What’s in your inbox? Maybe a question you don’t want to answer, right? Ideally you would want to find correspondence from clients, colleagues, email subscriptions, those you want to learn from and stay connected to, with perhaps an occasional cold call sales proposition. Most find their inboxes overloaded daily and we also find ourselves subjected to being added to lists without signing up, asking to be added or giving our permission. One of my biggest pet peeves.
Recently I found myself in this situation just one-too-many times and followed my usual process by trying to see if I had signed up for their lists and had somehow forgotten. That wasn’t the case. In each instance someone thought it was okay to add me to their list without my permission. One seemed to be shocked about my asking to be removed suggesting that I pass the information along if I didn’t find it to be useful. Seriously?
Okay, so here’s the thing about all that…
Years ago before the “Can SPAM” Act was in place it was commonplace for people building their list to add email addresses of those they met at events to their list. Not that this was ever appropriate at any time mind you, but it was common.
Personally I find this to be quite rude and a poor business practice. This is the virtual equivalent to walking up to someone at an event and shoving your stuff in their face without introducing yourself and having a conversation. Without knowing if they’re your ideal client or even want what you have to offer. Besides being rude, you’re not targeting the people you are a fit for what you do. Is this really how you want to build your business or the reputation you want to create? You’re taking up prime real estate in my sacred space and that’s just not cool.
I prefer to have things worthy of that space in it. Things that will serve me, help me learn and stay connected to those I want to connect with. That’s what your inbox is for. Inbox invasion is just one reason people suffer from email overload. When you clean up your inbox regularly, leave those with poor business etiquette out of the mix, get off the lists that aren’t serving you and keep it that way.