TL;DR
Everyone’s selling something, but how you ask matters. A string of guilt-trip follow-ups won’t get you a reply. It’ll get you blocked. Do your homework, follow up once when there’s a real reason to, and then let it go.
I keep getting the same email. Different sender, same pitch: “Write your own book! We’ll help you write your book!”
Here’s the thing. A quick Google search of my name would show them, on the very first page, that I’ve already written two books, both published by a real, third-party publisher.
So they’re wasting their time. They’re wasting their energy. They’re wasting the electricity of whatever data center is churning these things out. And honestly? It’s making me a little crazy.
Part of me wanted to reply and tell them, to save the next person the trouble. Then I caught myself: it’s not my job to do other people’s jobs for them.
That thought was rattling around in my head while I was cleaning out my phone, and I found a video I’d recorded a couple of years ago on this exact topic. Past me said it better than present me could. So let’s talk about it. Every one of us sends emails that ask someone for something. The question is whether we’re asking in a way that makes people want to answer.
Know What’s Yours to Answer (and What Isn’t)
Email is a necessary evil. It’s also your job to conquer it, and you can. That starts with knowing what’s actually your responsibility.
Some emails are your responsibility: the ones from your boss, your teammates, your partners, your clients, and the people you’re actively trying to work with. Those people get a response the same day unless their email lands after 4pm. Even if all you can say is, “Got your note. I can’t dig in today, but I’ll get back to you by Thursday.”
Why? When someone you’re in a relationship with sends you an email, it goes on their list. Once they know you’ve got it, they can cross it off. That one line is respect in action.
At Double Forte, our rule is simple. If you’re in the To line, you respond. If you’re in the CC line, you don’t, unless someone calls on you directly or you have information that moves the conversation forward. (I wrote more about these ground rules in The Rules of Email.)
What’s not on that list? The unsolicited sales email. My inbox is my inbox, not your inbox. Sending something to me doesn’t make it my responsibility.
Anatomy of a Follow-Up That Guarantees Silence
The 10-Email Thread
I won’t share the sender’s name, but his thread is one of hundreds like it that land in my inbox every month. I know it’s a thread because I can count the replies stacked at the bottom. One, two, three… ten. Ten times this guy has emailed me.
Read from the bottom up, it goes something like this:
- First, the pitch: why I should raise money through him.
- Then: “I’ve reached out a couple of times but haven’t heard back. I’d appreciate a response to my email below.”
- Then: “I’m sure you’re busy, but if you can respond to my email, I can cross this off my list.”
- Then: “Should I stop bothering you?”
- And finally, the latest one, in full: “I have not heard from you. Please let me know.”
Why It Backfires
“I have not heard from you” assumes I owed him a response. I didn’t. He’s an unsolicited salesperson.
“If you respond, I can cross this off my list”? Why on earth am I responsible for your list? I’m not responsible for your work. If I’d wanted to respond, I would have. Truly.
I know the sales-funnel math. Depending on who you listen to, it takes seven emails, or 12, to get a response. And sure, I’ve occasionally answered the 12th email from someone persistent enough to slip past my (very active) spam filter. But that math leaves out one thing: making someone angry.
I see the preview text of every message on my screen. When the preview is a guilt trip, all it does is make me mad. If you make me angry, or make anyone angry, you’re not getting a response. Ever. Why would I spend my energy answering a rude string of emails? It’s not my job to take myself off your prospect list.
So he’s blocked. I’m sure he’ll change his name and come around another way, but it won’t matter. He might have a wonderful product. I’ll never know, because the way he’s trying to serve me is so offensive that I’ll never choose to be served by him.
Skip the Homework, Lose the Deal
Which brings me back to the book pitches. Pushy follow-ups are the second mistake. The first is not doing your homework.
If the first page of a Google search makes your pitch irrelevant, don’t send it. Five minutes of research is the difference between a pitch that lands and one that tells me you didn’t care enough to look.
Instead of: “Write your own book! We’ll help you get started.”
Try: “Congrats on The Boomerang Principle. We help authors turn their books into speaking programs and courses. Would that be useful as you plan what’s next?”
Instead of: “I have not heard from you. Please let me know.”
Try: Nothing. If they never responded and never committed to anything, let it go.
How I Follow Up, and When I Walk Away
I’m not anti-follow-up. I follow up all the time. But a real follow-up is different from a guilt trip.
When I’m in an active conversation with a prospect and they miss a timeline they set, I ping them once:
“Hi, I haven’t heard from you. You thought you’d get back to me by Friday, and it hasn’t happened yet. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to move it along.”
That’s it. If I still don’t hear back, I drop it. I’m not going to be that person. I’m not going to chase business that clearly doesn’t prioritize it, and that’s okay. Plenty of other fish in the sea.
Now flip it. Say one of my own people sent me, “Hey Lee, I still haven’t heard from you. Can you let me know?” First of all, I’d feel terrible. Second, I’d answer right away. Same goes for a client, even one who’s a little terser about it.
The words are almost identical to the sales guy’s. The difference is the relationship. My team and my clients have earned the right to nudge me. A stranger trying to sell me something hasn’t.
Follow up once. Then let go.
Everyone’s Selling Something. Make It Worth Answering.
Here’s the truth: we’re all selling something. Every one of us is trying to get a response, serve someone, get paid, or pay someone for something. That’s business.
But how you do it matters. It really matters.
So please, please, please don’t assume your own work is someone else’s responsibility. It isn’t.
The flip side holds too. You are responsible to the people who matter to your business, even the ones you don’t particularly like. If they’re in your circle and they email you, you respond.
Whatever your rules are, make them explicit. If your organization doesn’t have communication norms, create them. When everyone knows what’s expected, you demonstrate respect, you keep communication concise and purposeful, and you give your team clarity about how to use this one thing called evil…
Yes, that was a real Freudian slip when I recorded this episode. I meant email. Which, let’s be honest, is a totally necessary evil.
Conquer it anyway.
Listen to the full episode on Everything Speaks.