My e-mail inbox and Linkedin mailbox are full of reminders from people who expect me to reply and are offended that I don’t. At one point I told myself that it was time to make the effort to reply, until I realized that this lack of response was totally logical and rational. At some point I told myself it was time to make the effort to reply, until I realized that this lack of response was totally logical and rational.
Information overload is the evil of the century
As we know, the multiplication of communication channels creates an information overload (Digital Infobesity: When Collaboration Tools Degrade Productivity, QWL and Amplify Mental Workload) , the harmful effects of which on mental health, efficiency and productivity are well known.
This is not without serious problems in-house, where people no longer have the time to work, let alone respond to messages deemed to be of low priority, even if it means becoming bottlenecks.
But here I’d like to talk about external solicitations, and in particular sales approaches.
The festival of bad online business practices
I’ve already had occasion to complain about what Linkedin is becoming and the bad practices that are multiplying among sales people (Hey LinkedIn, didn’t you get lost along the way?) and I won’t go into that again.
Responding to external solicitations doesn’t follow the same rules as internal ones, and we don’t talk about it often enough, hence this article.
There are many reasons why a person might not respond to an external solicitation.
Information overload: With the huge amount of messages, notifications and solicitations people receive on a daily basis, many are simply ignored. Users are overwhelmed with information, which often leads to a kind of “email fatigue” and LinkedIn messages.
Lack of personalization: Many commercial messages are generic and don’t seem relevant to the recipient. When someone receives a message that could be addressed to anyone, there’s little motivation to respond. And, more specifically, we get the impression that the person writing to us doesn’t understand anything about our business or our profession, and therefore our needs.
If I were to make a list of the most incongruous requests I’ve received, you’d be in for a surprise…
Disruption of routine: People are often focused on their daily tasks and objectives. An unsolicited sales message is perceived as a distraction from their priorities, causing them to ignore it or not attach importance to it.
Sales-focused, over-aggressive communication: Many commercial solicitations focus on the salesperson’s offer, without showing how it can solve a specific problem for the recipient. Worse: from the very first message, we’re asked to make an appointment in the salesperson’s diary, who then reprimands us for not doing so or not following up. As if we owed him something.
Some people only think of social selling as selling…
Lack of trust or relationship: Responding to a sales solicitation often requires a certain amount of trust. If there’s no prior relationship, or if the message seems too intrusive, we’re less likely to respond.
There are lots of good reasons why most solicitations go unanswered, but there’s one reason that outweighs all others, and which both sender and receiver should be aware of.
It’s all about priorities and timing
Everyone is focused on specific projects or objectives that dictate their schedule.
If a sales request doesn’t fit in with a current priority, it naturally falls to the bottom of the list, or is even ignored. Essential contacts are therefore not given the same attention as those directly related to current missions.
Prioritization is based on the perceived value of an interaction. If the sales message does not immediately offer something tangible or relevant, it is quickly discarded. Timing is therefore essential: even an interesting offer risks being ignored if it doesn’t arrive at the right moment in the recipient’s journey or priorities.
I’m not even talking about decision fatigue, which means that at the end of the day, we tend to put off non-essential decisions until the next day… and never have time to come back to them.
If I had to sum it up: my priorities my time, your priorities your time.
You may have something super-intelligent to tell me and a great product to present to me, but at this very moment it doesn’t correspond to my need, my priority of the moment. And since, above all, I have 10 people like you contacting me every day, and given the lack of attention and time available, it’s unrealistic to expect a response from me.
The salesperson’s priority is always to sell, the customer’s is not to buy unless the two are aligned at the right time. But that’s something salespeople often don’t seem to understand.
It’s also a lesson for any decision-maker confronted with this type of solicitation: if at first glance it doesn’t correspond to an immediate need, you should immediately move on to something productive and aligned with your priorities and needs.
Above all, there’s no need to feel guilty: you don’t owe anything to someone to whom you haven’t asked anything and who is breaking into your time.
And that’s where things differ with the internal solicitations.
The employee’s priorities are the manager’s priorities
The decision-maker is often also a manager, and as such receives many requests from his teams.
The difference is that he can’t leave an employee stuck with a problem and in need of help. At some point, the employee’s problems will become his own if the work isn’t done, or isn’t done well. When choosing between an internal and an external message, the decision is quickly made.
This is one reason why many managers become real bottlenecks.
Of course, there are ways of combating this, notably through delegation and empowerment mechanisms….but that’s another subject I’ll deal with later.
Bottom line
In short, it’s all a question of priorities and timing. A sales solicitation, no matter how relevant, won’t get a response if it doesn’t come at the right time. The salesperson wants to sell, but the customer isn’t always ready to buy, unless their priorities are aligned.
And then, of course, someone who lets themselves be overwhelmed by low-priority messages will end up not having the bandwidth to see and process an important message.
For a decision-maker, it’s crucial to move quickly to what’s productive and aligned with their immediate needs. Internally, it’s different: the team’s priorities become the manager’s, and ignoring these demands can quickly become a problem. But that deserves a separate topic.
