i don’t know if any of you frequent dogstar – if you do don’t expect to see earthdog popping up there anytime soon. i received a cold call from michael, a member of their “establishment”, a few months ago followed by a very short but lively email conversation with them. i’ve had the emal in my inbox for a few months and since i chuckle every time i read it i thought i would share it with you. first the backstory…as i said, i received a sales call and since i was busy at the time and was not familiar with the website i asked michael if he could email me information. he said he could email or fax me at which time i said “please don’t fax anything…if you can email it i’ll take a look at it and get back to you.” no less than 1 minute later our fax machine starts ringing and do you know what it was? do you? i think you might be right – it was a fax from dogstar – a word document much less (easily emailable, right). come on michael our environmental footprint is not gonna lessen itself. now i will admit i got pretty incensed and immediately shot off a slightly obnoxious email without really thinking about it – it was not the most businesslike of emails. it went something like this (capitals have been left in to retain the integrity of the email):

On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 4:45 PM, earthdog wrote:

Michael,

When I spoke to you on the phone I specifically stated that I did not wish to receive marketing materials via fax and yet you faxed the materials anyway, apparently after finding our fax number on our website. Why in the world would you fax a text document (that could easily be emailed) if you were specifically told NOT to fax the information? When you are cold calling potential customers it would be in your best interest to listen to them, especially if you are trying to form a long-lasting relationship with them. That being said our 2008 marketing/advertising budget is spoken for.

kym

earthdog
good for the earth...even better for your dog
www.earthdog.com

not so much a well thought out email, i’ll give you that. in the future i should probably take some time before shooting emails off. it was all worth it for the gem i received back:

Great kym you will never advertise on our sites. Also learn some respect - welcome to our blacklist -- We do not deal with jerks. CYA!!! Jim Webmaster

to you webmaster jim i say touché…well played.