I realise that for many people with a product to pimp or service to solicit, the desire to read the rest of this blog has now all but diminished, thanks to the permission I’ve just given in the title. But for the sake of anyone who prides themselves on running a decent business, let me clear up the confusion for you – because I know you’ll be reading this and thinking, ‘Why the hell would anyone with a moderate length of fuse ever be at all on board with being pitchslapped?‘

A pitchslap, for anyone who doesn’t know, is when someone jumps into your DMs on LinkedIn (though it happens on pretty much all socials) and immediately tries to sell you something. All of the features, all of the force.

Well, we don’t like that, do we? I mean, despite being consumed by consumerism as modern day humans, god forbid anyone actually tries to sell to us! The horror.

Now, I would have previously always agreed with the admonishment of such audacity. I don’t overly love being sold to, and I’ve never enjoyed the pushiness of an uninvited salesperson in my space, so to suffer it whilst I’m in my pyjamas in my own home is a tad too much.

But having said that, this hit and run tactic must work for someone somewhere and yield some kind of decent result, because otherwise, it wouldn’t be so rife (would it?)

I don’t enjoy the tactic, by any stretch, but for all the hate it gets, there’s something I like even less – and I know for a fact that people teach this shit and profit quite nicely from it, too…

The forced and, quite frankly, fake relationship building.

Self-styled business gurus and influencers out there love to preach about building connections and establishing trust with potential clients, customers, and consumers. I understand the sentiment and I agree with the theory. But the problem is that the disciples who go on to put this stuff into action via people’s DMs give this ‘relationship building’ a go for all of five fucking minutes before the tenuous links to their sales pitches start laying down planks like a rickety bridge.

You know the types…

“Hi Jo, I noticed we haven’t spoken in ages. How’s business?”

(Dude, we haven’t spoken at all since the obligatory “Good to connect” / “And you” interaction of early 2019. I could have died from eating a manky bat in that time for all you know.)

“Your profile is amazing and really caught my eye, Jo. I’d love to hear more about what you do and who you help…”

(Hun, I’d argue if those are your burning questions then my profile’s not that fucking amazing, is it?)

“What are you working on in your business right now – and what are your challenges?”

(Mate, my own family don’t even care about that shit as long as they’re getting fed, so why on earth would you – a complete stranger – make me believe that you truly give a damn about anything that crosses my hot mess of a desk in a given day?)

I don’t care how genuine you feel you’re being when you start these conversations. You’re really not. It’s total pretendship. You’ve come to the conversation with an ulterior motive, and whilst you go about beating around both of our bushes, you know damn well you won’t care if I live or die when I ultimately tell you I’m not buying what you’re selling.

The summary is that it’s all pure fauxmance. The set-up reeks of fakery, you’re wasting everyone’s time with the back and forth of a painfully structured interaction, and we both know that ultimately you’re going to pitch to me anyway via a segue so forced it’ll struggle to sit down for a week. And so, hence the title…

Just skip that shit and go ahead and pitchslap me.

Seriously, do it. It saves everyone time, and neither of us will have to awkwardly struggle through niceties and small talk. And you’ll come across as pushy rather than icky, which in my view, is the lesser of two evils.

So go ahead, gimme the pitchslap. I don’t care. If it’s a product or service that you genuinely believe might be a good fit for me (because there’s no way you’re cutting and pasting to everyone, of course), then I might just take a look.

Okay so similarly I might not, but at least I won’t go on to write a blog about your shady tactics.