A few days ago, I watched Yes Theory‘s recent heartwarming and inspiring video, Creating a Subscriber’s Viral Job Application. And if you have a spare 20, I highly recommend checking it out. Yesterday, I chatted with a friend about the influx of spam calls these days. So, I thought; now that’s a start of a #unfiltered blogpost.
As a warning, this post is slightly more eccentric than, admittedly, my average #unfiltered blog post.
Prefacing with spam
I used to write this newsletter, Friday Morning Coffee Break, back in college for one of the clubs I helped lead. (Now that I think about it, coffee seems to be the theme for my content drops.) So if any of you subscribers then are reading this post now, this anecdote will be a momentary skip down memory lane.
So, you see, I’m a huge fan of comedy. And 3 years back, when I first learned about James Veitch, I just had to try it out myself. Replying to spam emails. From Nigerian princes. Cold emails from ‘celebrities’. Confirmation emails that require replying to unsubscribe.
If you’re curious as to how he pulls it off, you can check out his Hilarious (yes with a capital ‘H’) TED talks: here, here, and here.
What I did
When I received:
Subject: Save a 80% Off meds delivered discretely to your door
Don’t miss this once in a lifetime chance to get 80% off of a lifetime supply of Viagra!
GotBanq
… my keyboard was ready.
Mhmmm, totally trustworthy sender… GotBanq. Is it just me or do people love misspelling words to look cool? I’m almost surprised he/she didn’t sign off with numbers in place of letters as well. Say, for example, G0TB4NQ. And given that atrocity, I gladly overlooked the misspelling of ‘discreetly’.
Maybe it’s ’cause I got those Asian genes in me, but I had to negotiate for a better deal. 80%?! C’mon!! So, in response I wrote:
Hi GotBanq. Assuming it is discretely delivered (I can’t have my roommate knowing I have certain bodily abnormalities), I’m 80% interested in your offer for a lifetime’s supply of Viagra. Is there any way you can increase my interest to translate to a 100% buy offer?
David
GotBanq wrote back:
Just for you, I can give you 85% off our once in a lifetime discount.
GotBanq
And I responded in kind.
For your information, I was able to get an offer from another seller for 99.9% off.
David
Incredulous, GotBanq responded with:
Hi David. I highly doubt that. Please show me proof.
GotBanq
Taken aback by his lack of trust (talk about the irony of trust), I connected him with my spam email: ilovebananadumplings@gmail.com. Yes, I own that email address.
Ciao GotBanq! I hear you are also interested in our offer for 99.9% offer of a lifetime supply of Viagra! Delivered discretely! And with a 99.9% satisfaction guarantee or an 80% money back!
G0TB4NQ$$
GotBanq’s last reply, before indefinitely ghosting me:
I know this is a scam.
What did I learn?
Needless to say, I had to pressure-test this. And over the next 2 weeks, I engaged in 7 email threads with 7 other spam emails (among replying to 10 total, 3 just never got back). One of which, apparently, my name was Roberto, designated by the sender. 7 threads; 7 inevitably ghosted me. An average of 4 exchanges per thread. And one of which threatened to report me to the authorities. Who would have thought a proud Nigerian prince embezzling $5 million in gold would resort to local authorities? Ironic, huh?
Overpersistence can backfire.
It may seem obvious when I put it like that. And admittedly, I may have purposefully tried to push some buttons there on some of the, arguably, most tenacious folks on this planet. Everyone has their own threshold of when things go too far. While I cannot and do not applaud these scammers’ ways of conducting “business”, at the end of the day, they are undeniably trying to make a living.
Taking a step back
While the silverscreen and media index heavily on the stories of the persistent, and while I too admire the relentless, I want to provide a counterpoint to it all. The simple answer is it really depends on who you’re talking to. Most people I’ve met in my lifetime have a limited bandwidth for tolerating persistence and repetition. While it’s true that tenacity and playing the long game increases your chance to capture success. While it’s also true the most memorable tales carry strong elements of sheer willpower, pick and choose your battles. Not every single one is worth enduring, and not everyone will like it. Unless you have fun trolling scammers.
Let’s take ads, for instance. How many of you wish you could skip YouTube’s 15-second ads? The ones you can’t skip after 5 seconds. In one way, these push ads resonate in your head, but in another way you may find them to be quite bothersome. In fact, it’s probably led many of us to find other solutions on the interwebs, like AdBlock, Brave, or something of a similar thread.
Instead, pause and think. As Greg McKeown, author of NY Times and WSJ Bestseller Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, puts it:
How much are you willing to sacrifice in order to obtain this opportunity?
What is the worst case scenario? Is it shame? Is it a criminal record? Or, is it offending the people you care about? And, are you willing to endure it on the path to your goals? Is it worth it?
A possible solution
Many of the miscalculations I see with overpersistence occur in the realm of communication, particularly in getting the party on the other side to indulge in your ask. For me, many of my stories of tenacity are exhibited in the process of ‘cold emails’. And I define cold emails very loosely. For me, it is simply a term I use to designate the act of reaching out without a warm mutual connection. It can be via actual emails, DMs, catching them at an event, creating a viral video/tweet about them, or my favorite, physical handwritten letters mailed to their (work) address.
The goal is focus on quality of the message over quantity. To find where they regularly (daily or every other day) allocate their attention and time towards, and which of these channels are the least saturated. As Herbert A. Simon, Nobel Prize winning economist,
“The wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”
In the aforementioned example, while many people regularly check their emails and social media, unfortunately, those channels are quite saturated already. Yet, they still check their physical mail daily. Or for those who have an EA (executive assistant), have their EA do so. But it’s also a channel they least expect, and quite frankly would be quite surprised, to receive physical mail, especially a handwritten one. ‘Tis a dying art. And in the artistic sense, it can catch a person’s eye. Similar to how authors and publishers take cover art seriously to catch a potential reader’s eye among the myriad of books on the shelf. While the brick-and-mortar bookstores themselves are arguably a dying breed, the ones in airports, where busy travelers finally have time to relax, are still quite profitable. Anecdotally, a handwritten letter has worked for me 7 out of every 10 times.
In closing
There’s a saying on the streets, “Work smart, not hard.” On the flip side, naysayers say, “Work smart and hard.” There’s truth to both. And not to take too much of a leap into semantics, I say, “Think smart; work hard.” Specifically, I want to double-click on “smart” and not “clever” – the latter of which carries its origin from the word ‘cleave’, which implies in many cases, where there is a winner and a loser. In working together to create a better world, if you’ll allow me to be presumptuous here, go for the win-win scenarios.
If you’re reaching out to someone, you must truly believe what you have to ask adds meaningful value into their lives, not just yours. If you can’t figure it out, go back to the drawing board.
Photo by LoboStudio Hamburg on Unsplash
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
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