7 ms·

The email line that's client repellent

532 points by robwilliams88 13y ago

codegeek 13y ago
Good writing. When we say "Let me know how I can help", we are asking the other person to do work because then they have to think about what/how they need help with. Most of the times, people are lazy and you might be surprised but the fact is that they don't want to do work even for their own requirements. Instead, They want to hear solutions. This even applies to environments at very big companies. At my current client (Fortune 100), we work with distributed global teams and we have those dreaded meetings all the time. In those meetings, we in IT will ask business for requirements which makes sense. However for projects that need quick turnarounds with tight deadlines, we sometimes don't have the luxury of getting detailed requirements. In fact, the more we discuss requirements, the more we are stuck. Asking "how I can help" usually gets a response of "Sure. what are you proposing". You cannot keep going back and forth with "depends on what you want". The reason is that even though we all would like the best solution with all features, it just does not work that way in real world because time/resource/budget is limited. Instead of asking "how can we help", we analyze the current process and then propose multiple options. So in essence, we say "Here is how we can help". It then makes it really easy for business to say "Yea we like Option 1 and if that's the best you have for now, let's go with it". Boom, you just got a decision maker to agree and you are on your way. You are also that guy who got shit done. I used to think that we get big bucks as consultants because we are awesome devs/designers/PMs/BAs whatever. But after a decade in the industry, I got wiser. You are valued as a consultant because you get shit done by taking the initiative to propose solutions to clients. Then you deliver it to them. No one gives a shit about anything else. Really.
- bananacurve 13y ago
  >people are lazy and you might be surprised but the fact is that they don't want to do work even for their own requirements. And they will pay to avoid even the easiest chore. We got tired of not getting any response from people using our free trial and briefly required them to call us to activate their free trial. People started paying for the first month rather than make a phone call and some that paid never even used it. Crazy.
  - aestra 13y ago
    Isn't this the idea of a mail in rebate? That they attract attention and people buy the product but hardly nobody bothers to mail them in? I might be off base on that, but that was my thought as to why they are offered.
    - bananacurve 13y ago
      The mail in rebate is also trying to get feedback from the customer, which is very difficult.
      - monkeyspaw 13y ago
        How so? I always thought mail in rebates were a good way to experiment with the price-sensitivity of the purchase. Is that the feedback you mean?
    - mdda 13y ago
      From my recollection, the industry stats on mail-in-rebates on (say) hard disks is something like 80% are unclaimed. Cutting a UPC out of the side of a box (and finding a stamp, and copying a tricky address exactly, etc) is a >$15 job for most people...
      - lotyrin 13y ago
        But for elementary school age me growing up with my poor single mom, when I could string rebates and sales together to build a computer inside $5 case with similar deals on components, it's crazy magic. Thank you lazy people, for making my childhoodd hobby (and the consulting career that has followed) possible.
  - dogweather 13y ago
    > they don't want to do work even for their own requirements ... Of course, and they shouldn't want to. They ought to be focused on providing business value to their clients. And hiring a consultant is a step taken when they're over their heads and need a hand.
bluedino 13y ago
>> Could I really boss the client around and tell them what they needed to do? Yes, that's exactly what they are paying you for. We had a disaster recovery project that sat on a todo list for 6 years. It got passed around from person to person, discussed at every other meeting we had, but nobody ever did a single thing about it. We brought in a consultant who did no magic other than delegating tasks to a few people, and the project was completed in 4 months. We paid a guy to come in and tell us what we already knew we had to do. I'm not sure if we did it because now we were spending money on it, and it'd be wasteful not to follow.
visakanv 13y ago
Good point, and well articulated. Nice.
Jare 13y ago
"A good rule of thumb is: if a client can just reply “sounds good” to your email, you’re right on" Fantastic summary and advice. I try to apply this not just at work but also when proposing activities with friends and family.
Sephiroth87 13y ago
I'm just wondering, are people on the other side of the mail "actively" rejecting you when you say that kind of stuff, or is more of a subconscious thing?
- dasil003 13y ago
  Probably impossible to know.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- scotty79 13y ago
  I'd say it's subconcious. You pose a task for them and they just wait, try to think about nice things and hope you and the task will go away.
- vinceguidry 13y ago
  What probably happens is this. The client gets your email, sees a list of things that you can do for them, thinks "great, finally I have someone that can help me take care of X" Their minds start thinking over the possibilities. "Well, if I got him started on X, we'd need Y, Z, and A." They'd mull over it for, I dunno, two minutes, until a phone call interrupts them. No further thought happens again until you get back in touch with them. It's not that they didn't want to work with you, it's that they're busy, and if they had the knowledge they needed to turn the muddy requirements in their head into actionable steps, then they wouldn't need you. You need to sell them something.
- Mimu 13y ago
  I think it's like: 1. Bad email: Pff, so I need to create a whole strategy by myself, use money to maybe hire a guy I don't even know... 2. Good email: This looks good maybe we can talk further about it. / This looks bad I'll declined or not respond. First case, guy has to do the work, and nobody likes to do unexpected work. Second case, the guy just need to agree or not at the plan in front of him.
jxf 13y ago
Interesting; I ran essentially the exact same experiment a while back (June to August 2012) and had a different conclusion! -- 68 incoming consulting leads -- group A: responded to 34 with "let me know how I can help" -- group B: responded to 34 with "would <date-and-time> work to discuss this further?" -- group A: 20/34 (59%) responded, 14/20 (70%) led to contract negotiation stage -- group B: 6/34 (18%) responded, 5/6 (83%) led to contract negotiation stage So "let me know how I can help" outperformed (p < 0.01) suggesting a date/time. There's a few possible explanations for the discrepancy: * The kind of clients I had are different than Robert's clients. At the time I mostly did software engineering consulting and pair programming, and my clients were small units in mid-to-large size companies. * I only ran mine on incoming leads, not outgoing (solicitation) leads. It sounds like Robert did it for everything. * Content of the e-mail matters, not just the last line. Perhaps the way I write my e-mails is such that kicking the ball back to them is better for me, whereas Rob's style means a different strategy works better than him. * Something changed about how people read e-mails in between my experiment and Rob's article.
- mrfusion 13y ago
  Very good analysis. I'm curious if this was a "blind" study. I.e., did you randomly assign the leads into group A and group B?
  - jxf 13y ago
    I just alternated whether someone was in group A or B, because I responded to the e-mails as they came in, at the end of each day. So it wasn't truly random, no. On the other hand I didn't control when someone wrote in to me, so arguably it at least wasn't fully in my control. Of course, it wasn't double-blind because I was both writing the e-mails and conducting the experiment too.
- mrfusion 13y ago
  A bit offtopic, but I'm wondering if you pay a referral fee? I can never figure out if it's worth doing or not? Any insight on that?
dasil003 13y ago
I've done a fair amount of freelancing and this blew me away in that I had never thought about it. I guess I had developed a sort of instinctive understanding that clients want solutions not just another employee to manage, but I never thought about how common (and often vacuous) this phrase is. Excellent insight.
herghost 13y ago
And the natural corollary is that if someone is attempting to stitch you up with a crappy piece of work that they're trying to get out of doing, if you respond to their attempt to palm it off to you with a question about the work that forces them to engage with it before they can respond, you will find that the crappy piece of work quite often never comes back your way.
- gk1 13y ago
  When you suspect that someone hasn't thought through the problem enough, ask them to write it down in a short format (eg, bullet list, short paragraph, memo). It'll force them to think it through.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
swombat 13y ago
Very good article. Posted my response here: http://swombat.com/2014/1/31/let-me-know-if-i-can-help http://swombat.com/2014/1/31/let-me-know-if-i-can-help
- benjaminwootton 13y ago
  To illustrate, "If you read this far, you should follow my RSS feed here." :)
  - swombat 13y ago
    Yes, that is another application of word power tools... although if I wanted to make it even more arm-twisting I would say "Because you read this far, you should follow..." "Because" is another well-known power word.
    - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
      Is this largely a cultural thing? Schools seem to teach blind obedience and rule following that I imagine would lead to this sort of response in adults.
    - Kliment 13y ago
      Which, incidentally I find disgusting and patronizing and offensive. Maybe it's just me.
- kirse 13y ago
  Communication is ultimately an expression of an individual's inner attitude, and to call this a quirk of language is focusing too much on the actions without giving any thought as to the attitude that produces those actions. If one has an internally confident, go-gettin', "always be closing" attitude, all of their actions and communication will flow from that. It's a much better use of energy to focus on cultivating a quiet confidence, rather than attempting to build up a collection of manipulative "power tricks" to be deployed in an inauthentic fashion. Another thing to recognize is that people who are confident will pick up on the motives of these power tricks, because they'll sense an incongruity in character during communication. When someone who is typically timid and passive acts in an aggressive manner, it stands out like a nerd taking a swing at the jock. Even worse, confident people will push back to see if the user of said "power trick" is for real, which requires the next "power trick" to keep up the act. So yeah, these might work on some people, but I personally intensely dislike it when I pick up on these things. Not that I'm the paragon of confidence by any means, but I actively rebel & push back when I feel like I'm being controlled/constrained or "should-ed" into doing something. What ultimately ends up happening with these "power tricks" is you have people like Dustin Curtis writing about how "you should do X", and then a ton of idiots mimicking the behavior and annoying the rest of us.
mooreds 13y ago
Works for internal "clients" too. Proposing a couple of solutions is almost always better than asking someone else to do so.
cantbecool 13y ago
This article clearly illustrates the red pill philosophy. He demonstrates a few things with his emails, his time is money, he has a plan and will make your live easier, and you get the impression he's not desperate for work, making him more attractive to future clients. I want someone successful mentality.
- henryaj 13y ago
  ...the 'red pill philosophy'?
  - Brian-Puccio 13y ago
    http://www.reddit.com/r/theredpill http://www.reddit.com/r/theredpill maybe? (I don't endorse the ideas discussed there.)
    - henryaj 13y ago
      Oh God.
brd 13y ago
This philosophy is applicable to much more than just sales. I generally try to avoid highlighting problems unless I can suggest a solution. People don't want to hear whats wrong, they want to know how things can get better.
- Fede_V 13y ago
  It's worth doing both. Sometimes someone is doing something which is really stupid, and the solution is 'stop doing it'. Being constructive is important, but being realistic is even more important.
- 3minus1 13y ago
  This happens so frequently at work, and usually it means doing a little research and sending an email 5 minutes later than I otherwise would have.
- jasonwocky 13y ago
  As the bearer of bad news, so to speak, I think that's often a good approach. On the flip side, I think it's bad as an enforced policy from above. I've worked with some managers who have a "Don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions" rule. I think that's poor management for at least three reasons: 1. This kind of thing leads to bigger problems. If they're small but your employee is having trouble coming up with a solution, and they don't come to you, odds are the problem will get worse and you might not find out about it before it takes the proverbial "pound of cure" to deal with it. 2. If your employee already has a solution in mind, why do they need to come to you at all? Just let them implement it. If you need your employees to run their "solutions" by you, you might be a micromanager. As a manager, I want my employees coming to me with their unsolvable problems, not the stuff they think they can handle. Sure, there's some risk of a mistake from time to time, but I treat those as experiences to learn from and there are other ways of keeping those "lessons" from getting too expensive. 3. It's often hypocritical. Does the average middle manager waste their senior exec's time with stuff they already know the answer to? Most likely not. All that said, a policy of "Don't come to me with a problem until after you've thought about it a little bit" (i.e. a form of "Don't come to me with data, come to me with analysis") is perfectly reasonable to me.
mrintegrity 13y ago
Works with online dating too. "Would you like to go out some time?" bad "I really like you, would you like to meet?" terrible "Let's go out at the weekend, <barname> is really great" good "I am free Tuesday and Friday, let's get a beer and continue this conversation in real life" good
- hollerith 13y ago
  I humbly disagree. Dating is different because rejection is felt more keenly -- by the asker and by the typical askee. If a man does as you suggestion, he is making the woman reject him multiple times if she does not want to go out with him (which is the most common case) and he is putting the conversational burden on the woman to explain whether the rejection is only because she has plans that particular weekend.
josteink 13y ago
As a "client" (although small one) I can confirm this. I've been outsourcing some work, and when I was trying to collect offers from various professionals you definitely had two distinct kinds of actors. Those who did suggest follow-up actions and did lead you on and those who didn't. As a client I always felt insecure and confused by those who didn't. Where did that leave me? What was the next step? Was I responsible for the next communique? With what topic? How does this affect my agenda? Where do we go from here? With the people who did suggest follow up items and who had specific actions and priorities, it was easy for me to respond. I already had an agenda, ready and served. The path on further was already set. So yeah. I guess people are different, YMMV and all that, but as for me, I can attest that this sort of approach works much better.
mrcactu5 13y ago
When my boss replies with "sounds good" I start looking for my next job. I totally agree with "let me know". These simple 2 or 3-word phrases can mean very different things in different English-speaking subcultures. Here's what UrbanDictionary says about a variant: > LET ME KNOW HOW THAT WORKS OUT FOR YOU the easiest way to end an argument when your opponent relays their intentions to do something that you do not agree with. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=let%20me%20know%20how%20that%20works%20out%20for%20you http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=let%20me%20kn... or how about "good luck" ? http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=good+luck http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=good+luck GOOD LUCK a phrase used to wish someone well in an endeavor sometimes a pointless phrase if the task at hand does not even remotely involve or require luck. Ex. good luck washing those dishes. i hope the knives don't fall on your foot and slice your toes off! This is interesting from a theoretical perspective as well. In linguistics, all languages have what are known was "particles" - words that are so frequent it is difficult to ascribe any meaning to them, and yet they shade our language.
- vinceguidry 13y ago
  > When my boss replies with "sounds good" I start looking for my next job. What about this reply triggers this?
  - mdda 13y ago
    I'm guessing that in some English-speaking countries, the natural continuation of the phrase isn't just a thumbs up, but the words "... but sounding good and the actual reality are totally different". i.e. "Sounds GOOD!" vs. "SOUNDS good..."
jader201 13y ago
Is this the same as "Let me know if you have any questions."? I often end emails like this, more as an acknowledgement that while I feel that I am clear, it may not seem clear to you, and to not hesitate to come back to me if anything is not clear to you. But maybe this also is leaving a similar impression as "Let me know how I can help."?
- baak 13y ago
  After a support session I usually end with "Let me know if you run into any issues." I do frequently wonder if that's the best way to end the email... as what I want to suggest is "Email me back directly if something happens, but I don't think anything will." Maybe: "Feel free to ping me directly if you run into any issues."
  - robwilliams88 13y ago
    Why not send "Email me back directly if something happens, but I don't think anything will."???
- robwilliams88 13y ago
  It's not exactly the same, assuming you've already proposed a solution in the email, but it is still kind of redundant to say. I think most clients will let you know if they have a question, regardless if you write that. If you think they might have questions, why not anticipate a question and answer it in the email?
  - jader201 13y ago
    I also feel it's technically redundant -- like you said, they will follow up regardless -- but I think I do it to just give a more inviting tone/closing to the email. However, I also used to end all of my StackOverflow questions with "Thanks in advance." just to be polite and appreciative to those spending their time reading/responding to my questions, until it kept getting edited out (for the same reason, redundant noise), so I got the hint and stopped. Maybe this is similar?
arca_vorago 13y ago
Wow. As a geek who enjoys thinking at a big picture level and have bigger and bigger world domination plans as I go on, I never realized until this post how much I use that line and how much it hurts my business relationships. I really appreciate the author taking the time to type this up, because I hadn't thought of it from that perspective. On a side note, part of my problem is that I am a USMC combat vet, and I have worked very hard at toning down my bossy, demanding mannerisms since I got out, but it seems I may have taken it too far. Sometimes, people need other to take that initiative.
driverdan 13y ago
I suggest using a common sales technique. End the email with a question instead of an open statement that requires no response. The question can be as simple as "Does this work for you?" By using a question your assuming / prompting a response. It may not always be the response you're looking for but at least you'll know one way or the other. The OP's idea of proposing two solutions is good too, even if there is one real solution. You're allowing the client to make a decision, even if it's a forced one. It lets them feel in control. Give them two solutions and then ask something like "Which would you prefer?" You're almost guaranteed an answer. When I get a new lead for a project I know nothing about (either incoming or outgoing) I usually do a very brief one or two sentence intro and end with "How can I help?" It's similar to "Let me know if I can help" but requires a response.
rwhitman 13y ago
What a great article. I recently shifted my approach to client relationships in a similar way but never really did any real thought with why it was more effective or formalized my methodology. Looking at it in perspective makes a real case for responding like this consistently.
mratzloff 13y ago
The secret here is that the underlying philosophy--manage the client and get things done--applies to everything. If you are a salaried employee, treat your boss that way. If you are coordinating with another group, treat them that way. If you want a date, etc. The guy or gal who gets things done is more valuable than the guy or gal who gets hung up on details.
atiffany 13y ago
Great post. Now, if you're reading this and still calling yourself a "freelancer," your next step is to stop. Calling yourself a consultant instead of freelancer is the quickest way to start asking higher rates.
rdudek 13y ago
This writeup was actually a lot better than I anticipated. One of the key things in consulting that I learned over the years is that you're basically contracted to help and grow the business. You have to present yourself as an ally that can provide solutions to problems and help the client grow their business. Don't just write in your email your products/services and "hey, let's meet up and discuss stuff". Any high school or college kid can do that. Throw solutions, it will really make you stand out.
endlessvoid94 13y ago
I use this phrase all the time in my work. Do you think it has the same effect in an organization?
- jh3 13y ago
  Sure. An organization is just a bunch of people. And all those people have other things to do, too. So if you respond to all of their emails with an open ended "Let me know..." you're now asking them to make a decision for you.
- bloat 13y ago
  I expect so. But of course you get to choose whether to use it or not. If you want something done your way - then just start, and inform people what they should do to back you up. If you want someone else to take care of all the thinking for you, then just relax and say "Let me know how I can help."
grimtrigger 13y ago
Will definitely try this: but I'm also wary about working with clients who don't know what they want.
- robwilliams88 13y ago
  Do you want to work on a project for someone who doesn't know what they want?
apinstein 13y ago
You can also leverage this "problem" to your advantage in some cases... when someone wants to meet with me but I'd rather not do it soon (or ever), I will purposefully respond with "Sure just let me know when is a good time" and it gracefully delays the occurrence of the meeting. Whereas if I want the meeting to occur, I will suggest a hard time. This really helps prevent your life from being interrupt-driven by low-value activities.
cmillard 13y ago
The only time I use "let me know how I can help" is usually when I've approached the boundaries of what I can do. For me this phrase means: I've hit a roadblock, I need you to do something before I can proceed!
SixSigma 13y ago
This works for life in general, not just client relations. If someone says "let's have coffee sometime" jump right to "How about next Weds afternoon?" instead of "sure, good idea" and leaving it. If they're just blowing you off you'll find out there and then, either way you won't have to initiate contact and get it back to this point once more. Making arbitrary decisions is taxing. Give people something to agree to.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
munificent 13y ago
> Clients were increasingly respondent to my emails. This is tangential, but the word you want here is "responsive". "Respondent" is a noun, and an uncommon one at that. It means, "a person who responds", similar to how "dependent" means "a person who depends".
markrages 13y ago
As a client, I am hiring you because I don't have time or knolwedge to do the project. So the ideal response is to lay out the plan that solves my problem, and all I have to do to make it happen is sign the contract. That is so much more compelling then "let me know what I can do". You're supposed to be telling me what you can do!
colanderman 13y ago
Similar tactics work when reviewing code. On a scale from least to most effective: 1. "I don't like how this is coded." 2. "[#1]… because it can result in X happening under circumstance Y." 3. "[#2]… Alternatively, structure the code as A or B." 4. "[#3]… Here are code snippets implementing the change." Almost no action will occur as a result of #1. However, #4 leaves no excuse but hubris on the part of the reviewee not to accept the modifications (obviously assuming they correct the issue and do not introduce new problems!).
pbhjpbhj 13y ago
Doesn't he fail with the last para call to action? >"Want to try out this technique on more prospects? [...] He needs to be more positive and active in his language and provide an action for us to follow, no? "Try out this technique with your prospects." ?
- robwilliams88 13y ago
  This is a blog post, not an email :)
lesterbuck 13y ago
This is exactly the issue covered in depth on the direct marketing podcast "I Love Marketing". They come back to this issue over and over for the last few years, but the very first time they discussed it was the episode on converting leads[1]. Dean uses a clever analogy about inviting someone over to your house and telling them "Get anything you want out of the fridge, I'll be working in the den" vs. "I just baked a plate of cookies. Would you like a cookie?" The relevant part of the episode starts about 23 minutes in, or read the complete transcript. [1]http://ilovemarketing.com/episode-005-the-one-about-converting-leads/ http://ilovemarketing.com/episode-005-the-one-about-converti...
dogweather 13y ago
I buy it. As a consultant, my #1 job is to make my client's life easier: to take tasks and problems off their plate, not give them new things to do. The method in this post sounds similar to what I do, and I subjectively feel like I get a good reply rate. I'll test though — sounds fun.
at-fates-hands 13y ago
As someone who spent a fair deal of time in sales, this is the worst thing you can do to close an email. You're essentially saying, "If you need me, contact me." and allowing the client to just opt out of working with you. In sales, you always had to have a path where you want to lead the client. "Let's put together a time frame for A, B, C and I follow up when A is done." or "Once the budget is approved, we're going to do A, B, and C by this date." It also shows you're invested in the client and invested in what they want to accomplish. It does take extra work to nail down clients, and at times will feel like you're trying to herd cats, but it's quite effective in the long run.
instaheat 13y ago
I have definitely been the subject of this article. I had a particularly demanding client that didn't seem to want to put any work in, work you and I would probably both consider her responsibility. I was brought in for consulting on A & B - but she wanted me to do the rest of the alphabet too. Ultimately my billable hours drizzled away to nothing, and my client was impossible to get a hold of. I did find myself using these lines in various emails whilst working on the things I deemed my responsibility. I still don't know if they had success with their project because she decided to go at it on her own.
hosh 13y ago
I used to do independent consulting. I don't right now. I had already been informally doing this these days for taking uncertainty out of things. I think I am going to do this deliberately for all work related matters. I seem to get better results (getting shit done, people think I communicate better).
therease 13y ago
smart, helpful- I get it and will run with it. Thanks!

532 points by robwilliams88 13y ago

Good writing. When we say "Let me know how I can help", we are asking the other person to do work because then they have to think about what/how they need help with. Most of the times, people are lazy and you might be surprised but the fact is that they don't want to do work even for their own requirements. Instead, They want to hear solutions. This even applies to environments at very big companies. At my current client (Fortune 100), we work with distributed global teams and we have those dreaded meetings all the time. In those meetings, we in IT will ask business for requirements which makes sense. However for projects that need quick turnarounds with tight deadlines, we sometimes don't have the luxury of getting detailed requirements. In fact, the more we discuss requirements, the more we are stuck. Asking "how I can help" usually gets a response of "Sure. what are you proposing". You cannot keep going back and forth with "depends on what you want". The reason is that even though we all would like the best solution with all features, it just does not work that way in real world because time/resource/budget is limited. Instead of asking "how can we help", we analyze the current process and then propose multiple options. So in essence, we say "Here is how we can help". It then makes it really easy for business to say "Yea we like Option 1 and if that's the best you have for now, let's go with it". Boom, you just got a decision maker to agree and you are on your way. You are also that guy who got shit done. I used to think that we get big bucks as consultants because we are awesome devs/designers/PMs/BAs whatever. But after a decade in the industry, I got wiser. You are valued as a consultant because you get shit done by taking the initiative to propose solutions to clients. Then you deliver it to them. No one gives a shit about anything else. Really.

bananacurve 13y ago
>people are lazy and you might be surprised but the fact is that they don't want to do work even for their own requirements. And they will pay to avoid even the easiest chore. We got tired of not getting any response from people using our free trial and briefly required them to call us to activate their free trial. People started paying for the first month rather than make a phone call and some that paid never even used it. Crazy.
- aestra 13y ago
  Isn't this the idea of a mail in rebate? That they attract attention and people buy the product but hardly nobody bothers to mail them in? I might be off base on that, but that was my thought as to why they are offered.
  - bananacurve 13y ago
    The mail in rebate is also trying to get feedback from the customer, which is very difficult.
    - monkeyspaw 13y ago
      How so? I always thought mail in rebates were a good way to experiment with the price-sensitivity of the purchase. Is that the feedback you mean?
  - mdda 13y ago
    From my recollection, the industry stats on mail-in-rebates on (say) hard disks is something like 80% are unclaimed. Cutting a UPC out of the side of a box (and finding a stamp, and copying a tricky address exactly, etc) is a >$15 job for most people...
    - lotyrin 13y ago
      But for elementary school age me growing up with my poor single mom, when I could string rebates and sales together to build a computer inside $5 case with similar deals on components, it's crazy magic. Thank you lazy people, for making my childhoodd hobby (and the consulting career that has followed) possible.
- dogweather 13y ago
  > they don't want to do work even for their own requirements ... Of course, and they shouldn't want to. They ought to be focused on providing business value to their clients. And hiring a consultant is a step taken when they're over their heads and need a hand.

bluedino 13y ago

>> Could I really boss the client around and tell them what they needed to do? Yes, that's exactly what they are paying you for. We had a disaster recovery project that sat on a todo list for 6 years. It got passed around from person to person, discussed at every other meeting we had, but nobody ever did a single thing about it. We brought in a consultant who did no magic other than delegating tasks to a few people, and the project was completed in 4 months. We paid a guy to come in and tell us what we already knew we had to do. I'm not sure if we did it because now we were spending money on it, and it'd be wasteful not to follow.

visakanv 13y ago

Good point, and well articulated. Nice.

Jare 13y ago

"A good rule of thumb is: if a client can just reply “sounds good” to your email, you’re right on" Fantastic summary and advice. I try to apply this not just at work but also when proposing activities with friends and family.

Sephiroth87 13y ago

I'm just wondering, are people on the other side of the mail "actively" rejecting you when you say that kind of stuff, or is more of a subconscious thing?

dasil003 13y ago
Probably impossible to know.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
scotty79 13y ago
I'd say it's subconcious. You pose a task for them and they just wait, try to think about nice things and hope you and the task will go away.
vinceguidry 13y ago
What probably happens is this. The client gets your email, sees a list of things that you can do for them, thinks "great, finally I have someone that can help me take care of X" Their minds start thinking over the possibilities. "Well, if I got him started on X, we'd need Y, Z, and A." They'd mull over it for, I dunno, two minutes, until a phone call interrupts them. No further thought happens again until you get back in touch with them. It's not that they didn't want to work with you, it's that they're busy, and if they had the knowledge they needed to turn the muddy requirements in their head into actionable steps, then they wouldn't need you. You need to sell them something.
Mimu 13y ago
I think it's like: 1. Bad email: Pff, so I need to create a whole strategy by myself, use money to maybe hire a guy I don't even know... 2. Good email: This looks good maybe we can talk further about it. / This looks bad I'll declined or not respond. First case, guy has to do the work, and nobody likes to do unexpected work. Second case, the guy just need to agree or not at the plan in front of him.

jxf 13y ago

Interesting; I ran essentially the exact same experiment a while back (June to August 2012) and had a different conclusion! -- 68 incoming consulting leads -- group A: responded to 34 with "let me know how I can help" -- group B: responded to 34 with "would <date-and-time> work to discuss this further?" -- group A: 20/34 (59%) responded, 14/20 (70%) led to contract negotiation stage -- group B: 6/34 (18%) responded, 5/6 (83%) led to contract negotiation stage So "let me know how I can help" outperformed (p < 0.01) suggesting a date/time. There's a few possible explanations for the discrepancy: * The kind of clients I had are different than Robert's clients. At the time I mostly did software engineering consulting and pair programming, and my clients were small units in mid-to-large size companies. * I only ran mine on incoming leads, not outgoing (solicitation) leads. It sounds like Robert did it for everything. * Content of the e-mail matters, not just the last line. Perhaps the way I write my e-mails is such that kicking the ball back to them is better for me, whereas Rob's style means a different strategy works better than him. * Something changed about how people read e-mails in between my experiment and Rob's article.

mrfusion 13y ago
Very good analysis. I'm curious if this was a "blind" study. I.e., did you randomly assign the leads into group A and group B?
- jxf 13y ago
  I just alternated whether someone was in group A or B, because I responded to the e-mails as they came in, at the end of each day. So it wasn't truly random, no. On the other hand I didn't control when someone wrote in to me, so arguably it at least wasn't fully in my control. Of course, it wasn't double-blind because I was both writing the e-mails and conducting the experiment too.
mrfusion 13y ago
A bit offtopic, but I'm wondering if you pay a referral fee? I can never figure out if it's worth doing or not? Any insight on that?

dasil003 13y ago

I've done a fair amount of freelancing and this blew me away in that I had never thought about it. I guess I had developed a sort of instinctive understanding that clients want solutions not just another employee to manage, but I never thought about how common (and often vacuous) this phrase is. Excellent insight.

herghost 13y ago

And the natural corollary is that if someone is attempting to stitch you up with a crappy piece of work that they're trying to get out of doing, if you respond to their attempt to palm it off to you with a question about the work that forces them to engage with it before they can respond, you will find that the crappy piece of work quite often never comes back your way.

gk1 13y ago
When you suspect that someone hasn't thought through the problem enough, ask them to write it down in a short format (eg, bullet list, short paragraph, memo). It'll force them to think it through.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

swombat 13y ago

Very good article. Posted my response here: http://swombat.com/2014/1/31/let-me-know-if-i-can-help http://swombat.com/2014/1/31/let-me-know-if-i-can-help

benjaminwootton 13y ago
To illustrate, "If you read this far, you should follow my RSS feed here." :)
- swombat 13y ago
  Yes, that is another application of word power tools... although if I wanted to make it even more arm-twisting I would say "Because you read this far, you should follow..." "Because" is another well-known power word.
  - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    Is this largely a cultural thing? Schools seem to teach blind obedience and rule following that I imagine would lead to this sort of response in adults.
  - Kliment 13y ago
    Which, incidentally I find disgusting and patronizing and offensive. Maybe it's just me.
kirse 13y ago
Communication is ultimately an expression of an individual's inner attitude, and to call this a quirk of language is focusing too much on the actions without giving any thought as to the attitude that produces those actions. If one has an internally confident, go-gettin', "always be closing" attitude, all of their actions and communication will flow from that. It's a much better use of energy to focus on cultivating a quiet confidence, rather than attempting to build up a collection of manipulative "power tricks" to be deployed in an inauthentic fashion. Another thing to recognize is that people who are confident will pick up on the motives of these power tricks, because they'll sense an incongruity in character during communication. When someone who is typically timid and passive acts in an aggressive manner, it stands out like a nerd taking a swing at the jock. Even worse, confident people will push back to see if the user of said "power trick" is for real, which requires the next "power trick" to keep up the act. So yeah, these might work on some people, but I personally intensely dislike it when I pick up on these things. Not that I'm the paragon of confidence by any means, but I actively rebel & push back when I feel like I'm being controlled/constrained or "should-ed" into doing something. What ultimately ends up happening with these "power tricks" is you have people like Dustin Curtis writing about how "you should do X", and then a ton of idiots mimicking the behavior and annoying the rest of us.

mooreds 13y ago

Works for internal "clients" too. Proposing a couple of solutions is almost always better than asking someone else to do so.

cantbecool 13y ago

This article clearly illustrates the red pill philosophy. He demonstrates a few things with his emails, his time is money, he has a plan and will make your live easier, and you get the impression he's not desperate for work, making him more attractive to future clients. I want someone successful mentality.

henryaj 13y ago
...the 'red pill philosophy'?
- Brian-Puccio 13y ago
  http://www.reddit.com/r/theredpill http://www.reddit.com/r/theredpill maybe? (I don't endorse the ideas discussed there.)
  - henryaj 13y ago
    Oh God.

brd 13y ago

This philosophy is applicable to much more than just sales. I generally try to avoid highlighting problems unless I can suggest a solution. People don't want to hear whats wrong, they want to know how things can get better.

Fede_V 13y ago
It's worth doing both. Sometimes someone is doing something which is really stupid, and the solution is 'stop doing it'. Being constructive is important, but being realistic is even more important.
3minus1 13y ago
This happens so frequently at work, and usually it means doing a little research and sending an email 5 minutes later than I otherwise would have.
jasonwocky 13y ago
As the bearer of bad news, so to speak, I think that's often a good approach. On the flip side, I think it's bad as an enforced policy from above. I've worked with some managers who have a "Don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions" rule. I think that's poor management for at least three reasons: 1. This kind of thing leads to bigger problems. If they're small but your employee is having trouble coming up with a solution, and they don't come to you, odds are the problem will get worse and you might not find out about it before it takes the proverbial "pound of cure" to deal with it. 2. If your employee already has a solution in mind, why do they need to come to you at all? Just let them implement it. If you need your employees to run their "solutions" by you, you might be a micromanager. As a manager, I want my employees coming to me with their unsolvable problems, not the stuff they think they can handle. Sure, there's some risk of a mistake from time to time, but I treat those as experiences to learn from and there are other ways of keeping those "lessons" from getting too expensive. 3. It's often hypocritical. Does the average middle manager waste their senior exec's time with stuff they already know the answer to? Most likely not. All that said, a policy of "Don't come to me with a problem until after you've thought about it a little bit" (i.e. a form of "Don't come to me with data, come to me with analysis") is perfectly reasonable to me.

mrintegrity 13y ago

Works with online dating too. "Would you like to go out some time?" bad "I really like you, would you like to meet?" terrible "Let's go out at the weekend, <barname> is really great" good "I am free Tuesday and Friday, let's get a beer and continue this conversation in real life" good

hollerith 13y ago
I humbly disagree. Dating is different because rejection is felt more keenly -- by the asker and by the typical askee. If a man does as you suggestion, he is making the woman reject him multiple times if she does not want to go out with him (which is the most common case) and he is putting the conversational burden on the woman to explain whether the rejection is only because she has plans that particular weekend.

josteink 13y ago

As a "client" (although small one) I can confirm this. I've been outsourcing some work, and when I was trying to collect offers from various professionals you definitely had two distinct kinds of actors. Those who did suggest follow-up actions and did lead you on and those who didn't. As a client I always felt insecure and confused by those who didn't. Where did that leave me? What was the next step? Was I responsible for the next communique? With what topic? How does this affect my agenda? Where do we go from here? With the people who did suggest follow up items and who had specific actions and priorities, it was easy for me to respond. I already had an agenda, ready and served. The path on further was already set. So yeah. I guess people are different, YMMV and all that, but as for me, I can attest that this sort of approach works much better.

mrcactu5 13y ago

When my boss replies with "sounds good" I start looking for my next job. I totally agree with "let me know". These simple 2 or 3-word phrases can mean very different things in different English-speaking subcultures. Here's what UrbanDictionary says about a variant: > LET ME KNOW HOW THAT WORKS OUT FOR YOU the easiest way to end an argument when your opponent relays their intentions to do something that you do not agree with. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=let%20me%20know%20how%20that%20works%20out%20for%20you http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=let%20me%20kn... or how about "good luck" ? http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=good+luck http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=good+luck GOOD LUCK a phrase used to wish someone well in an endeavor sometimes a pointless phrase if the task at hand does not even remotely involve or require luck. Ex. good luck washing those dishes. i hope the knives don't fall on your foot and slice your toes off! This is interesting from a theoretical perspective as well. In linguistics, all languages have what are known was "particles" - words that are so frequent it is difficult to ascribe any meaning to them, and yet they shade our language.

vinceguidry 13y ago
> When my boss replies with "sounds good" I start looking for my next job. What about this reply triggers this?
- mdda 13y ago
  I'm guessing that in some English-speaking countries, the natural continuation of the phrase isn't just a thumbs up, but the words "... but sounding good and the actual reality are totally different". i.e. "Sounds GOOD!" vs. "SOUNDS good..."

jader201 13y ago

Is this the same as "Let me know if you have any questions."? I often end emails like this, more as an acknowledgement that while I feel that I am clear, it may not seem clear to you, and to not hesitate to come back to me if anything is not clear to you. But maybe this also is leaving a similar impression as "Let me know how I can help."?

baak 13y ago
After a support session I usually end with "Let me know if you run into any issues." I do frequently wonder if that's the best way to end the email... as what I want to suggest is "Email me back directly if something happens, but I don't think anything will." Maybe: "Feel free to ping me directly if you run into any issues."
- robwilliams88 13y ago
  Why not send "Email me back directly if something happens, but I don't think anything will."???
robwilliams88 13y ago
It's not exactly the same, assuming you've already proposed a solution in the email, but it is still kind of redundant to say. I think most clients will let you know if they have a question, regardless if you write that. If you think they might have questions, why not anticipate a question and answer it in the email?
- jader201 13y ago
  I also feel it's technically redundant -- like you said, they will follow up regardless -- but I think I do it to just give a more inviting tone/closing to the email. However, I also used to end all of my StackOverflow questions with "Thanks in advance." just to be polite and appreciative to those spending their time reading/responding to my questions, until it kept getting edited out (for the same reason, redundant noise), so I got the hint and stopped. Maybe this is similar?

arca_vorago 13y ago

Wow. As a geek who enjoys thinking at a big picture level and have bigger and bigger world domination plans as I go on, I never realized until this post how much I use that line and how much it hurts my business relationships. I really appreciate the author taking the time to type this up, because I hadn't thought of it from that perspective. On a side note, part of my problem is that I am a USMC combat vet, and I have worked very hard at toning down my bossy, demanding mannerisms since I got out, but it seems I may have taken it too far. Sometimes, people need other to take that initiative.

driverdan 13y ago

I suggest using a common sales technique. End the email with a question instead of an open statement that requires no response. The question can be as simple as "Does this work for you?" By using a question your assuming / prompting a response. It may not always be the response you're looking for but at least you'll know one way or the other. The OP's idea of proposing two solutions is good too, even if there is one real solution. You're allowing the client to make a decision, even if it's a forced one. It lets them feel in control. Give them two solutions and then ask something like "Which would you prefer?" You're almost guaranteed an answer. When I get a new lead for a project I know nothing about (either incoming or outgoing) I usually do a very brief one or two sentence intro and end with "How can I help?" It's similar to "Let me know if I can help" but requires a response.

rwhitman 13y ago

What a great article. I recently shifted my approach to client relationships in a similar way but never really did any real thought with why it was more effective or formalized my methodology. Looking at it in perspective makes a real case for responding like this consistently.

mratzloff 13y ago

The secret here is that the underlying philosophy--manage the client and get things done--applies to everything. If you are a salaried employee, treat your boss that way. If you are coordinating with another group, treat them that way. If you want a date, etc. The guy or gal who gets things done is more valuable than the guy or gal who gets hung up on details.

atiffany 13y ago

Great post. Now, if you're reading this and still calling yourself a "freelancer," your next step is to stop. Calling yourself a consultant instead of freelancer is the quickest way to start asking higher rates.

rdudek 13y ago

This writeup was actually a lot better than I anticipated. One of the key things in consulting that I learned over the years is that you're basically contracted to help and grow the business. You have to present yourself as an ally that can provide solutions to problems and help the client grow their business. Don't just write in your email your products/services and "hey, let's meet up and discuss stuff". Any high school or college kid can do that. Throw solutions, it will really make you stand out.

endlessvoid94 13y ago

I use this phrase all the time in my work. Do you think it has the same effect in an organization?

jh3 13y ago
Sure. An organization is just a bunch of people. And all those people have other things to do, too. So if you respond to all of their emails with an open ended "Let me know..." you're now asking them to make a decision for you.
bloat 13y ago
I expect so. But of course you get to choose whether to use it or not. If you want something done your way - then just start, and inform people what they should do to back you up. If you want someone else to take care of all the thinking for you, then just relax and say "Let me know how I can help."

grimtrigger 13y ago

Will definitely try this: but I'm also wary about working with clients who don't know what they want.

robwilliams88 13y ago
Do you want to work on a project for someone who doesn't know what they want?

apinstein 13y ago

You can also leverage this "problem" to your advantage in some cases... when someone wants to meet with me but I'd rather not do it soon (or ever), I will purposefully respond with "Sure just let me know when is a good time" and it gracefully delays the occurrence of the meeting. Whereas if I want the meeting to occur, I will suggest a hard time. This really helps prevent your life from being interrupt-driven by low-value activities.

cmillard 13y ago

The only time I use "let me know how I can help" is usually when I've approached the boundaries of what I can do. For me this phrase means: I've hit a roadblock, I need you to do something before I can proceed!

SixSigma 13y ago

This works for life in general, not just client relations. If someone says "let's have coffee sometime" jump right to "How about next Weds afternoon?" instead of "sure, good idea" and leaving it. If they're just blowing you off you'll find out there and then, either way you won't have to initiate contact and get it back to this point once more. Making arbitrary decisions is taxing. Give people something to agree to.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

munificent 13y ago

> Clients were increasingly respondent to my emails. This is tangential, but the word you want here is "responsive". "Respondent" is a noun, and an uncommon one at that. It means, "a person who responds", similar to how "dependent" means "a person who depends".

markrages 13y ago

As a client, I am hiring you because I don't have time or knolwedge to do the project. So the ideal response is to lay out the plan that solves my problem, and all I have to do to make it happen is sign the contract. That is so much more compelling then "let me know what I can do". You're supposed to be telling me what you can do!

colanderman 13y ago

Similar tactics work when reviewing code. On a scale from least to most effective: 1. "I don't like how this is coded." 2. "[#1]… because it can result in X happening under circumstance Y." 3. "[#2]… Alternatively, structure the code as A or B." 4. "[#3]… Here are code snippets implementing the change." Almost no action will occur as a result of #1. However, #4 leaves no excuse but hubris on the part of the reviewee not to accept the modifications (obviously assuming they correct the issue and do not introduce new problems!).

pbhjpbhj 13y ago

Doesn't he fail with the last para call to action? >"Want to try out this technique on more prospects? [...] He needs to be more positive and active in his language and provide an action for us to follow, no? "Try out this technique with your prospects." ?

robwilliams88 13y ago
This is a blog post, not an email :)

lesterbuck 13y ago

This is exactly the issue covered in depth on the direct marketing podcast "I Love Marketing". They come back to this issue over and over for the last few years, but the very first time they discussed it was the episode on converting leads[1]. Dean uses a clever analogy about inviting someone over to your house and telling them "Get anything you want out of the fridge, I'll be working in the den" vs. "I just baked a plate of cookies. Would you like a cookie?" The relevant part of the episode starts about 23 minutes in, or read the complete transcript. [1]http://ilovemarketing.com/episode-005-the-one-about-converting-leads/ http://ilovemarketing.com/episode-005-the-one-about-converti...

dogweather 13y ago

I buy it. As a consultant, my #1 job is to make my client's life easier: to take tasks and problems off their plate, not give them new things to do. The method in this post sounds similar to what I do, and I subjectively feel like I get a good reply rate. I'll test though — sounds fun.

at-fates-hands 13y ago

As someone who spent a fair deal of time in sales, this is the worst thing you can do to close an email. You're essentially saying, "If you need me, contact me." and allowing the client to just opt out of working with you. In sales, you always had to have a path where you want to lead the client. "Let's put together a time frame for A, B, C and I follow up when A is done." or "Once the budget is approved, we're going to do A, B, and C by this date." It also shows you're invested in the client and invested in what they want to accomplish. It does take extra work to nail down clients, and at times will feel like you're trying to herd cats, but it's quite effective in the long run.

instaheat 13y ago

I have definitely been the subject of this article. I had a particularly demanding client that didn't seem to want to put any work in, work you and I would probably both consider her responsibility. I was brought in for consulting on A & B - but she wanted me to do the rest of the alphabet too. Ultimately my billable hours drizzled away to nothing, and my client was impossible to get a hold of. I did find myself using these lines in various emails whilst working on the things I deemed my responsibility. I still don't know if they had success with their project because she decided to go at it on her own.

hosh 13y ago

I used to do independent consulting. I don't right now. I had already been informally doing this these days for taking uncertainty out of things. I think I am going to do this deliberately for all work related matters. I seem to get better results (getting shit done, people think I communicate better).

therease 13y ago

smart, helpful- I get it and will run with it. Thanks!