How NOT to sell your ad network to an agency...
This is the email I received at work:
(the names have been changed to protect the imbecilic)
Message subject: I'd love to get on your calendar!
"Hello, ThothLestat! I wanted to touch base via email, since it’s sometimes easier to respond this way. I am the National Interactive Sales Manager for Blah-blah-blah Inc. based out of Atlanta.
I have been meeting with all of the top-tiered online ad agencies in the Atlanta market giving them an in depth presentation on where we are in the online market space and possible opportunities for their clients.
I’d love to meet with your team of interactive planners (both on the search and online media side).
In the meantime, can you send me a client roster and tell me a little about your clients' online needs?
Thanks in advance for your help, and I look forward to meeting with you and the team.
D.O. Uchehammer
National Interactive Sales Manager
I Can't Believe It's an Ad Network &trade Our tagline includes two exclamation points!!"
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Wow.
I don't know where to start.
In the time you spent writing all that, you could have actually visited out website and seen our list of clients.
Then, you could have visited our clients' websites and seen for yourself what might be relevant to them.
You might have noticed that some of our clients are charities, and others are 'business-to-business' entities, and some are small, privately-owned companies with very localized trade areas and serve specific niches.
Instead, you want to set up a meeting with me so I can explain all this to you.
And you even included a meeting request (!!) with your email that automatically set up a meeting on my calendar, which I must respectfully decline.
Technology is supposed to make people smarter, not lazier. And you are insufferably lazy.
I know that you didn't write that email, you're cutting-and-pasting the same message to every agency in the Atlanta area.
I have friends at other agencies, you know.
We talk.
Do your homework.
Act like you care.
Show me that you are capable of doing the most basic form of research.
p.s. We're not a top-tiered online ad agency. We don't even have 'interactive planners'.
p.s.s I don't even know how you found my contact info. I'm not even listed on our website.
*meeting request declined*
Have a nice day.
Apparently I'm not authorized to download & install software on the computer at work. 99% of the time, this isn't a problem since there isn't anything I ever need to install. But today, I had to install software that imports zip codes & county data and creates maps.
See, we use these maps to target our clients' offers and mailings -- or, as you refer to it; junk mail.
Yay! Maps!
Yay! Junk mail!
I know, it sounds like TONS of fun.
Sometimes, dear reader, it is.
It is.
Now, my computer wouldn't let me install the mapping software so I had to go over to the interns' station -- apparently the old PCs in the interns' station will allow just about anyone to install software because they're on a different server. Seems like a terrible security risk to me, but, feh, that's a topic for another day.
It's not my department.
Let me just say... the computers over in the interns' station are about 5 or 6 years old. That doesn't sounds so bad, but they're ANCIENT in computer years.
And I don't think they have EVER been cleaned. Not even dusted. Ever. Not even accidentally.
There was so much crud & grit in the keyboards they crunched when you pushed 'em hard enough. And the mouse ball was covered in an oily sticky mixture of dust, crumbs, and debris.
I used compressed air to blow the crud out of everything and it felt like sand and hair blew into my eyes.
Fuck.
You interns are disgusting.
Nasty. Nasty. Nasty.
I spent three hours on that nasty old computer.
I don't think my hands will ever get clean.
( My maps are beautiful, by the way. )
( pieces of art, really. )
COMMENTS
Maps of what dare i ask lol
LoL Gross!!!!!
We have three TV's at work, and if I didn't dust them, or the compute till, they'd be exactly like the ones you described :)
That wasn't just any old hair Thoth!
*kack*
*kack*
*gag*
thanks, you tosser!
So.. you have interns do all of your IT?
I hope not. I think the interns use the old PCs because those old things are slow and disposable. If they wreck anything, we can just toss 'em into a dumpster.
(the computers, not the interns)
COMMENTS
/rant
Not a bad rant in itself, however I can't help but think you held back a little, the majority would vote for a little blasphemy, but at the end of the day it's your rant.
I know, right?
It took me 30 minutes to cool off & stop swearing.
This might be the most uninteresting rant in the universe today.
Nah.. I know how it goes.
It's the downfall of most sales people - when their eyes and mind fill up with that big commission staring them in the face, their ears turn off.
Best way to handle it is with a very short and curt "no" and walk away, or hang up, or some other equivalent.
If you're already explained it, you don't have to explain it again. Trust me, it will be a lesson he will be forced to learn from.
Or you could grab his crotch and firmly reinforce your "No." or something. i bet that would make him pay attention.
*applauds*
Wow Thoth...why not just punch him in the face...or is that a little over the top
COMMENTS
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xAXEWOMANx
13:30 Jan 29 2010
hahahaha you are too cool for school Mr Thoth
come be my boss ;)
Theban
11:23 Feb 09 2010
I'll work for you!
dabbler
19:09 Feb 17 2010
Creepy, if they send you a Birthday E-mail, I would file a restraining order.