I am sure there are sales people out there who can write. I just don’t know where they are. And neither do you. I am considering sacrificing a goat in the parking lot so the Productivity Prevention Geeklords will disable the Outlook Send function for all the sales people who have my name. If you have done this, I would be interested to hear how it went.
Let’s review why we should never, ever let sales people write marketing emails.
- They cannot write.
Neither can your agency, I know, but sales is worse. Like Larry here who needs to remember that not all words that sound the same, mean the same thing and that even if he won’t let marketing write his emails, he may want to consider asking them to proofread. Larry should also remember that cutting and pasting random paragraphs from a website does not constitute communicating.
Or this guy who, in addition to thinking I was at an event I did not attend, feels I need almost 4MB worth of case studies about a company I did not speak with. Also, he can’t write either.
2. It’s not their job.
They should be selling, not writing. If they are writing it’s because they don’t want to sell, which is kind of a bad sign, or because they think you should have done it and just couldn’t be bothered. In either case they should be eliminated.
Or maybe, like Carol, they have a lot of time on their hands. Carol has so much time that she needs to make September show up in a pretty, pretty font. Carol, honey, it’s an email, not a scrapbook. She also wants to know if I know what the trends are “anyway”. Isn’t that her job? Why not ask me about the Dodgers? Carol also has time to connect with business people through her Facebook page. Do you want to see Carol’s Facebook page? Having seen it, are you likely to book your next meeting with her? I didn’t think so.
3. You can’t track it.
It’s hard enough to get sales people to share their customer data, do we really need an entire string of illiterate correspondence going off the grid? No we don’t.
4. Some sales people are squirrels.
And I’m not talking about adorable woodland squirrels with acorns; I’m talking crazed urban models with pepper spray who self-groom to the point of baldness and chatter angrily at mailboxes because that’s where the voices come from. Squirrels shouldn’t write marketing emails either. Here’s why:
Next week: Sally Remembers the Sacred
BizMarketer is written by Elizabeth Williams
I help organizations build their brands through great conversations with employees and customers
Drop me a line at ewilliams(at)candlerchase.com
Follow me @bizmkter
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