I have had a few bewildering attempts to contact me recently that I feel deserve some comment.

Attempt 1

“Reading through your site, it looks like you enhance sales skills for professionals in various industries. Keep it up!”

This actually makes me cringe. Keep it up? How patronising can you be to someone that you do not know and are trying to influence to buy your services. Equally, given that this is my business, what do you think I will be doing? Giving up?

Attempt 2

“Hope you are well, I tried giving you a call earlier regarding this year’s XXX event.”

The thing about mobile phones is that they are great at keeping track of missed calls so if you had tried to call me earlier, I would have known. Why would you start your message with a blatant lie?

Attempt 3

“Tim, I have tried to get hold of you for a while. This is my final attempt.”

I cannot decide if this is a threat or meant to make me relieved. There is usually a good reason why I have not responded.

If you want to get a response from a potential customer, behave as if you were meeting them in real life. Be polite, be honest, be interested in me and my business.

Do not just talk about yourself. I don’t know you so I am not really that interested.

Tell me something that I don’t know. Make me think differently about my business. I am not going to buy your product unless I have a need to do so. Just because you have a product does not make me want to buy it.

I am only ever going to buy it if I need it and for that to happen, I need to think differently about my business. That starts from learning something new.

AI can be great but it has no idea how to write great emails that make me think differently. Make your email about me and what I need to know and I might just respond.