In a week I usually receive between 50 and 100 unsolicited pitch emails, LinkedIn messages, connection requests and letters. Every single one of these makes a request of my time. People want to ‘jump on a call’ for me to explain to them what our strategy and pain points are, or they want to ‘pick my brain’ (a horrible term, it sounds unhygienic and a little Hannibal Lecter), or buy me a coffee or lunch so that ‘we can work out how we could help one another’ or something to that effect. Ten years ago I usually made time for the call, a coffee or lunch, or I’d take the time to politely reply and explain why us meeting wouldn’t be in either of our interests.
Today I ignore and block 99% of these requests.
My time is precious – to me
According to the UN the life expectancy of the world population is 73.2 years. That sounds like many years, but when you break it down, it isn’t all that much time. Which means that most of us will see 73 summers in our life time. That’s not that many. And the older you get the fewer summers you have left. If you measure your life in summers it somehow feels more precious, less plentiful than years.
We will know our parents and our children for around 43 years and our grandparents for 13 years. We’ll spend around 18 years of our life commuting or working, and for the average person, around 14 years of your time working will be while you have children. We will spend around 21 of our 73 years sleeping.
For me, the truth is more stark. I have a birthday coming up this week. If I take into consideration my age, how much I sleep and work, I have another 11 years to spend with my children and my wife. When I calculate how little time I am likely to be able to spend with the people I love most I am overwhelmed my a sense of urgency, a need to spend that time wisely. And most importantly, to ferociously protect those precious few years I have left.
The expectations from others and our need to not disappoint
It took me a while to work this out, but the reason I accepted all those meetings and responded to all those requests a decade ago was because I was afraid to disappoint the people who had reached out to me. I was afraid to be disliked by these complete strangers or labelled by them as ‘rude’. However, I have come to realise that I wasn’t appreciating value exchange in the equation when I spent time writing and meeting with these people.
Let’s start at the beginning. Somebody takes the time to find my email address or my LinkedIn profile and then to sit down and write me a message or an email. Let’s not forget that this is their job, they’re getting paid, and more than likely doing this within their ‘working hours’. Let’s assume that the message isn’t a cut-and-paste job (which most tend to be) then the person writing it might take five to ten minutes compiling the note. So, total, let’s say the person spends 15 minutes finding my details and writing to me.
I receive their message, and 49 other similar messages. It takes me maybe a minute to read it, and then another 3 minutes to respond with a ‘no thanks’. Multiply that by the 50 messages I get in a week – that’s about three hours and 20 minutes of my time each week acknowledging and declining their pitch or offer which I never asked for in the first place. And inevitably that’s personal time because, unfortunately, I don’t have the spare three hours and 20 minutes during my working week to respond to these emails and messages. And, unlike the people writing them, I don’t get paid to reply to pitches.
It’s personal
To put it another way; every time someone sends me an unsolicited email the very act of me having to read their email, be polite and reply with a ‘no thanks’ takes up a sliver of the 11 years I have left to spend with people who make up most of my answer to the question, ‘why are you alive?’
Therefore, an unsolicited pitch, in my world, is the equivalent of a stranger trying to steal my most valuable asset.
So, if you send me an unsolicited email, message, or connection request, asking for my time, understand that I’ll more than likely read whatever it is you send through and, unless it’s mind-blowingly amazing, I will probably ignore it.
And, yes, it’s personal – for me.
Great.