In my role as VP of IT for a publicly traded company, I receive an abundance of calls, emails, mailings and drop-by visits from vendors desperate to get their foot in the door. I’m at the point where I don’t answer my desk phone anymore and check my work voicemail weekly (at best), but that’s not the reason for this post.
Today I received 2 unsolicited emails from want-to-be vendors that I felt the need to showcase. Vendor #1 sent the following:
Hi Steve,
My name is xxx and I represent xxx. I don’t want to bore you too much but I just wanted to introduce the company and touch base. We are a premier solutions provider that partners with best of breed manufacturers in the areas of Systems, Storage, Security, and Networking. We do a lot of work in the valley and can help with all aspects of the IT infrastructure. I have attached our corporate brochure as well as our core competencies to help give you more information on us as a company. I will give you a call next week and would like the opportunity to work with you and earn your business.
Look forward to speaking with you
Pretty bleak and boring if you ask me! “I don’t want to bore you too much”?? How is that going to spark my attention and get me to pick up the phone and call him!
Now let’s look at Vendor #2:
Dear Steve,
I am pleased to invite you to become a member of the xxx Advisory Board. As an industry expert, xxx is looking for your insight to assist us in creating the next generation of thin client devices. Your opinion will help us shape the direction we choose to proceed with our products. In return, xxx will provide you with a complimentary thin client customized to your exact requirements.
As a member of our Advisory Board, we ask that you participate in a short call with our Advisory Board Account Manager. The Account Manager will coordinate the delivery of your thin client and schedule a follow-up call to get your opinion on the unit.
xxx is an emerging market leader in the development of thin clients and network appliances. xxx Thin Clients are Citrix Ready and VMware Ready.
We hope you will accept our offer and join our Advisory Board. Your expertise and opinion are valuable to us. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this further, please contact xxx
Best Regards,”
Wow! I am ready to pick up the phone and call. Now I completely see through the façade of the “Advisory Board” and know this is a solicitation for business but what a great angle to come from! What I like about this (and I will call this guy) is how they are being creative and playing to the executive’s ego!
In these tougher economics times you have to sell yourself better than the other guy. This is true whether you are a vendor, a job candidate or even an employee! Always think about how you can stand out in the crowd and differentiate yourself. No one is interested in ‘boring’!
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Great post – I couldn’t agree more! For me, there are 2 things vendors need to do to get a call back:
1) Show me that you’re not just sending a blanket email that you send out to all potential clients (one vendor forgot to change the company name in one of their form letters once…). Do some research on the company, and on me. It’s easy to find me on LinkedIn, find some talks I’ve done at conferences, etc. Show me you know who you’re talking to. For example, one vendor pulled one of my slides from one of my decks on Slideshare, and used it to show where his company fits in and can help me. Now that’s a call I will take. Playing to the ego, like you said
2) Do some work and give me something for free to show that you’re confident in your services. If you provide web analytics, do a mini project on my company, send me some sample data for free, and ask me if I have any questions. You’ll get a call back, even if I don’t like the data – at least you tried!
Now here’s an immediate turn-off: Words that don’t mean anything. One vendor recently said this in an email to me:
“[] can show the Word of Mouth lift for specific product categories and brands advertising on Yahoo, in a competitive context. [] covers offline as well as online buzz (offline still predominates even for technology issues) with a projectable sample.”
That doesn’t mean anything to me. Show me you can make my life easier. Show me why I would be stupid not to call you back…
Steve, thanks for this post. it seems like in the tough environment we are all operating in, there’s an expectation that everyone will bring their “A” game rather than trying the same old methods and expecting business to come their way. Another typical tactic is the “we’d like to meet with you to discuss your strategic plan” offer, which is another way of saying “tell us what you have planned so it is easier for us to sell you our product”. A little prep/research, like Rian mentions above, would potentially make a big difference in whether that time investment was made…