Nick’s comment on a Richard Branson interview at Business 2.0 magazine caught my eye. Basically, Branson said that when you want to turn someone down, you should be polite enough to turn the person down yourself, instead of ignoring the email. Branson referenced two entrepreneurs who get requests from people all the time and who often delete or ignore those requests.
Nick highlighted this part of Branson’s comment:
That may well be pragmatically right, but I still think it’s morally wrong, and I suspect that anything that is morally wrong is ultimately bad for business.
I understand where Branson is coming from, but I also understand those 2 entrepreneurs’ perspective. For me, it all depends on “who’s asking for what, why, and especially: how the question is asked”.
Over the past few years, I have received more and more emails through one of my businesses from people demanding and expecting free information and free consulting from me. Sometimes the senders don’t bother addressing me before jumping into a curt demand for free advice. Some senders get upset when I politely suggest that they purchase resources to help themselves if they so desperately wanted to “succeed”.
At the beginning, I answered all emails courteously, taking care to address the sender by name even when the sender failed to do the same. Over time, I realized how much these types of emails drained me both physically (in unit-time) and mentally (in unit-energy and good-will). My polite responses are sometimes not followed with a “thank you”. My lengthy responses often led to more requests for free information.
Today, I’ve stopped answering most requests that I perceived as demanding, rude, or ask questions I may have already answered if only the senders bothered to do their homework (they’re usually assuming that their time is more precious than my time, thus they couldn’t be bothered to do their own research first).
I am all for encouragement, but I don’t want to partake in fostering self-entitlement borne of today’s Free-Internet mentality.
