Bruce Bates   Cooperative marketing
Let me help you turn annoying and rude behavior into profitable self branding.

What yo want to do is create a cut and paste message that you can send to anyone who introduces themselves with a pitch. The message looks something like the following:

"Hi there. First I want to say thank you so much for connecting with me and I appreciate the enthusiasm for wanting to reach out to me. I don't wish to be rude but I do like to be helpful. I have found you can get a lot better signup rate if you interact with a person before showing them your business. If you are interested I can teach you how to tweak your personal greeting a bit so you get a much better response. In either event thanks for connecting. So how long have you been in this industry?"

The idea is to just save a message, and paste it anytime someone you don't know tosses a link at you. You'd be surprised how many people do this because they think thats how its done. They just need guidance.
Nov 5th 2012 23:09 2 Likes  

Steve M.   Traffic Specialist
Says you Todd ? If people pitch me directly after making connection I just send one of my pre-typed thank you for connecting but I only specialise in traffic then my url link.

Is that spam well thats debatable.Spam is if you keep following up on them directly promoting your websites then you just unfriend them or block them your choice.
Nov 8th 2012 11:30   

Todd Perry  Honest ways
Steve, how far does that get you doing to them what they did to you, That teaches them nothing about how to Social market properly.
With you sending them a link back in your response just encourages them to keep pushing their link and never making any real connections, business relationships, or building their business.

However if that is the type of marketing you want to do then I wish you luck.
Nov 8th 2012 13:08   

Bruce Bates   Cooperative marketing
Well based on your definition of spam, I can see why you reply the way you do steve (no offense intended). I don't think I view spam the same way you do. I like to take on the US legal definition of spam - and thinks if more marketers did - the entire email response rate would go skyrocketing.

The truth is spam is any electronic message sent to a person in the attempt of getting to them to spend money when they have not asked you to send them such messages specifically.

It doesn't matter if its email, social, or cell phone. Anytime someone sends you a message that you have not asked to receive - and that message is selling you something or trying to get you to spend money in some way - its spam, even if that person is someone you know personally.

There is never a good time to send someone a business offer or try to sell them a product if they have not specifically asked you.

This is why I recommended what I did - and this is why I think Todd's reply to you is spot on. In my opinion if you don't at least attempt to teach them the right way of marketing - you have not only lost a potential client, you have reeked havoc on the reputation of every marketer. Because its the endless sending of links to people that don't request them, that makes people hate marketers.
Nov 8th 2012 21:18   

Micah Wallace   OWNER
WOW this is what I have been trying to tell people for years it is so simple people if I you just met me don't send me an offer try to build a relationship with me first before trying to sell anything... People Join People in Business they can't stand people that Spam them and they won't join you if you do this.
Nov 9th 2012 02:12   

Paula van Dun   Retired
I wrote a few articles on this subject I sometimes refer people to who do this. Like Bruce said in many cases they often don't know better. But there are some that are un-curable and send another link 5 minutes later.
Nov 9th 2012 04:21