I’ve listed spammers, scammers, and charlatans in the past, but that doesn’t cover everything. There’s a sort of in-between area of so called professionals that seemingly provide a legitimate service, but are clearly awful in their approach and abilities as self-proclaimed professionals. We’ll call them the unprofessionals. Sadly, this article will probably only be used by unprofessionals to sharpen their techniques.
The “All Blue” Email
This is a classic and I’m sure everyone has gotten at least one of these in the past (I get them often). An email comprised entirely of blue text. Need I say more? I don’t know when or why anyone ever thought this was a good idea, but it wasn’t, ever. It’s silly.
Apparently, this is a Microsoft default for email replies, but thankfully, can be turned off.
Colorized text in an email is obnoxious and unprofessional. The only thing blue emails manage to do is save me time by not having to read it before I go for the delete button.
The “Fun Fonts” Email
If you think it’s fun to spice up emails with different fonts (besides the default) like Comic Sans, enjoy, because anything past that enjoyment is instant non-existent credibility.
The “Dear Sir/Madam” Email
This is an obvious canned response, delete. No greeting, is better than a bad one.
The “Link Building” Email
These “SEO Experts” will take your money and then very likely do a whole lot that either has no affect at all or that actually manages to hurt your website.
The “Reciprocal Links” Email
Hey, if you place a link on your PageRank 4 website to their website that has nothing to even remotely do with what your website is about, they’ll link back to you from their spammy website! Sound good?
The “Hey — I Definitely Didn’t Sign up for This Newsletter” Email
This doesn’t sell products, it makes people hate your company. I was added to the Mitt Romney mailing list recently. Hey, guess what… didn’t sign up for that.
I don’t follow politics, I don’t care about politics, I don’t visit political websites, I don’t even discuss politics except for when I’m pointing out that I don’t discuss it. Conclusion, awesome campaigning, clearly buying illegal email lists to market to.
This approach is ironically counter-productive because all that I know about Mitt Romney now is that he runs an unethical campaign. What politician runs an ethical campaign, I know. But, his campaign personally conveyed that message to me in a failed effort to recruit me, which is what tickles me about the stupidity of it.
Before any Mitt Romney followers come to the rescue, again, I’m not anti-Mitt just because I’m not pro-Mitt. I don’t care either way, I’m indifferent. Just sharing a funny tidbit, relax.
Cold
Cold-calling, cold-emailing, and cold-mailing is the true mark of an unethical, unprofessional. Years ago, I was a telemarketer (young and dumb and needed a job) for a short while. It’s disgusting. By definition, the very premise makes the potential customer a number, that if doesn’t put out $$$ is a worthless piece of garbage.
Conclusion
The point of this article is to layout that approach alone is enough to callout an unprofessional to spare you from paying for shoddy work to begin with. I’ll add other examples as they come to me. In addition, I simply do not understand how unprofessionals became so dumb or where they’re getting these nuggets of wisdom.
What are some examples of “professionals”, ironically showing you how unprofessional they are in their very attempts at getting your money, that you’ve experienced?