A Cautionary Tale About a Marketer’s Trust-busting Email…

I got an eye-roll-inducing email yesterday from a marketer named Stephanie.

I signed up for her list a few months ago. So technically, this wasn’t SPAM…

…but it sure felt like it. 

Here’s what it said: 

Hi there Tom,

I wanted to send you a special note, but I don’t have your mailing address 🙂

So, I put together a little PDF for you instead.

Check it out here! (link removed)

To your success,

Stephanie.

P.S. This is for your eyes only and very time-sensitive. Please don’t share it. Thanks!

I clicked to open the “special note,” put together especially for me, for my eyes only, and…

…saw, instead, a not-so-special 5-page sales letter pitching a 30-minute call with her.

Near the bottom of this “special note,” Stephanie wrote:  

“…act NOW! This special invitation is going out to my entire email list and Facebook group this week and there are only so many time slots that I have available for these free calls.”

Ahhh, yes…

…the “special note…”

…that is for my eyes “only…” 

…PLUS everyone else on her email list and Facebook group. 

 (Sigh!)

Here’s the thing…

I don’t mind being invited to a free coaching call. 

I bet Stephanie offers a lot of value on those calls. And many who get on the calls might want what she’s selling. 

I occasionally offer something similar – complementary strategy sessions for my subscribers or people who attend my trainings and workshops. 

Nothing wrong with that. 

But why, Stephanie, do you have to dress it up as some super-exclusive invitation – when there’s nothing exclusive about it?

Why claim it’s for my eyes only when you’re sending it to EVERYONE on your list and in your Facebook group? 

Why do you pretend that you were planning to sit at your desk, write me a note, but (Oh darn! ) you didn’t have my mailing address?

You want me to invest my time with you, turn to you as a trusted advisor, and, maybe, hire you as a coach/consultant. 

But I read your email and think, “You’re full of it!”

I’m not here to single-out Stephanie.

She just happens to be the latest in a long-line of full-of-it marketers who squander trust by dishing out heaping helpings of BS that are thicker than a Big Kahuna Burger.

And that’s thick!

You don’t have to market like that. 

You don’t have to lay it on so thick. 

You can serve up a tasty offer and hold the BS.