If it’s your job to create revenue, I’m giving you permission to sell.
In just the last week, I’ve seen two examples of outbound messages that have closed with a PS begging for forgiveness
Here they are:
My take on this is “DO NOT APOLOGISE” for selling stuff.
It lowers your status.
I give you permission…. to reach out to your prospective clients and ask them for an engagement.
I give you permission…. to ask them if they’re interested in receiving more information.
I give you permission…. to create some urgency through multi-channel outreach.
That’s your job.
Interrupting people, via email, telephone, LinkedIn messages or any other channel is part of what we do. There is no need to apologise for it.
You cannot possibly be considered a trusted advisor if you’re apologising for your expert opinion… and… your outreach should be your expert opinion.
So….What has changed that we’re now starting to see this tactic creep in?
The focus on email deliverability by the big two, Google and Microsoft, means that if your email is reported as spam or junk enough, then your emails start going straight to those secondary mailboxes. (Such as the promotions box or the spam/ junk box) My guess is you know this already.
Obviously, this lowers the number of people who get to see your offer, your request or your email.
This is less than ideal.
The theory is… by placing these messages at the end of your outreach it lowers the chance of you being marked as spam or being blocked.
In order to get the same results as they used to, poor sellers and poor marketers are sending more and more emails and more and more messages.
In order to do that… they need to increase the number of people in their contact list.
Typically this means broadening the criteria of who is considered a potential buyer, Another way of saying that is they widen their Ideal Client Profile (ICP).
The end result is more people are getting irrelevant outreach in their inboxes and their message channels.
This in turn is resulting in more nasty replies.
This is what has led to people placing these apologies at the end of their outreach.
They are hoping that by pleading with you, to not respond nastily, it will reduce the chance they mark your email as spam.
My prediction is that this “plea in the PS” will become commonplace across the next 6months and then, once everyone has picked it up, it will be completely useless.
What should you do instead?
Do the opposite of what everyone else is doing.
That is…
1: Lower your volume of outreach.
2: Make sure your messaging is relevant to the target and that you can prove it in your message.
How can you prove it?
If you can say any version of “Because of this… it just made sense that…” you’re on the right track.
You want to be able to point to a fact – and say because of that fact that… and then join that together with… “it just made sense”
An example would be the following
So, that’s just two examples,
If your outreach is timely & relevant, it’s not going to be marked as SPAM or get you a nasty reply.
It’s also going to have a much higher open and response rate than simply spamming your TAM (Total Addressable Market)
So, while I don’t give you permission to SPAM people with messages that aren’t relevant
I do give you permission…. to reach out to your prospective clients and ask them for an engagement.
I do give you permission…. to ask them if they’re interested in more information.
I do give you permission…. to create some urgency through multi-channel outreach.
There is no need for you to apologise for being a sales professional.
Until next time – do good things 📊
