People throw the word “unbelievable” around a lot. But sometimes something IS unbelievable. Like, you actually can’t believe it’s happening. To you. But…it is. It is.
For reasons that have been kept secret, you – YOU! – have a meeting. Not with a person. But with a deity.
THE deity.
The greatest honour you’ve ever known
You’ve been granted an audience with the One, the Divine Creator of All (including evolution), the Being with Ultimate knowledge, the Almighty. This Infinite Spirit goes by many names.
You weren’t even 100% sure whether this person (not that you can really call them a “person”) existed. But now, here you are, about to meet them.
You won’t have a lot of time together, but you are allowed to ask one question.
Just one – but you know you’ll get a true answer. What the hell are you going to choose?
- What happens after you die? Definitely a strong contender.
- What does the future hold for me? Tricky. Knowing this could create an issue with the space-time continuum.
- What is the meaning of life? That’s the one you probably should do. But…
Finally, your moment arrives
You step in front of the Celestial.
“WHAT IS YOUR QUESTION?”. You don’t so much hear what’s being said, as sense it.
“Oh Great One”, you stutter. “What I would like to uncover … the one question I have for you…the insight I’d love for you to enlighten me with, if I may be so audacious….
“Could you tell me if there’s an internet cafe that does printing, near the South end of Church Street?”
You just wouldn’t, would you?
Why this story?
When you ask for the attention of someone who is more important than you – maybe not GOD-level important, but important
enough that they can currently do a lot more for you than you ever could for them – you better not ask them anything you could google for yourself.
Why not?
(1) It’s disrespectful to them and a waste of their time
You’re essentially saying, “My time is more valuable than yours. Instead of me spending five minutes googling, I think YOU should spend five minutes reading this email and writing this information down for me”.
(2) It’s disrespectful to you and a waste of your time
Here you are – with the eye and ear of a person who has more knowledge and information than you do, in an area in which you want to grow. And you’re squandering it by learning something you could easily teach yourself.
(3) It makes you look like a massive idiot
Fairly regularly, I get tweets from musicians who are hoping to get on TV, saying, “Hi Marsha! How do I send my music to you?”. Those are the only ones I always ignore. Dude, my website address is on my twitter bio. The information you’re asking me is all on my “Contact me” page.
Are you truly too lazy to click two buttons? If you are, I do NOT want to help you out. I don’t care how good your music might be. I’m never going to listen to it. Never.
But, Marsha, isn’t this stuff all super-obvious?
Yeah, you would think. But it’s not.
As with so many things when it comes to networking, it seems obvious once it’s pointed out to you. But I know that even I – Ms “Look At Me, I’m So Perfect At Networking, meh-meh-meh” – have done this before.
Remember:
If you email someone asking a question that you
could google the answer to,
they will think you’re an idiot.
If you have other questions about getting noticed by someone you admire – or want to make sure you get a response to any request you have for them – you can find out more about my fully tailored service Grab Their Attention, by clicking HERE.
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Over To You
Have you ever had the experience of being asked questions that you shouldn’t have been asked?
How did you react?
Let me know in the comments below, or by clicking here.
If this has reminded you of someone you know – or you just want to tell your facebook and twitter buds, or anyone else about it – you can share this page by clicking on one of the round buttons below or to the left.
Thanks!
You rule,
xx (Yes Yes) Marsha
PS If you want to make sure someone responds to YOUR emails – look HERE.
PPS This week, I told the Yes Yes Marsha Mailer Family about a weird, surprising day I had last week, plus another essential element to winning people over.
Want to know my best-ever client secret – and get even more advice, tips, plus stories that I won’t put on the internet? Come and join the Yes Yes Family – it’s free! Just pop your details in below:
Photo credits: Dave Sizer, RandyA38 and luckylynda74, all via Compfight cc
22 Comments
Shana
October 4, 2013Ha! Loved this!! Brilliant way of making your point.
Marsha Shandur
October 5, 2013Thanks, Shana!
Krists
October 4, 2013Love this and so true. Great reminder to “check yourself before you wreck yourself”. Always appreciate your humor!
Marsha Shandur
October 5, 2013Thanks, Krista :)
Adi Maor Siso
October 5, 2013Lol !! Love that story ((:
I sometimes get those emails and ask myself: “why are they asking me about what’s on my site instead of checking it?” It’s annoying….
As for us – we should always ask ourselves if that a good Q to ask before we press send. Thanks for the cute reminder.
Adi
Marsha Shandur
October 5, 2013I know, right? It’s so strange that people don’t just check!
Andrea
October 5, 2013See….this is exactly the sort of thing that keeps me from opening my mouth when I’m around God-like people (which isn’t too often, but still). I’m petrified of sounding like an idiot just for the sake of making conversation so I say nothing. And apparently come off as aloof when, in fact, I’m scared shitless.
Which, I suppose, is exactly why I heart YYM so much. All of the Adaming I’m doing on mere mortals as I ask them what the best part of their week was is bound to help when I come across someone who truly intimidates me. Right??
Marsha Shandur
October 5, 2013Ah, but I truly think it’s different when you’re in person. When you’re in person, it’s ok to ask someone something you could have looked up, because you’re not asking them using the medium (ie the internet) where you could easily find out for yourself!
In fact, on the contrary, I think that people often like being asked the questions in person – unless it’s something they REALLY get asked all the time (“So George Clooney… do you actually want kids?”), because most people like talking about themselves in person. But when it’s on email, it feels like time being wasted – not least because unlike in person, when we’re on our email, we almost always feel like we have not enough time!
PS you’re absolutely right that the best way not to seem aloof/to be ok dealing with scary people is lots of eye contact, plenty of smiling and asking interesting answer-producing questions like “How’s your week been? What’s been the best part of it?“!
Thanks, Andrea, great comment!
Mandy
October 5, 2013No question is a stupid question, but if that question is answered right in front of you and you ignore it – especially when you’re asking a question to someone who you really respect… then I totally agree. It definitely shows lack of respect for that person. And would be super embarrassing as well.
Marsha Shandur
October 5, 2013Exactly, Mandy! It’s just about making sure you’re doing your due diligence, by putting in a little bit of work before you email someone.
Holly
October 7, 2013Ha so true, you would think duhhh that’s so obvious I would never do that. Cut to next week and you find yourself doing exactly that. Flashback to this blog post and kick yourself.
Marsha Shandur
October 12, 2013Ha! Yes! As with so much of this stuff, it’s obvious once you point it out, but easy to forget!
Silvia
October 8, 2013Marsha, This email was so funny. Loved your tweetable but couldn’t tweet it because it was too long and I didn’t want to change it. Anyway, I get asked questions all the time that people can easily google and I don’t feel comfortable ignoring them because this is in part what I encourage people to do. So I google, copy and paste and send them their A. Hopefully they get the message.
Marsha Shandur
October 8, 2013Ha ha, amazing! there’s also the brilliant “Let me google that for you” website: http://lmgtfy.com/
Or Marie Forleo’s brilliant PSA
Weird about the tweetable – when I click on it, it seems to work.. it may be because the actual link has a slightly shortened version of what I said:
“If you email someone asking a question that you could google the answer to, they will think you’re an idiot” @yesyesmarsha yym.ca/gdblg
Thanks, Sylvia!
Melissa Burkheimer
October 9, 2013As always, your witty, clever spunky down to earth advice is helpful to anyone in any business or industry. :)
Marsha Shandur
October 12, 2013Aw, thanks Melissa!
Lorna
October 11, 2013This is oh so true Marsha. It makes me think of the situation I find myself in when I see “famous” people in my business sector. For instance–I would love to go up to Danielle LaPorte and tell her how much I LOVED her Fire Starter Sessions. But then I second guess myself and thing she must be sick to death of people telling her that. Then I want to be original, get all tripped up and don’t go introduce myself. Opportunity lost! Different than your story, but along a similar vein. Thanks as always for an amusing post with an important lesson attached.
Marsha Shandur
October 12, 2013Ah, but Lorna – as I said to Andrea above, I truly think it’s different when you’re in person. On email, you’re asking them to spend time opening your email when they’re on their work clock. Whereas in person, I don’t think people expect to always have something original said. Think about it – if people only ever said truly original things to YOU, it would be weird and maybe slightly intimidating! (I’ve written about that here: yesyesmarsha.com/most-people).
And as far as giving compliments about someone’s work is concerned – I honestly believe that no one EVER gets bored of hearing that! The reason they make these things (like The Fire Starter Sessions) is because they want to change lives. So to be told they’ve changed yours – well, I bet DLP would be delighted to hear that!
Hm – I think I need to write a blog post about exactly this. Watch this space!
Thanks for the inspiration, Lorna!
jamie
October 23, 2013I think that was one of those things that seems to be common sense but is not!! Thank you for pointing that out! :)
Marsha Shandur
October 27, 2013Thanks, Jamie!
Galina
November 2, 2013Hi Marsha! I absolutely love your style!
For me the challenge that I’m facing now is that I think I can google ANYTHING!!! So it seems like there is no reason for me to contact the big shot to ask something. I just want to be around them and watch them BE hahaha.
What do you think?
Best,
Galina
Marsha Shandur
November 3, 2013Hey, Galina!
You can never google EVERYTHING about someone! People will always keep something to themselves, whether that’s their take on a certain something, their reaction to an event, or how they felt when they were doing a particular thing.
There’s always something you can aks them that hasn’t been asked. Then you can use that as an entry point to be around them (and watch them be).
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