
The email line that's client repellent - robwilliams88
http://letsworkshop.com/blog/the-email-line/
======
jxf
Interesting; I ran essentially the exact same experiment a while back (June to
August 2012) and had a different conclusion!

\-- 68 incoming consulting leads

\-- group A: responded to 34 with "let me know how I can help"

\-- group B: responded to 34 with "would <date-and-time> work to discuss this
further?"

\-- group A: 20/34 (59%) responded, 14/20 (70%) led to contract negotiation
stage

\-- group B: 6/34 (18%) responded, 5/6 (83%) led to contract negotiation stage

So "let me know how I can help" outperformed (p < 0.01) suggesting a
date/time.

There's a few possible explanations for the discrepancy:

* The kind of clients I had are different than Robert's clients. At the time I mostly did software engineering consulting and pair programming, and my clients were small units in mid-to-large size companies.

* I only ran mine on incoming leads, not outgoing (solicitation) leads. It sounds like Robert did it for everything.

* Content of the e-mail matters, not just the last line. Perhaps the way I write my e-mails is such that kicking the ball back to them is better for me, whereas Rob's style means a different strategy works better than him.

* Something changed about how people read e-mails in between my experiment and Rob's article.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I am just impressed by 68 people mailing you saying "can you quote". How ?

Edit: Well, it seems that 100K on stackoverflow, a robust background across a
wide variety of languages and domains and a nice smile seems how.

edit edit: that seems sarcastic or otherwise trying to diminish the effort and
discipline and passion needed to develop and maintain an online persona that
will be attractive to clients. I do not mean to - but that is what I get from
a scan of his public profiles - and frankly I would be willing to hand over
many software projects to him just on those profiles. Its interesting the
value I place on them, yet the small amount of attention I pay to my own.

~~~
jxf
I didn't track this for purposes of the experiment, but most people were
referrals from past clients. I think consulting-type work benefits from this a
lot, because you work with a lot of people. Your professional network gets
larger much more quickly than if you were taking on 3-to-6-month projects,
just because you work with more folks over time.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
That's certainly something I have not considered - short burst consulting as a
means of expanding the list of people who might think kindly of me (or not !)

Hard to do in practise I suspect - which is why the dry patch.

------
josteink
As a "client" (although small one) I can confirm this. I've been outsourcing
some work, and when I was trying to collect offers from various professionals
you definitely had two distinct kinds of actors.

Those who _did_ suggest follow-up actions and did lead you on and those who
_didn 't_.

As a client I always felt insecure and confused by those who didn't. Where did
that leave me? What was the next step? Was I responsible for the next
communique? With what topic? How does this affect my agenda? Where do we go
from here?

With the people who did suggest follow up items and who had specific actions
and priorities, it was easy for me to respond. I already had an agenda, ready
and served. The path on further was already set.

So yeah. I guess people are different, YMMV and all that, but as for me, I can
attest that this sort of approach works much better.

------
codegeek
Good writing. When we say "Let me know how I can help", we are asking the
other person to _do work_ because then they have to think about what/how they
need help with. Most of the times, people are lazy and you might be surprised
but the fact is that they don't want to do work even for their own
requirements. Instead, They want to hear solutions.

This even applies to environments at very big companies. At my current client
(Fortune 100), we work with distributed global teams and we have those
_dreaded meetings_ all the time. In those meetings, we in IT will ask business
for requirements which makes sense. However for projects that need quick
turnarounds with tight deadlines, we sometimes don't have the luxury of
getting detailed requirements. In fact, the more we discuss requirements, the
more we are stuck. Asking "how I can help" usually gets a response of "Sure.
what are you proposing". You cannot keep going back and forth with "depends on
what you want". The reason is that even though we all would like the best
solution with all features, it just does not work that way in real world
because time/resource/budget is limited. Instead of asking "how can we help",
we analyze the current process and then propose multiple options. So in
essence, we say "Here is how we can help". It then makes it really easy for
business to say "Yea we like Option 1 and if that's the best you have for now,
let's go with it". Boom, you just got a decision maker to agree and you are on
your way. You are also that guy who got shit done.

I used to think that we get big bucks as consultants because we are awesome
devs/designers/PMs/BAs whatever. But after a decade in the industry, I got
wiser. You are valued as a consultant because you get shit done by taking the
initiative to propose solutions to clients. Then you deliver it to them. No
one gives a shit about anything else. Really.

~~~
bananacurve
>people are lazy and you might be surprised but the fact is that they don't
want to do work even for their own requirements.

And they will pay to avoid even the easiest chore. We got tired of not getting
any response from people using our free trial and briefly required them to
call us to activate their free trial. People started paying for the first
month rather than make a phone call and some that paid never even used it.
Crazy.

~~~
aestra
Isn't this the idea of a mail in rebate? That they attract attention and
people buy the product but hardly nobody bothers to mail them in? I might be
off base on that, but that was my thought as to why they are offered.

~~~
mdda
From my recollection, the industry stats on mail-in-rebates on (say) hard
disks is something like 80% are unclaimed. Cutting a UPC out of the side of a
box (and finding a stamp, and copying a tricky address exactly, etc) is a >$15
job for most people...

~~~
lotyrin
But for elementary school age me growing up with my poor single mom, when I
could string rebates and sales together to build a computer inside $5 case
with similar deals on components, it's crazy magic. Thank you lazy people, for
making my childhoodd hobby (and the consulting career that has followed)
possible.

------
bluedino
>> Could I really boss the client around and tell them what they needed to do?

Yes, that's exactly what they are paying you for.

We had a disaster recovery project that sat on a todo list for 6 years. It got
passed around from person to person, discussed at every other meeting we had,
but nobody ever did a single thing about it. We brought in a consultant who
did no magic other than delegating tasks to a few people, and the project was
completed in 4 months.

We paid a guy to come in and tell us what we already knew we had to do. I'm
not sure if we did it because now we were spending money on it, and it'd be
wasteful not to follow.

------
Jare
"A good rule of thumb is: if a client can just reply “sounds good” to your
email, you’re right on"

Fantastic summary and advice. I try to apply this not just at work but also
when proposing activities with friends and family.

------
at-fates-hands
As someone who spent a fair deal of time in sales, this is the worst thing you
can do to close an email.

You're essentially saying, "If you need me, contact me." and allowing the
client to just opt out of working with you.

In sales, you always had to have a path where you want to lead the client.
"Let's put together a time frame for A, B, C and I follow up when A is done."
or "Once the budget is approved, we're going to do A, B, and C by this date."
It also shows you're invested in the client and invested in what they want to
accomplish.

It does take extra work to nail down clients, and at times will feel like
you're trying to herd cats, but it's quite effective in the long run.

------
dasil003
I've done a fair amount of freelancing and this blew me away in that I had
never thought about it. I guess I had developed a sort of instinctive
understanding that clients want solutions not just another employee to manage,
but I never thought about how common (and often vacuous) this phrase is.
Excellent insight.

------
mrintegrity
Works with online dating too.

"Would you like to go out some time?" bad

"I really like you, would you like to meet?" terrible

"Let's go out at the weekend, <barname> is really great" good

"I am free Tuesday and Friday, let's get a beer and continue this conversation
in real life" good

~~~
hollerith
I humbly disagree. Dating is different because rejection is felt more keenly
-- by the asker and by the typical askee.

If a man does as you suggestion, he is making the woman reject him multiple
times if she does not want to go out with him (which is the most common case)
and he is putting the conversational burden on the woman to explain whether
the rejection is only because she has plans that particular weekend.

------
jader201
Is this the same as "Let me know if you have any questions."?

I often end emails like this, more as an acknowledgement that while I feel
that I am clear, it may not seem clear to you, and to not hesitate to come
back to me if anything is not clear to you.

But maybe this also is leaving a similar impression as "Let me know how I can
help."?

~~~
baak
After a support session I usually end with "Let me know if you run into any
issues."

I do frequently wonder if that's the best way to end the email... as what I
want to suggest is "Email me back directly if something happens, but I don't
think anything will."

Maybe: "Feel free to ping me directly if you run into any issues."

~~~
robwilliams88
Why not send "Email me back directly if something happens, but I don't think
anything will."???

------
swombat
Very good article. Posted my response here: [http://swombat.com/2014/1/31/let-
me-know-if-i-can-help](http://swombat.com/2014/1/31/let-me-know-if-i-can-help)

~~~
kirse
Communication is ultimately an expression of an individual's inner attitude,
and to call this a _quirk of language_ is focusing too much on the actions
without giving any thought as to the attitude that produces those actions.

If one has an internally confident, go-gettin', "always be closing" attitude,
all of their actions and communication will flow from that. It's a much better
use of energy to focus on cultivating a quiet confidence, rather than
attempting to build up a collection of manipulative "power tricks" to be
deployed in an inauthentic fashion.

Another thing to recognize is that people who _are_ confident will pick up on
the motives of these power tricks, because they'll sense an incongruity in
character during communication. When someone who is typically timid and
passive acts in an aggressive manner, it stands out like a nerd taking a swing
at the jock. Even worse, confident people will push back to see if the user of
said "power trick" is for real, which requires the next "power trick" to keep
up the act.

So yeah, these might work on some people, but I personally intensely dislike
it when I pick up on these things. Not that I'm the paragon of confidence by
any means, but I actively rebel & push back when I feel like I'm being
controlled/constrained or "should-ed" into doing something. What ultimately
ends up happening with these "power tricks" is you have people like Dustin
Curtis writing about how "you should do X", and then a ton of idiots mimicking
the behavior and annoying the rest of us.

~~~
slaman
What about the (somewhat proven) idea that pulling these 'power tricks' to
keep up the act, and seeing them return positive results does cultivate the
inner confidence we should be seeking.

How should one focus on cultivating a quiet confidence while never taking
action? While it's true that often feigned confidence appears weak and
insincere it is also one of the best ways to develop 'real' confidence..

We're all just faking it until we make it.

~~~
kirse
_How should one focus on cultivating a quiet confidence while never taking
action?_

I didn't say it was an either/or dichotomy between attitude and action, simply
that there was zero thought given to the attitude, which is the source from
which all of our actions and behaviors flow. Obviously there must be some
balance -- because we are called to act with courage even when the confident
attitude isn't quite there yet -- but a list of "power tricks" is 100% focused
on just imitating the actions without improving one's inner attitude.

 _We 're all just faking it until we make it._

Sure, someone who imitates actions/behaviors without any change of
heart/attitude is "faking it." In fact, this is the greatest reason why people
fail to achieve long-lasting personal change, because it requires too much
effort to "fake it" in every area of life.

But this trite saying about "faking it" does not apply to the man who does the
hard work of reshaping his inner attitude (along with acting in the face of
fear as life demands). If you want oranges instead of apples from the tree in
your back yard, you don't spend your days hanging oranges on the apple tree.
You dig up the apple tree and nurture an orange tree.

------
brd
This philosophy is applicable to much more than just sales.

I generally try to avoid highlighting problems unless I can suggest a
solution. People don't want to hear whats wrong, they want to know how things
can get better.

~~~
jasonwocky
As the bearer of bad news, so to speak, I think that's often a good approach.
On the flip side, I think it's bad as an enforced policy from above. I've
worked with some managers who have a "Don't come to me with problems, come to
me with solutions" rule. I think that's poor management for at least three
reasons:

1\. This kind of thing leads to bigger problems. If they're small but your
employee is having trouble coming up with a solution, and they don't come to
you, odds are the problem will get worse and you might not find out about it
before it takes the proverbial "pound of cure" to deal with it.

2\. If your employee already _has_ a solution in mind, why do they need to
come to you at all? Just let them implement it. If you need your employees to
run their "solutions" by you, you might be a micromanager. As a manager, I
_want_ my employees coming to me with their unsolvable problems, not the stuff
they think they can handle. Sure, there's some risk of a mistake from time to
time, but I treat those as experiences to learn from and there are other ways
of keeping those "lessons" from getting too expensive.

3\. It's often hypocritical. Does the average middle manager waste their
senior exec's time with stuff they already know the answer to? Most likely
not.

All that said, a policy of "Don't come to me with a problem until after you've
thought about it a little bit" (i.e. a form of "Don't come to me with data,
come to me with analysis") is perfectly reasonable to me.

~~~
brd
I absolutely agree that this only applies when you are the deliverer of bad
news and should never be used as the receiver of bad news. Not wanting to hear
problems is a terrible managerial style.

As for points 2 & 3, I think there is a big difference between solving
something you've been told to do vs. solving something you've ran into. The
latter will oftentimes highlight an underlying issue in the process/project
which needs to be addressed and solving it without letting others know may
create unwanted assumptions.

The reason I said "generally try to avoid" instead of always avoid is because
sometimes there are real problems worth mentioning or, as you said, times
where one simply can't find an acceptable answer. In either case its important
to raise the issue even though no solution is at hand. This is exactly why not
wanting to hear problems is so catastrophic from a managerial perspective, you
end up not hearing about your largest problems.

------
cantbecool
This article clearly illustrates the red pill philosophy. He demonstrates a
few things with his emails, his time is money, he has a plan and will make
your live easier, and you get the impression he's not desperate for work,
making him more attractive to future clients. I want someone successful
mentality.

~~~
henryaj
...the 'red pill philosophy'?

~~~
Brian-Puccio
[http://www.reddit.com/r/theredpill](http://www.reddit.com/r/theredpill)
maybe?

(I don't endorse the ideas discussed there.)

~~~
henryaj
Oh God.

------
rdudek
This writeup was actually a lot better than I anticipated. One of the key
things in consulting that I learned over the years is that you're basically
contracted to help and grow the business. You have to present yourself as an
ally that can provide solutions to problems and help the client grow their
business.

Don't just write in your email your products/services and "hey, let's meet up
and discuss stuff". Any high school or college kid can do that. Throw
solutions, it will really make you stand out.

------
colanderman
Similar tactics work when reviewing code. On a scale from least to most
effective:

1\. "I don't like how this is coded."

2\. "[#1]… because it can result in X happening under circumstance Y."

3\. "[#2]… Alternatively, structure the code as A or B."

4\. "[#3]… Here are code snippets implementing the change."

Almost no action will occur as a result of #1. However, #4 leaves no excuse
but hubris on the part of the reviewee not to accept the modifications
(obviously assuming they correct the issue and do not introduce new
problems!).

------
atiffany
Great post. Now, if you're reading this and still calling yourself a
"freelancer," your next step is to stop. Calling yourself a consultant instead
of freelancer is the quickest way to start asking higher rates.

------
mratzloff
The secret here is that the underlying philosophy--manage the client and get
things done--applies to _everything_. If you are a salaried employee, treat
your boss that way. If you are coordinating with another group, treat them
that way. If you want a date, etc. The guy or gal who gets things done is more
valuable than the guy or gal who gets hung up on details.

------
mooreds
Works for internal "clients" too. Proposing a couple of solutions is almost
always better than asking someone else to do so.

------
rwhitman
What a great article. I recently shifted my approach to client relationships
in a similar way but never really did any real thought with why it was more
effective or formalized my methodology. Looking at it in perspective makes a
real case for responding like this consistently.

------
arca_vorago
Wow. As a geek who enjoys thinking at a big picture level and have bigger and
bigger world domination plans as I go on, I never realized until this post how
much I use that line and how much it hurts my business relationships. I really
appreciate the author taking the time to type this up, because I hadn't
thought of it from that perspective.

On a side note, part of my problem is that I am a USMC combat vet, and I have
worked very hard at toning down my bossy, demanding mannerisms since I got
out, but it seems I may have taken it too far. Sometimes, people need other to
take that initiative.

------
mrcactu5
When my boss replies with "sounds good" I start looking for my next job.

I totally agree with "let me know". These simple 2 or 3-word phrases can mean
very different things in different English-speaking subcultures.

Here's what UrbanDictionary says about a variant:

    
    
      > LET ME KNOW HOW THAT WORKS OUT FOR YOU
      
      the easiest way to end an argument when your 
      opponent relays their intentions to do something 
      that you do not agree with.
    

[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=let%20me%20kn...](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=let%20me%20know%20how%20that%20works%20out%20for%20you)

or how about "good luck" ?
[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=good+luck](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=good+luck)

    
    
      GOOD LUCK  
      
      a phrase used to wish someone well in an endeavor 
      
      sometimes a pointless phrase if the task at hand 
      does not even remotely involve or require luck.
      
      Ex. good luck washing those dishes. 
      i hope the knives don't fall on your foot and slice your toes off!
    

This is interesting from a theoretical perspective as well. In linguistics,
all languages have what are known was "particles" \- words that are so
frequent it is difficult to ascribe any meaning to them, and yet they shade
our language.

~~~
vinceguidry
> When my boss replies with "sounds good" I start looking for my next job.

What about this reply triggers this?

~~~
mdda
I'm guessing that in some English-speaking countries, the natural continuation
of the phrase isn't just a thumbs up, but the words "... but sounding good and
the actual reality are totally different".

i.e. "Sounds GOOD!" vs. "SOUNDS good..."

------
apinstein
You can also leverage this "problem" to your advantage in some cases... when
someone wants to meet with me but I'd rather not do it soon (or ever), I will
purposefully respond with "Sure just let me know when is a good time" and it
gracefully delays the occurrence of the meeting. Whereas if I want the meeting
to occur, I will suggest a hard time. This really helps prevent your life from
being interrupt-driven by low-value activities.

------
SixSigma
This works for life in general, not just client relations.

If someone says "let's have coffee sometime" jump right to "How about next
Weds afternoon?" instead of "sure, good idea" and leaving it. If they're just
blowing you off you'll find out there and then, either way you won't have to
initiate contact and get it back to this point once more.

Making arbitrary decisions is taxing. Give people something to agree to.

------
herghost
And the natural corollary is that if someone is attempting to stitch you up
with a crappy piece of work that they're trying to get out of doing, if you
respond to their attempt to palm it off to you with a question about the work
that forces them to engage with it before they can respond, you will find that
the crappy piece of work quite often never comes back your way.

~~~
gk1
When you suspect that someone hasn't thought through the problem enough, ask
them to write it down in a short format (eg, bullet list, short paragraph,
memo). It'll force them to think it through.

------
driverdan
I suggest using a common sales technique. End the email with a question
instead of an open statement that requires no response. The question can be as
simple as "Does this work for you?" By using a question your assuming /
prompting a response. It may not always be the response you're looking for but
at least you'll know one way or the other.

The OP's idea of proposing two solutions is good too, even if there is one
real solution. You're allowing the client to make a decision, even if it's a
forced one. It lets them feel in control. Give them two solutions and then ask
something like "Which would you prefer?" You're almost guaranteed an answer.

When I get a new lead for a project I know nothing about (either incoming or
outgoing) I usually do a very brief one or two sentence intro and end with
"How can I help?" It's similar to "Let me know if I can help" but requires a
response.

------
hosh
I used to do independent consulting. I don't right now. I had already been
informally doing this these days for taking uncertainty out of things. I think
I am going to do this deliberately for all work related matters. I seem to get
better results (getting shit done, people think I communicate better).

------
lesterbuck
This is _exactly_ the issue covered in depth on the direct marketing podcast
"I Love Marketing". They come back to this issue over and over for the last
few years, but the very first time they discussed it was the episode on
converting leads[1]. Dean uses a clever analogy about inviting someone over to
your house and telling them "Get anything you want out of the fridge, I'll be
working in the den" vs. "I just baked a plate of cookies. Would you like a
cookie?" The relevant part of the episode starts about 23 minutes in, or read
the complete transcript.

[1][http://ilovemarketing.com/episode-005-the-one-about-
converti...](http://ilovemarketing.com/episode-005-the-one-about-converting-
leads/)

------
instaheat
I have definitely been the subject of this article. I had a particularly
demanding client that didn't seem to want to put any work in, work you and I
would probably both consider her responsibility.

I was brought in for consulting on A & B - but she wanted me to do the rest of
the alphabet too. Ultimately my billable hours drizzled away to nothing, and
my client was impossible to get a hold of.

I did find myself using these lines in various emails whilst working on the
things I deemed my responsibility.

I still don't know if they had success with their project because she decided
to go at it on her own.

------
markrages
As a client, I am hiring you because I don't have time or knolwedge to do the
project. So the ideal response is to lay out the plan that solves my problem,
and all I have to do to make it happen is sign the contract. That is so much
more compelling then "let me know what I can do". You're supposed to be
telling me what you can do!

------
dogweather
I buy it. As a consultant, my #1 job is to make my client's life easier: to
take tasks and problems _off_ their plate, not give them new things to do. The
method in this post sounds similar to what I do, and I subjectively feel like
I get a good reply rate. I'll test though — sounds fun.

------
munificent
> Clients were increasingly respondent to my emails.

This is tangential, but the word you want here is "responsive". "Respondent"
is a noun, and an uncommon one at that. It means, "a person who responds",
similar to how "dependent" means "a person who depends".

------
pbhjpbhj
Doesn't he fail with the last para call to action?

>"Want to try out this technique on more prospects? [...]

He needs to be more positive and active in his language and provide an action
for us to follow, no? "Try out this technique with your prospects." ?

~~~
robwilliams88
This is a blog post, not an email :)

------
cmillard
The only time I use "let me know how I can help" is usually when I've
approached the boundaries of what I can do. For me this phrase means: I've hit
a roadblock, I need you to do something before I can proceed!

------
Sephiroth87
I'm just wondering, are people on the other side of the mail "actively"
rejecting you when you say that kind of stuff, or is more of a subconscious
thing?

~~~
dasil003
Probably impossible to know.

------
grimtrigger
Will definitely try this: but I'm also wary about working with clients who
don't know what they want.

~~~
robwilliams88
Do you want to work on a project for someone who doesn't know what they want?

------
endlessvoid94
I use this phrase all the time in my work. Do you think it has the same effect
in an organization?

~~~
bloat
I expect so.

But of course you get to choose whether to use it or not. If you want
something done your way - then just start, and inform people what they should
do to back you up. If you want someone else to take care of all the thinking
for you, then just relax and say "Let me know how I can help."

------
therease
smart, helpful- I get it and will run with it. Thanks!

------
visakanv
Good point, and well articulated. Nice.

