A lot of emails, social media updates, blog posts and phone calls start with a fake apology. And it’s a lie. They’re not sorry at all.
Allow me to explain.
If someone accidentally reverses their car over your foot, it’s fine for them to say sorry. You’d expect that from them. It’s good manners. However, when business people say they are sorry for deliberately doing something they know will piss you off, it’s not an apology.
It’s simply an admission that they are fully aware that what they’re doing is wrong… but that they’re going to do it anyway!
Think about it
- If they were truly sorry to interrupt you at work with a cold call, they wouldn’t have called you.
- If they were truly sorry to spam you with an email, they wouldn’t have spammed you.
- If they were truly sorry to pester you with selfish requests, they wouldn’t hound you.
Permission matters
If we have something to say and we’re passionate about it – we should share it. However, we should share it the correct way. This means not interrupting people with our marketing, as in the above examples. Instead, we need to get their permission first. If we do that, there’s no need to pester people and no need to start our marketing with a fake apology.
Here’s why this matters: It’s not a great strategy, to try and start a commercial relationship with an obvious lie. It’s also a bad move to pester strangers with unwanted interruptions. Combining the two will ruin your reputation and see them labelled a pest.
The most successful small business owners use a far more effective approach. TThey attract sales leads and business enquiries.
If you’d like to know more about attracting enquiries, I wrote about it here: How to turn strangers into customers.
IMPORTANT: If you want to make more sales, boost your profits and grow an amazing business, this will help you!