Not everything is an invitation

I beretted myself this morning for sending out the newsletter with the words of "I'm running the Race for Life shortly and I'm dreading it."

Or rather I was fine with putting that out until I got three responses from lifecoaches telling me how they could help me with that. Then I thought "Ah...I wasn't expecting that response."

Fact is, I was exaggerating a little. Firstly to get sympathy; secondly to get sponsorshop - by the way if you want to sponsor me (please please) you can at: http://www.justgiving.com/helendowling and finally to have something to write as an introduction to the newsletter.

My comment though was not an invitation to pitch services to me - on the one hand, I suppose they deserve a well done for taking advantage of the opportunity. On the other, it's more work for me having to explain why I'm not looking for their services.

I know everyone is looking for new business at the moment, but remember if you do marketing in other ways, people will have heard about you and will be approaching YOU rather than the other way round.

A better response, may have been to send me an article that you've written (or quickly put together) on this subject with some handy tips about what to do about it. I'm much more likely to consider you then if I'm in the market for your services.

So, think carefully about how you could respond to this type of comment - there may well be a better way than just pitching your services directly.