Just a blog: Are You Forgetting About Win-Win Situations?

Tuesday, 13 September 2011

Are You Forgetting About Win-Win Situations? - DailyBlogTips

Are You Forgetting About Win-Win Situations?

Posted: 12 Sep 2011 09:17 PM PDT

I receive around 100 emails per day. Around 50% of those are people asking me to do something for them. Some want a product or service reviewed, some want feedback on their latest project, some want a question about blogging or SEO answered, some want help to choose a good domain name and so on.

If I had time available I would be glad to accommodate all requests, just for the sake of helping people out. But guess what, running a dozen or so websites takes a lot of time, and as most people I struggle to find time even to eat healthy and to exercise.

The result? I ignore 95% of those requests.

If math is not an opinion this means that I answer 5% of the requests that come to me via email. So what do those messages have in common, and how are they different from the other 95% that goes straight to the trash folder?

It’s simple: the requests I reply to always create a win-win situation. That is, the other part wants something, but she is also willing to do something for me, so everyone will be happy in the end.

And I don’t use this principle only when I am being pitched. When I need to pitch something I’ll make sure my message makes very clear what the other person will earn by working with me.

For example, a couple of years ago I was recruiting affiliates to launch a product with me. I could simply email people saying: “Hey, if you promote my product I’ll give you 50% commissions, so are you in?”. The problem is that there are dozens of products out there that also offer 50% or higher commissions, so the people I would contact wouldn’t have much to gain from my offer.

A better approach, which is the one I used, is the following: “Hey, I am launching a product soon, with 50% commissions. On top of that if you become n active affiliate I’ll be more than glad to return the favor and promote one of your products or services.

You can create win-win situations with almost anything you want to accomplish. Want to land a guest post on a popular website? Tell the owner you’ll be plugging the guest post on your own website once it goes live. Want some feedback on your latest web design? Promise to retweet the posts of people who give you feedback. So on and so forth.

Takeaway message: Always go for the win-win situation.

Original Post: Are You Forgetting About Win-Win Situations?