What if they don’t respond?

Welcome to all of you who have joined in the past few weeks. If you’re opening this for the first time, or you’ve been so engrossed in Silo that you forgot what this is about - I write weekly on insights and tactics around building an incredible network of clients, collaborators, and community.

Please tell me I’m not alone in this routine.

After re-reading, tweaking, circling the block a couple times… you finally press Send on that message, thinking that this must be what the President feels like saying “Go” to Seal Team Six.

You instantly switch over to your inbox, eager to see the response. Nothing yet.

You check five minutes later. Nope… it’s fine, internet must be slow today.

An hour later… maybe they had a dentist appointment.

A day later… maybe they were on vacation?

A week later… they hate me.

In our coaching, one of the questions that is guaranteed to come up whenever talking about reaching out to someone in their network is the scenario above.

You’re not alone.

We’re social creatures, after all. The idea of having our attempt at social connection “rejected” feels like a slap in the face.

I’ll respond with the same question that I ask myself and our clients…

Do you need them to respond?

To bring my well-worn quote from Maya Angelou - "… people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Yes, there are of course times we legitimately want or need something. Not always.

Taking Action

The next time you are crafting a message - whether an email or text message - even a gift - ask yourself these questions:

“What do I want them to feel when they get this from me?”

“Do I need a response to this?”

“Can I ignore my fears about what might or might not happen, and focus on delivering the best outreach possible?”

I hope you find those questions as freeing as I do.

BTW - I’m focusing on the lack of a response to a single message. Multiple attempts across different channels over an extended period of time might yield no response. We’ll talk more about what to do in the coming weeks, but the short answer is - there are other people who are eager to hear from you.

Further Reading

I shared a few books that have made an impact on me. What are yours?