When I decided to take Sister Rain to the next level, to elevate her from hobby to business, I knew not what I was doing. All I did know was that I wanted to get my stories out to as many people as possible. Becoming an LLC, re-branding, marketing and trademarking was all new to me. Finding people to partner with for these services was painful. Thankfully, I found, as is usually the case, the RIGHT people and the team I was supposed to work with.
Although we have moved past these phases of setting up the business, the problem I faced during the start-up process remains. The biggest and ongoing struggle of Sister Rain is outreach. I am reaching out, but no one is getting back to me. There is no in, only out. When I write a story about a place or a business, I send the story to them asking that they consider sharing it. I am not looking for anything other than that. I am not wanting them to buy the story. It is actually free advertising for them.
You have to be a private investigator to track down an email address, and take your Dramamine before searching for a phone number because it will no doubt send you round and round on a Ferris wheel of trial and error. I research who in the organization I should send the story to, then once I have a name, I must figure out the email format the company uses. After the email is successfully sent, I wait about a week before following up. And then nothing happens.
I have a list but I don’t have stats, suffice it to say there are considerably more losses than wins. I do celebrate the victories, when a business follows me on Instagram or shares the story on their social media platforms. Sadly, what may be an even greater achievement is the receipt of a “no.” That’s right, rejection is preferred when the alternative is silence.
It is so tempting to start naming names. I think you would be surprised to learn of the famous brands known to us all as “great organizations” whose employees have not responded, running the gamut from the general info email address or the (sigh) website contact form to specific leadership team personnel. Repeated follow up does not result in a reply, nor does contacting more than one person in the organization. Is Susie Smith at Mattel or Roger Dodger at Starbucks really receiving that many emails from the general public?
The good news is that it is nothing personal. The bad news is that it is nothing personal. My friends in corporate America experience it in their jobs, as does my elderly neighbor when trying to call her doctor’s office. COVID arrived, a global pandemic, and around the same time came the departure of courtesy, a worldwide epidemic. Getting a response from a business is damn near impossible. The new term for this is “ghosting.”
So I ask: how did this paranormal activity become normal?
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