How to sell me stuff right

Libby O’Malley rocks. She read my 2012 post A letter to event technology companies trying to sell me stuff and—wow!—actually took the time to figure out how to introduce me to her new product Muster Me in a way I would like. This is how to sell me stuff right!

A vendor who really listens and responds appropriately; how refreshing! Yes, the flattery doesn’t hurt. But Libby clearly made sure to address the complaints in my post about the hundreds of event profession product and service pitches I receive each year.

This is the best product pitch I’ve ever received. Fantastic work Libby!

I am not endorsing her product (though the demo on the website worked fine for me). But I’m happy to reproduce here what she emailed me today, as an example of how to do selling right.

The text of Libby’s email

Dear Adrian,

Let the flattery begin: I love everything about your site, Twitter feed, and blog! You are a savvy, delightful writer, and I regularly favorite or bookmark your penning. You are candid, transparent, and generous with your wisdom (and wit)! Please keep up this terrific work as the conference and event world, heck, the whole world needs more of Adrian Segar. Seriously, beyond the flattery, I call ’em like I see ’em, and you’re truly fabulous.

As I move forward with one of my two startups (because one onerous, crushing, passionate, entrepreneurial monster isn’t enough, right?), I have regularly tabbed your blog posts and often go back to review them depending on where we are in our startup process. One of my all-time favorite blog posts of yours was an open letter to tech companies pitching you their products … sans pricing. Wait, what?! When I read it, frankly, I was floored that a company would really do that — ask for feedback with no cost data provided??? Don’t these people know that EVERYTHING boils down to economics — purchasing, procreation, love, war?! So, now that our site is “out there” with pricing listed and with a demo that purports to show how Muster Me works, any chance you’d eyeball it and dis (or laud) our pricing?

What Muster Me does is connect a group of people by allowing them to share contact information via text message. There’s no app to download (creating friction and resistance “in the moment”) and Muster Me allows a group to simultaneously share info — and only the specific info they want to share with that group. Remember the app “Bump”? Bump’s flaw were 1) everyone had to have the app in order to participate which never happened and 2) in order for a group to get everyone’s info, you had to “bump” one person at a time (which actually sounds kind of dirty to me). Lastly, you couldn’t tailor the contact info you shared in different settings — it was one-size fits all. That’s no bueno when you’re sharing contact information with different groups and different sorts of people.

Muster Me requires that only one person — i.e. the meeting planner or event organizer — has an account, and then that person announces their assigned text number. Then, participants/attendees simply text whatever info they want to share with others to that number. Shortly thereafter, all participants receive an email neatly organizing all the individuals’ contact information. Voila — contact info shared — quickly, efficiently, neatly.

Our primary market is not large conference groups — we know 500+ “strangers” at a keynote address aren’t likely to share their contact info so readily; however, we think that, at that same large conference, during a breakout session or a narrowly focused workshop conference, folks might want to swap info in order to keep the conversation and connection going post-event. Currently, we also have a handful of event organizers that are using Muster Me (in the subscription format — still in beta) to connect their “team” of event consultants, rather than having everyone dance “The Business Card Shuffle” or pass around a piece of paper at the planning/kickoff meeting trying to capture everyone’s names and emails. (Whatever happens to that piece of paper anyway??) Right now, we’re working with reunion planners (primarily military reunion planners) and also school and family reunion planners because the size of these groups and the “trust” factor seem to be a great fit for Muster Me.

Having provided all this background — and hopefully you’ve read this far, as I know you are BUSY BUSY — your thoughts on the site/product/pricing would be really appreciated. At long last, here’s the link

[A paragraph here offering me more information about how I can check out the product.]

Thank you so much for your consideration of this request, and if I don’t hear back from you, rest assured that I’ll still be hanging on every Tweet and blog post!

All the best and all flattery aside,
Libby

Libby O’Malley

Yes, Libby O’Malley knows how to sell me stuff right!