Authenticity in Outreach

I received two messages this week. The first was a request to join a mentorship program from my alma mater, and the second was a request to join a company as an affiliate for their sales program.

Both times I have been on the receiving end of an “Ask”. You with me?

There was a similar approach in both messages that I want to highlight for the purpose of this post. See if you can figure out what I’m about to write about by reading both.

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Did you catch it?

It’s subtle…

Both organizations identified me as a “great fit” for their offers, but when I responded and asked what about me/my company is a great fit to them, there was no response in example two and in the first one, it caused confusion.

This bothers me.

It screams inauthenticity.

Everyone has a job to do, and if their outreach targets are high, then they don’t have time to customize every single message. I get it. But don’t claim I’m a “great fit” if you cannot answer why. Adjust your template email to something that is truthful and there is a way higher likelihood that I would want to work with you.

Am I new to this awareness? When you receive messages like this do you just ignore them? Or shrug and accept?

I would challenge anyone on the receiving end of an inquiry to ask questions! Challenge the sender! Be absolutely certain that the people and organizations you decide to work with are in fact representative of your brand, Core Values, or personality.

You can absolutely count on me to be doing so.

-A