Lately, I've received several "cold call" emails: sales reps emailing me, out of the blue, to try and arrange informational meetings where they can show me what their amazing product can do for our district. In the impossible situation that a future salesperson happens across this post, here is some advice:
- Tell me where you got my contact information, even if it was just from the district website.
- Make sure it makes sense to contact me. I'm the Assistant Webmaster, I don't influence what copy machines we buy for the schools.
- Don't try to sell us lame products. Your code doesn't validate? You'll only charge us $199/month to add an 80GB drive to a server in our server room? No thanks.
- Don't send a form email. Yes, even though you're a mail merge expert, I can still tell.
- Show me why I should be interested, including numbers measuring ROI to other organizations. If you have an idea how your product would help us, explain that in your email, don't waste my time with trying to schedule a meeting because your rep happens to be in Big D or Funkytown.
I work for a
high-quality, fiscally responsible school district. Your sales communications with me should reflect that.