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On Golf, Prospecting, and Chutzpah

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I recieve a lot of emails.

I also recieve a lot of spam emails, mostly product pitches from overseas manufacturers.

I actually do read (okay, skim) them all. While most of them are tedious and uninteresting there is the occasional gem hidden amongst all the dross; the odd interesting new product that I think worth bringing to the attention of our product team.

Also, I maintain a folder where I save the email pitches that are either hilariously misguided, or for products that are (in my opinion) spectacularly dumb.

When I have enough of either, I write blog posts making fun of them.

Just the other day I recieved a spam email that was out of the ordinary.

It was domestic.

In short, it was from a professional working at a local hospital looking to drum up sponsorship money and prize donation for their annual charity golf tournament.

I’m used to getting golf tournament sponsorship emails at this time of year, but usually they’re all from my customers.

I replied politely: “My apologies, Dave (for that was his name). Have we met? Have we done business together?”

His reply was equally polite, “No, we haven’t, Lee. But I was at a golf tournament last year that you sponsored, so I thought I would ask, since I know your company does that sort of thing.”

I respectfully declined. We have more than enough commitments for our donations at the present time.

But his approach stuck with me, and I found myself thinking about.

I admit to having been briefly annoyed for maybe a minute, thinking “The chutzpah of this guy!”

Then I mellowed out, and was impressed. Dave there exemplifies the famous Wayne Gretzky quote “You miss one-hundred percent of the shots you don’t take.”

If you don’t ask, you don’t get. The worst I could have said was “No.”

Will a prospect say “Yes”?

There’s only one way to find out.

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