My Cold Contact Policy

Want to contact me to sell me on your business solutions?

Wonderful!

I’ve put together a handy guide on how to do that. If you don’t follow these instructions, I don’t like your chances.

1. Understand my business structure, at least on a superficial level. Don’t tell me I ‘have a website’ – even bots know that, and they’re wrong because I own several. Take 60 seconds to look over either of my sites. If you don’t notice the big, fat RSS feed pointing to another website, this isn’t going to work out.
2. Reference these rules. It shows you read.
3. Tell me something specific about my site – something you enjoyed and why you enjoyed it, for example – so I know you’re not a spambot.
4. Show to me that you know the topics I write about and the style I write them in.
5. Realise that my sites have one author between them… and that author is prolific. That should tell you something about me and what I want (and don’t want).
6. Show some personality and don’t be boring.
7. Convince me that I need what you sell. And because I have to spell it out for some people – I don’t need what I provide as a service to others.
8. Don’t waste my time. Don’t do anything spammers do, like ask me to click a link – especially a shortened link.
9. Understand that even if you convince me that I need what you offer, I’m probably going to go with someone else. Or I’ll do it myself. The onus is on you to stop this – if I need a widget, why do I need your widget?
10. If you do all this, I will get back to you. If a week goes past (not three hours!) and you haven’t heard back, send a short, polite follow up message.
11. Brace yourself, because my reply will probably be ‘no thanks’. Understand that my reply to everyone else is definitely ‘no thanks’, which gives you the edge.
12. Realise if anything on this list is new, shocking or painful to you, demand a refund from whoever taught you cold contacting. Honestly, you should feel offended, like I’m telling you how to suck eggs.

If that didn’t scare you off, reach out. I’m keen to improve my business… and if your message is awful, it’ll make great fodder for my articles.

P.S. Want to hire me? This isn’t the form for that. Head to one of my other websites and contact me there.