospects yourself, do this and you’ll get better results. If you have someone helping you, teach this to them.
Whatever you do, don’t put this off because you think there is more important things to do. You are asking for a human being to allot some of their time to listen to you. They deserve this much attention.
Best of all, the return on investment here is immense. Spending a few extra seconds yourself, or paying your help to add real person al contact will pay off 100x
I'm sure you got the letter they intended to send to me. I am the contracting officer at Vague inc. Most of the mail we receive is mis-spelled. Vogue and Vague are not “that” much alike.
We do offer similar products, but trust me on this, Our Product is much higher quality. We sell ours by the pound or by the bucket. And you can get fries with that if you ask for the jumbo combo.
Thank's for clearing up the confusion that has plagued us at Vague Inc over the years.
I've always wondered what you do at Vague Inc.
But it's not a business letter. It's a newer phenomenon, more like targeted spam. And the reason this style is getting more common is, I suspect, because it works. It's like free advertising: you throw a vague message to lots of recipients, and if anybody bites, then they're more likely interested. It's just a cost efficient manner of lead generation (efficient from the perspective of the sender).
Spam is way too overused.
If I get something that I don't want, it's SPAM? That would be most of my mail, anything on a bulletin board, 90% of the telephone calls and just now, and email from a friend who believed she had to dump her address book into the TO field because she heard the 28th amendment was going to pass if we all forwarded messages.
No, SPAM is the repeated sending of the same message.. technically from the practice of CROSS POSTING in UseNet forums.
I need companies to send me a commercial message from time to time, and I need to send people an invitation to engage myself.. let's not get carried away… other will take that as a call to ban everything 🙂
Good persuasion does not look like persuasion. It's news, information, answers to questions, and ENGAGEMENT. It's the marketing of the future..
LISTEN and LOVE.. it's as simple as that.
I got a similar “vague” business letter via LinkedIn just today. Here's a sample, with the original name of the company:
I came across you profile today and I thought that it might make sense, in this particular case, for us to briefly speak.
I am the head of U.S. Green Building Partners. Among other things, we work with houses of worship to reduce operational expenses by 40-50% and increase church membership through Green Audits and Branding. In this challenging economy the need for differentiation is more important than ever. I’d like to discuss some of the work we’ve done recently and programs we might put in place to help members of your church. Our primary focus is on no/low cost Green measures. I have no idea if you have any needs in this area but I wanted to reach out to you regardless.
Please feel free to contact me if you think there is any reason for us to have a brief discussion.
OK, I DON'T think there's any reason for us to have a discussion (brief or otherwise). Mainly because I'm not representing a church on my LinkedIn profile. I'm the executive director of a small, independent Christian teaching & training ministry – not a church. We work out of my home; we don't have a physical office space. Nor am I involved with my church's facilities management or finances.
I especially like the comment “I have no idea if you have any needs in this area.”
PRICELESS
Sometimes it's just a mistake 🙂