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I'd Just Rather Reply To The Email
I love LinkedIn. It's an awesome database/social network that I can use to figure out how to reach almost anyone I need to talk to.
Need to find out who runs a product at Google and how to reach them? LinkedIn.
Need to recruit a VP bus dev for a portfolio company? LinkedIn.
Need to do some diligence on a potential investment? LinkedIn.
But I absolutely hate the LinkedIn request emails I get. I refuse to respond to them. If you've sent me one in the past six months (and many of you have), you probably think I am a jerk for ignoring them. But here's the problem with them.
That's just way too much work for me. I don't want to click on the link, load a page, fill out information, and hit submit. I want to simply reply and be done with it.
So if you want to reach me, do what I do. Find me on LinkedIn, find a good connection point, and then ask the connection person for a regular email intro.
Given how bad I've been on email lately, I can't promise it will work perfectly, but I can promise you if you send me a LinkedIn request, it will go in the deleted mail folder unanswered.
Comments (7) | Posted May 12, 2007 in Venture Capital and Technology
Comments
Looks like I made it just in time!
Posted by: Robert Dewey | May 12, 2007 11:34:32 AM
What if you login once a week to your linkedin interface and answer all of them. That usually works fine!
Posted by: Andy | May 12, 2007 5:49:07 PM
I think this is the insight Facebook had though... they knew that it would be better (for them) to get someone to click through and look at the wall, then to just send the wall message via email or let people to reply to it. I was just thinking about this issue recently and came to the conclusion that since a new tab opens when I click on a link from web based email, I didn't really care. The line between email and social networks is blurry, with social networks in a clear lead with a certain demographic.
Posted by: Dorrian | May 12, 2007 6:49:19 PM
Having moved from Europe to Latin America, and then to Asia, in the last 3 years, and needing to pursue an aggressive sales/biz dev campaign, I can´t start counting the ways Linkedin has helped me. In fact, some of the most important deals I closed where initiated through a Linkedin request. I just love the service!
I understand your stance, but I think the problem here is not in the tool per se, but in the process you have to follow to check the content of the request, answer it etc... what if it would arrive in the body of an email, and you could answer to the sender´s email address simply hitting "reply"? Then it would not be much different than any standard email.
I think that one of the most fundamental shifts in social interactions brought by the Internet is that now pretty much everyone accepts that it´s ok to contact and be contacted by strangers, and that this can lead to interesting opportunity. Naturally, this works only if everyone is conscious of social rules, polite and has an interesting proposition.
For me, the signal-to-noise ratio in this kind of interactions has been really good, and I can count on one hand the interactions that weren´t positive, or at least neutrals. I daresay that Linkedin has truly changed the way business development is done, for most of us.
Cheers,
Giordano
Posted by: Giordano | May 13, 2007 12:56:48 AM
Is it really the extra click, or is it your dislike for Linked-in forcing you to their site?
If you were to ask me to connect to someone, I would greatly appreciate the fact that you would do it as a linked-in request - that makes MY job as a connector easier. Otherwise I am compelled to write a little intro, gather your contact info, etc.,
Are we both just lazy?
I don't want the burden of writing email introductions
You don't want the burden of clicking a button to read them.
Posted by: Dan Tiernan | May 14, 2007 7:35:32 PM
I too, have guiltily ignored LinkedIn requests. I hate the form. To Dan - I think I'd rather write a quick little email intro. It's more personal. Giordano's testimony is eye-opening. (Are you in web sales?) In my field we tend to write off these tools, saying we're a face-to-face business, but he is making me wonder ... Interesting comments here, all around.
Posted by: Karen E | May 16, 2007 8:01:05 AM
Hi Karen,
nice to meet you! I´m not in web, but mobile... don´t think there´s much difference, though. In fact, the top industries in my Linkedin network are IT, telecommunications, marketing and advertising, and management consulting. So it´s a pretty broad base.
I think it´s all in how you approach the contact: if you give people a compelling reason to accept your request, they will probably do it. If you just get in touch with random people or don´t give them enough details, they will not. Just like in every other form of communication :)
If right now someone where to ask me to name the one web tool I couldn´t live without, the answer would be easy: Linkedin.
Cheers,
Giordano
Posted by: Giordano | May 16, 2007 8:22:23 PM
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