📍EEA: Pitchslap Bingo with RJ Redden

RJ: Pitchslap Bingo

RJ Redden: Greetings, grasshoppers. And here we go with another episode of the Epic Engagement Adventure. Now I did have a guest that was joining me but my dear friend Howard needed to reschedule, so I thought that I would just kidnap the broadcast. , how do you kidnap stopping something that's your own, but whatever.

I thought I'd kidnap the broadcast and fly solo on a little adventure that I've been cooking up for you. So today we're gonna play a little game called Pitch Slap Bingo. Let me just get back a little bit and explain what a pitch slap is and why I think it's important to talk. A pitch slap is something that is any inbox you own has one of these right now has something that is an unadulterated attempt to try to sell you something without bothering to get to know you first.

you know what I'm saying? All of those emails, buy my stuff. All of those inbox your LinkedIn inbox, maybe your messenger, any inbox you have where people can get ahold of you directly. Is success susceptible to a pitch slap? Why do I think it's important to talk about this for me?

Pitch slappers, keep me in business. Honestly. For me, I use pitch slapping as an example of what not to do. When you are doing your outreach on any social media platform through any inbox, your email does not matter what it is. We need to be sensitive to the. That this industrialized sort of spam 'em until they roll their eyes up into the back of their head, slide down the wall and just say, okay, I'll buy from you to make it stop.

That kind of stuff doesn't actually work anymore. I it did it one time. It was novel. It was cool. Maybe not a lot of you remember those days, but I do. It was novel. It was cool. It was like, oh, this person's trying to get ahold of me. I'm gonna get back to them. That was years ago, ladies, gentlemen, and anyone in between.

It was, it's been years since that kind of approach actually worked with more than just a few people, and yet we're still using it. What we've done is we've made a mistake. We have emphasized efficiency over effectiveness. It's efficient to hit on a, to hit up an email blast. It's efficient to contact everybody we're connected to with the same generalized, boring message.

It's sufficient. It's not. Effective is personalization. Effective? Is giving people a choice? Effective takes more work. It does, but in the end, it brings a heck of a lot more results. So I'm here to help you laugh one. If you don't laugh at this I'm, you must be having a hard day and my thoughts go out to you.

But I'm here to make you laugh at the pitch slappers. I'm here to make you laugh at the tactics and have some people go about it. And I'm here to encourage you to do the opposite. To personalize your communication, to customize your communication, to not communicate to the largest possible crowd you can listen.

We're not all standing at a stadium right now. Nobody's hanging on my every word right now, which is good cuz I'm just a human being. We're not in that situation where we have to get a ton of people to listen to our message, to get enough to reply so that we can have a business. We're not in that situation.

Reach. Organic reach out, personalized, customized reach out really works. And so let's, let me introduce to you the elements of a pitch slap because because I think it's funny. First of all, there's this pitch laps include a wall of text that can be seen. From space all pitch labs, especially those that go in social media inboxes, your LinkedIn inbox, your messenger, wherever you get messages, if you get a message and the text is so big that it could probably be seen from.

it's a pitch slap. It's absolutely a pitch slap. That's somebody who has trapped your eyes and decided that they better put all the details in there, or you're gonna look away because you may not be interested or it may not apply to you. They don't want you to look away. They want you to keep reading. So they put all the details in there in real.

We can liken this to the guy selling watches on the corner. Look at these watches. I have more watches. Would you like to see the watches? It's all about that. Look at how many watches I have. Look up kind. They are. You know what? I don't need to watch. , I don't need a watch. This wall of text can be seen, they can be seen from space is one of the, one of the harbingers of I absolutely am here to sell you something and I don't care what you want.

Okay, let's go with criteria number two, shall we? This is my dog ranger. He currently wants out so that his mother will come and get him. But he is fine. Trust me. No rangers were harmed in the making of this video. The second harbinger of, oh my God, it's a pitch slap links I didn't ask for. If you're giving me links, I didn't ask for, especially multiple links we're.

I see that and we're done. I'm not reading the rest of it. You've just told me to either follow you on 78 links. You know what? I don't care. Why would I follow you? Why would I follow you? You're clearly stalking me. Why would I bother to follow you? No. It worked 87 years ago. It doesn't work now. Now here's a caveat.

If you're in a conversation with somebody and you propose to meet and you drop a calendar link, totally. Okay. I do it all the time, or sometimes I will say, Hey, if you're interested, I'll drop my link here. Just let me know. and I'll make it happen. Sometimes I'll do that. Sometimes I'll just drop the link.

But one link when you're in a get to know you conversation, that will help through that conversation. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the follow me here in all of these places. I'm talking about find, see Seymour at blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm talking about the link to the next event that you are doing, that you've decided that I need to go to for some reason.

Links I didn't ask for. Sure. Sign of a pitch slap. Let's go to the next one, which may be my favorite. All caps, , all caps. My loves. There are people in the world who thinks this still works. They do. I love 'em. I just wanna pinch their cheeks until they bleed, but all caps don't work. Please don't give me all caps.

Please don't do it. Listen, and it, I'm talking about in the subject line of an email. I'm talking any word in the email in all caps. I am talking about if I'm on LinkedIn and you're messaging me and there's all caps in your title, I'm gone. I'm done. I am done being shouted. , I am done listening to messages that have nothing to do with me.

I'm, I get that you're passionate. I think that's great. Hey, baby, I'm passionate too, but there is no way that using all caps is gonna convince me to do anything except walk away as fast as I can. All right, next harbinger of a pitch. Slap wrong name. Now, you may think that the name like RJ Redden is something people can't screw up.

But you're wrong. You're absolutely wrong. People will screw up my name, but people do this all the time, and this is one of those things, we'll get to this rule a little bit later, but this is one of those things that just is a complete dead giveaway that somebody's using automation software instead of actually messaging theu themselves.

It's, they'll they'll say your first name or they'll call you. I've had people direct message me and call me by my last name. Dear Redden, does my father need to read this or what's happening? No, not dear Redden. Okay. Not Dear Redden. Not not somebody else's name completely. My name also does happen to be a nickname, not my legal name.

And people put my legal name in there, even though on my profile directly and on all my emails and everywhere. I get ahold of people, it says RJ people will still write my birth's name in there. I think that's hilarious. I just absolutely love it. And any of you who have a legal name, but you go by something else, you know when they get your name wrong.

It's the ultimate sign of disrespect. But pitch slapp. They don't understand this. They just wanna get the message out to as many human beings as possible. It does not matter if they're calling you by the right name. It does not matter if your message, their message is actually useful for you.

The only thing they need to see is a number on a spreadsheet, and they're good. So wrong name. A huge sign that this may just be a pitch slap the next. Vague insincere compliments. Do we love these? Oh, we love these so much. It is exactly like, now, if you're female, you'll understand me because we go through this.

You're standing at a bar and somebody comes up and is just, not right for the occasion hitting on you. Completely inappropriate what? But what. Vague insincere compliments. Remind me exactly of that moment where you realize I probably should get outta here . What they sound like on LinkedIn or what they sound like.

What somebody's cold emailing you is, I really like your style, period. What is my style? I always want a quiz. What is it now? Compliments that are completely straightforward and specific. Love it. People comment me on, they'll compliment me on the cape and goggles all the time.

I'll take that all day. I will because there is something about me you have noticed. And that's the thing. It's insincere when all you're trying to do is butter me up. So I'll listen to the pitch. Don't. Don't do it. Pitch slappers. Know that I am onto, that this is, this list of criteria has been born out of half a billion messages.

We all get them all the time and it's boring, it's terrible, and it's not a good sales tactic at all. Vague, sincere compliments. Keep them to yourself. I will give people compliments. on specific things, and it makes them feel like someone cares, like someone looked like. It's not just another oh gosh, this person is trying to sell me something.

How cute. Okay, next one. , your blank sucks. I've got act actual. I've got an actual pitch slap we're gonna go over in a few mi few seconds here, but y it's your blank. Sucks. Now my sister, who is an awesome cosmetologist does my hair, the purple and the green. They're not showing up in this light, but they're there, baby.

She's amazing. She has something she wears in her shop. She has an. and the apron says, your hair sucks. I can fix it. And that apron makes me laugh every time. But here's a difference between that and a pitch slap. Your blank sucks. People are coming to her for her brilliance. People are coming to her.

She can wear the apron that says, your blank sucks. I can fix it. Your hair sucks. I can fix it. For me, when people are cold emailing, and they've just assumed that something bad you know that you've done something bad. Listen your blank is wrong. Your blank sucks. You know what? Screw guilt and and everything associated with that.

I'm, I don't feel bad that my SEO is not lined up. I don't depend on SEO for a strategy. I don't feel bad that you know some things. My no internet presence is perfect because there are other people on the internet. No internet presence is perfect. You could probably pick apart this video if you wanted to.

Whatever. Do it if you feel like it. I don't care. Here's the thing. I didn't ask your opinion. Why are you giving it to. When people write and a lot of times I get these particular emails from my from my website or whatever. It gets forwarded to me and I'm reading about how my, whatever it is, sucks.

I think, it must suck to be you. It must suck to be you emailing and hitting send on all of these. I'm gonna bring something negative about you to your attention and I'll be able to fix it. You know what? You're not the person I would choose to help me with anything ever.

Your blank sucks. Totally. A sign of a pitch slap. All right. And the final sign. This is just giving me so much joy. You guys don't even know final sign that it just might be a pitch slap boo. Your automation is showing. Yes, darlings. Yes. Yes. I know there's messaging automation software, darling. I have built my tiny little empire on it.

I know, but I also know this. . That stuff is not for anything but the most basic of hellos, messaging, automation, using it inside of people's inboxing inboxes without their knowledge. That's bad. That's so inconsiderate. People don't hate automation. They hate insincere, thoughtless automation. Many times when people are sending out this one message to this whole list of people inside some sort of type of inbox, somewhere without people's permission, it's thoughtless and insincere.

Usually it's come to my thing, it's, but get some butts and some seats. That's all it's, or it's by my. I use messaging automation inside people's inboxes. Very sparingly. Only once in a while and only when I'm certain it's gonna make a hundred percent sense. Your automation is showing. These are things like, why, God?

I was talking about before with people getting your wrong name. That is how to tell Your automation is showing. Here's another one. This one's my, this one's super fun. When you automate a message to somebody you know really well, even if, hey, it's the webinar this afternoon show up. Even when it's that, it's weird.

It's just weird. If I've established a relationship with someone, even a teeny, tiny relationship, like I've written them once and they've written me back once, that is where automation. That is where automation stops. It's me at my keyboard every other time. Yes. I spend a lot of time doing it. Yes, I'm getting great results.

So I don't care. Just the automation stuff. I have a lot to say on this. And I could take. A lot of time with it, but I won't do it. We'll do that another time. But when, here's what the computer can do, and this is what many people focus on. They focus on the fact that they can put this message into, a list of inboxes over here.

What they're not, what the computers don't know how to do is to read the context of a relationship the machine sees. An open inbox and puts a message there whether it applies, whether it's valuable, whether you know that person or don't know that person. It's just not savvy at all. Don't use automation.

If you can possibly message automation inside somebody's inbox don't do it. I use automation for other things. I absolutely. , but the message needs to be personal and it needs to be from your fingers. All right I'm gonna rant that small rant is now over. I will stop on that subject and we'll talk about automation another time, but those are the seven rules.

Now, audience participation time, tell me are the seven rules. , did I miss something? Is there something out there that needed a dead giveaway? That this is someone who's trying to sell you something and does not care about you? If that's true, direct message me, please. Let's talk about it because I want to, I wanna be complete.

I'm a completionist. Okay? I wanna be complete about this. Please send me anything. Please send me pitch slaps and please blank out p people's inform any, anything that might be sensitive information. Send me your pitch slaps or send me if I have left or rule out if I have left or rule out of the seven, let me know.

And we'll either expand. Or, maybe do some adjustments along the way. This list isn't perfect yet. This is my first pitch lap bingo session. Here's what we're gonna do next. And if you're listening on the podcast, what I'm gonna do next is I'm gonna show I'm gonna share my screen and I'm going to show a, an email that I received in my inbox very recently that is a total pitch slap.

I have redacted all of the inform. So I'm gonna show this thing I'm gonna read along, and when I run into a pitch slap rule, I'm gonna show it up on the screen as well. Maybe I'll just say it because I haven't worked out the whole thing yet, but I will, when I run into a rule, I'm gonna let you know.

So here we go. Let. Let us do the thing. This right here is a message that I received just a few days ago, I think. And it's just absolutely hilarious. Okay. You can see a lot of redaction on here. Cuz I had to, it's all sensitive information or could be potentially sensitive. The the name of the person, the email address of the person who sent me this has been redacted.

Subject. Remove your bad Google and Yelp reviews. Okay, let's talk about that for a second. Do people review coaches on Yelp? I don't even know. I haven't read Yelp. I haven't gone to Yelp for anything in so long. I, and my Google reviews, gosh, I don't think I have any at this time.

Everybody I don't think so. First of all, Bing doesn't apply to me. Great. Great. Now message. , would you like a solution to consistently remove unfair, bad reviews from Google, my business, yada, and other review sites? So what that's implying immediately is that somebody's remo reviewed me terribly to my knowledge.

No. But that's exactly what this thing is saying, which is hilarious. So thanks for the assumption. Yada, yada. Who emailed me. Thanks for the assumption, but not that I know of. At blank yada, the company name, our proprietary technologies help companies like, Blankety blank and blank.

Remove over blank. Negative reviews for their relocation and consistently monitors and helps remove any new negative, whatever. Whatever. Boring. That's it. You know what? Pitch laps are boring. I'll try to make it more fun. And then it says, do you have 15 minutes for a call today? Oh now we're assuming that I'm just hanging out and don't work.

Basically. Who has 15 minutes today? Right now. Except if it's like a kid's teacher or something. Who, who has that? I don't have that. I don't have 15 minutes today. Sorry. Blankety blank. We're done. Okay. Schedule a call here and bam, there is the first link I didn't ask for. Remember those links?

You don't ask for a sure. Sign of a pitch slap schedule a call here. I blanked out the link For more information, please visit our website. Once again, a link I didn't ask for. So bing bing. On that you can also call me directly at this number, which I also blanked out. Yada. Yeah.

Ridiculous. Ridiculous premise. Ridiculous premise. If you knew anything about me, you would know that this is not a part of the business that I super care about. You would know that this is, at best, something I may think about once every two years. If you knew me at all, you would never have sent this email.

The email continues. Of course it does cuz don't they? Oh. You'll see a few case studies there and why it's. , it's weirdly written because what they've done, oh, no they've said You can call me directly at this, and then they'll say, they say, you'll see a few case studies there. Okay. So badly written.

We're referring to a phone call right there. I will never see a few ca few case studies at a phone call. You'll see a few case studies there, one of which we removed blankety blank negative reviews within the first blank days. Remember, negative reviews can help, can reduce traffic up to 15%. Ooh seriously.

I don't rely on website. for my business. If I did, I'd be very much skinnier because I would've starved to death. Okay. I don't rely on website traffic. I rely on relationships. I build relationships with people. I don't bother with all of that other stuff. So people do, they have an incredible relationship with it.

They have fun with it. I don't. Negative reviews can reduce traffic up to 15, 15%. I just don't even know what that means. I just don't even know what that means in today's world. I don't know what that means. Okay. And then it says thank you and there's a whole bunch of stuff redacted.

Now if you're watching this on the video, I've got my favorite part coming up next. I'm scrolling. I'm scrolling. Under the signature. It says Unsubscribe now. Now you would think that'd be a link, but I clicked it. It doesn't go nowhere. It doesn't go. Anywhere. It's my favorite part of this pitch lap because there it is.

And all of its shining glory. We're looking after you by putting this unsubscribed link at the bottom. But it's not a link baby. It's just words. It's just words. And that's what I wanna talk to you about. Let me get big on the screen again. We don't need to see that anymore. Now that we've seen my very favorite part pitch slaps are just words.

They come at you saying something's wrong. We're gonna help you fix it. They come at you and take your time with all of their, we're so cool. We're so awesome. I don't care how awesome you are. Byebye . I watched that SNL clip from many years ago. Google it. Vintage, s n l total Boo Airlines.

It's the Bye-bye people. Anyway, bye-bye. Bye-bye for this. It's not, it doesn't apply. It's not for me. They didn't get my name wrong. They didn't do any all caps. But sudden certainly the, your blank sucks. They violated that rule and then links I didn't ask for, they violated that one twice. It's ridiculous.

It's ridiculous. These pitch slaps are ridiculous. And you know what? They are at heart. They're lazy. They're just span is lazy. We used to think that, we have to, sales is a numbers game. We've just gotta get our message out there to so many people, and then a few will come trickling back to us and we can continue our business.

Yeah. No. I'm done with that. I hope you are done with that. Pitch. Slapping is lazy. It means all I have to do is think up one message. And honestly, you could probably copy and paste somebody else's message and do just as well with pitch slapping. So you don't even have to make up a message.

All you have to have is a list of people and a send the button. There's a lot wrong with that scenario. There's a lot wrong. Listened I say in my outreach ninja workshop every. Next one's April 12th if you're interested. It is, I say it, it's, connections is making connections is not a numbers game.

It is a focus game. It is a focus game. It is about getting qualified, excited people, not just whoever clicked on the, whatever it was that you clicked on years ago that got you eligible to join this email list that you're on right now. It is not about. It's time to be thoughtful. It's time to be targeted, customized, and personalized with our outreach wherever we're outreaching, whether it's an inbox an email inbox, or whether it's another one.

It's time. It's time, and I can tell you for sure it works. , it works. People have been getting these crap pitches for years. Years, five times a day. Six, I don't even know anymore. But when you're the opposite of that, you truly do stand out. You know that I think that needs to be the end of this particular episode.

I've been having a whole lot of fun. I don't know about you, but this has made me so happy. I wanna do this again. I want to I wanna do a lot more with it, but what I really wanna know is what you think. So DM. DM me, write me an email. Do all the things, get ahold of me and we'll chat.

We'll chat about how this pitch slapping makes us feel, and we'll talk about some ways around it cuz that's the ultimate, that's the ultimate to get rid of pitch slapping Now. I might not be able to do it in my lifetime, but I'm pretty sure I can create a robot . Anyway, sorry. That's a total that's totally something else.

But anyway, thanks for listening out there. For the epic engagement adventure, we'll be back at the same bot time, same bot channel. Next week we'll be talking to another amazing human an amazing coach about how they engage their. And and you'll be hearing some more pitch slap bingo in odd places or maybe not so odd.

Anyway, loving to see ya. I hope that you do have a good day out there, and I'll see you in a bot.