“Dear Lance
Following up on my prior note, my client is looking to speak to business and technology leaders about statistical analysis software. This is a compensated phone call at X hundred dollars / Amazon gift card / rate of your choice.”
I get so many of these, and I have to say: if you’re the client paying for these, you’re getting ripped off.
Every now and again, one will fall in my wheelhouse. Mostly, they’re just spamming any relatively senior person they can find and the topics are so far from my expertise that I couldn’t possibly answer any questions. Yet they charge their clients for this…
While they all use auto-emailers to “remind” the spammee (is that a word?), one particular company has the timing broke on theirs such that the second mail always come out immediately after the first. Interestingly, it’s “multiple” companies (this one entity using different names, I suspect, though it could be a crappy service they all purchase).
And what’s up with the rate differences? Why do they one day offer “500 dollars or an hourly rate of your choosing” and the next a 25 dollar amazing gift certificate?
I have to admit, I’m sometimes tempted to accept and just poison the well of responses. I don’t, but the temptation is there. I really don’t like this business model.