The Tinder Way of Doing Business

Some time ago I got an idea for a business in China. Since I’m located in Europe and don’t have a partner on the ground, I contacted a number of companies in China that I thought could help me – M&A companies and business consultants. My request was a bit unusual and I expected that most of the companies would probably say “sorry but we can’t help,” so I contacted a fairly large number. I was prepared for rejection, but I was wholly unprepared for the responses that I actually got:

Almost none.

Most of the companies I contacted didn’t even answer my email. Even worse was the response I got from some that did. There were several firms that got in contact with me and then stopped responding.

The person in charge at one company sent me an email to arrange a conference call. I responded by saying that I had a meeting at that time, but could we please reschedule? and sent him a more detailed explanation of my proposal. I never heard back from him. This is after he agreed to a call to discuss the idea.

I had a half hour conversation with someone at another firm who said he’d make some inquiries with his contacts about my plan and get back to me. I never heard back from him either. Clearly nothing came of them – or maybe they thought it was a great idea and decided to do the project without me? – but it wouldn’t have taken much time to send me a quick email saying sorry, nobody is interested.

Let me say that my idea, while unusual, was not unreasonable nor would it be unprofitable for the company working on it. One polite and imaginative firm did say that they would take me on, and their estimate of the total fees I would be paying came to around $100,000. I admit the average S&P 500 company setting up in China would probably wind up paying a multiple of that, but it’s certainly a sum that warrants a reply.

It appears to me that in this day of faceless email and anonymous posting, more and more people are treating clients and business discussions like a potential date on Tinder:? just “swipe left” on people you’re not interested in dealing with. I don’t think that’s the best way to meet people and I don’t think it’s the best model for doing business, either.

There’s a much better way to do business. Here’s the response that I got from one company:

Thank you for reaching out to XXX.

Unfortunately we cannot assist you with your endeavors in China.

Best of luck

Now…how long did it take someone to write that? Would it take 30 seconds? That’s all that’s necessary. But most of the companies that I contacted couldn’t even be bothered to do that much.

Maybe these firms are inundated with requests and don’t have time to evaluate all the ideas coming from individuals like me. In that case, why don’t they just have a form letter like the one above stored on their common drive? They could just hit “reply” and cut-and-paste it into the email. That would just take a few seconds. One person could be assigned the task of doing this once a day. Even once a week. ?

By not replying, they cut off any future possibility of doing business with that person. Maybe that deal wasn’t of interest, but the next idea will be. They lose a potential client by not even bothering to respond.

Nor is this “swipe left” mentality confined to enquiries coming in from the outside. As a freelance operator, I’ve had people ask me to do work for them. I reply asking for a time when we can meet to discuss. No reply. I’ve had people ask for a quote on prices. I reply; no response. No “sorry, that’s more than we wanted to pay” (which would open the door for negotiation) or “sorry, our plans have changed” (which would leave open the possibility of collaboration at some future date). Just…silence.

I got one request from a former colleague asking me how much I would charge to do seminars for him. I gave him a quote. Never heard from him again. About six weeks later, I sent him what was probably a too harsh message saying that if he wants to be manager, he should learn how to say “no.” He apologized, said he had been travelling, and promised to revisit the issue when he got back to the office in a week. "Did not mean to appear rude so apologies for that and I look forward to speaking with you again," he said. ?

It’s five years later now; do you think I’ve heard from him? I don’t think I could get anyone to take the other side of that bet.

Or how about this exchange of messages through LinkedIn?

Travel Editor: Hi, I'm a journalist for the Telegraph and I"m hoping you might be able to write something for us?

Me: Hi. Sure, what do you have in mind? Are you speaking as a travel editor or an economics editor? Most of the time I write about currency markets. Only once in my life did I write about travel, when I was a journalist and trying to get a job on the New York Times.

Note that a) this was a completely unsolicited enquiry, and b) I answered this message within 3 hours. I never heard anything further, even though I sent a message to her email address as well. (I later sent her a note of sympathy on her accident, which I said I assumed to be the reason why she was prevented from replying – no reply there either.) If it turns out I wasn’t really what she wanted, would it have been too much to reply “oh sorry, I misunderstood what you do”?

Recently the COO of a company asked me for a Zoom meeting to discuss me working for them. Let me stress, this was at his initiative, not mine. I logged in at the time he arranged but there was no one there. I sent him two messages asking about rescheduling; no answer. And he had asked me for this meeting!

Contrast that utter lack of response with one that I got from another CEO whom I cold-called (cold-messaged, actually) over LinkedIn about a freelance job:

hello Marshall, XXX has a history to runs its research in house but it's good to be connected best regard YYY

Did it take him a full minute to send that? Probably not. But with that small message he gave me the courtesy of a response and left open the possibility that if things change, we could do business together. And this was in response to an unsolicited enquiry from me. That’s a gentleman and a manager.

The world is an uncertain place and you never know what’s going to happen in the future. A little bit of manners now could pay off handsomely someday.

And if not? If you never get any reward for your little bit of politeness? Don’t worry, you will – being considerate of others will simply make you a better person, which is a worthwhile goal in itself.

Oh, and as for my China project – a friend put me in contact with a company that was in just the right line of business (financial education). I flew there at my own expense and gave them my pitch. They liked it a lot. They went ahead and made a new division in their company to go forward with it. They asked for my proposed curriculum, which they were going to use to advertise it, and asked me to make a video for one of the programs. Then they asked me to come there for the final discussions. I flew there again (also at my expense), we agreed on terms and mutual responsibilities. I went back home and…never heard from them again! Emails and messages went unanswered. After giving them the idea for a new venture, writing the business plan for them, and making an advertisement, I got…swiped left. (I eventually called. It turns out that the president of the firm canned the idea and they were too embarrassed to tell me.)

When I was a young kid, a friend gave me a pet alligator that he didn’t want. I quickly found out why he didn’t want it:? the alligator bit. I put it in my garage and ignored it. A week later, I went to see it and it was dead. Problem solved. That’s the way a 13-year-old deals with difficult problems: ignore it until it dies. It shouldn’t be the way that any adult, yet alone a manager, deals with such issues. Don’t just swipe left. Don’t let the alligator die. Close the transaction, even if the answer is “no.”