Email Brands like Wayne Gretzky Plays Hockey
Wayne Gretzky scored 894 goals in his career, the most goals of any National Hockey League player in history.
Gordie Howe scored the second most, at 801 career NHL goals. Here's the crazy part: Howe took 3,803 shots on goal, meaning he scored 21% of his shots. Gretzky took 5,088 shots on goal, which means he only scored 17% of the shots he took.
Assuming you're not a big Hockey fan, which name here did you recognize and which name did you not recognize?
Technically, Gordie Howe was better at shooting the puck. He scored more of the shots he took compared to Wayne Gretzky. But Gretzky still scored more goals, and because of it, he's considered one of the greatest Hockey players of all time.
So what does this mean for sending emails?
It means you don't have to be 100% confident that you're completely right, that your ducks are in a row, or that you're saying the right thing. This theory is especially applicable when you're pitching new clients. It's more important to keep sending emails and to keep moving communication along, because the longer you wait, the less chance you have for the project to be approved.
Let's say you feel 85% confident in an email to a prospective client, like the information you have makes the chances of the project going through an 85%. But lets say you wait three or four days to get your email confidence up to a 95%. Sending the email at quicker at 85% confidence still makes more sense for two reasons:
Projects get pushed through and approved faster, and so you end up doing more work and making more money, even though your emails are technically less accurate.
Taking longer to respond often diminishes excitement from the client and increases the chance that the budget or project will be awarded to someone else.
So get those emails out. Never let the puck be between your skates for too long. Always be passing, always be shooting, always be pitching.
You'll get more opportunities because of it.
