A poor example of business relationship management – someone sent me a connection request on LinkedIn – I always check to make sure they are real like I do in all my Social Media after which, I accepted the request. This was 2 days ago. Today I get this email supposedly from the owner of the company who is a man but the email address was from a woman.

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Hello

Thank you for making contact with me on LinkedIn.

I just wanted to send you this introduction letter & attachment so you can share this will your colleague’s.

I do work for sales people across the country.

I would welcome the opportunity to work with your company as YOUR contract label printing vendor.

Please take a moment to visit our websites (website name ) & ( website name). On the foil stamp website you will see all the capabilities we have. We have been serving the printing industry since 1963. We have offered a wide variety for services from small offset printing, letterpress, thermograph printing, flexographic printing, flat bed hot foil stamping & rotary hot foil stamping & embossing. What we are specializing in at this time is Foil stamping & Embossing. We have recently added Pad Printing to our services. We have competitive pricing & excellent service.

Feel free to contact us at any time.

Hope to hear back from you.

Sincerely,

John (last name)
President

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What is wrong with this? Here are several things that fail the test of good relationship management.

1. Assuming a connection on social media gives you the OK to pull my email address and then market to me without my permission or building any kind of relationship.

2. Not using my name. This one really gets me. There are plenty of automatic programs out there that will put your name in. If you took the time to send it, at least use my name. Obviously this is a form letter that they copied and pasted and didn’t even take the time to use my name.

3. Sent by someone named “Candace” but signed by “John” This is more evidence that it’s a marketing piece only and they could care less about the connection.

4. I did not make contact, they did. This will get an instant removal of them as a contact.If I opt in to a site, fill out a form at an event, sign up for something online etc – I expect to get marketed to until I opt out.

More and more people are taking my info, especially from Linked In and assuming it’s an OK to be marketed to. It is not in my humble opinion, but even if it was OK, they need to at least use my name and make it look real.