Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Emails That Never Should Have Been Sent

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

Bad emails: we’ve all maybe received them, and we’ve all definitely sent some, but we can put an end to iffy emails… with a little help. That help comes to us from Entrepreneur magazine editor in chief (and one of Money Rehab’s favorite guests), Jason Feifer. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll think twice before “replying all.”  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that

I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. Chime. Feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details.

I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some extra cash, but I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start or even too complicated if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for, like managing your

reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you. I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble, so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. Hey guys, are you ready for some money rehab? Wall Street has been completely upended by an unlikely player. GameStop. And should I have a 401k?

You don't do it? No, I never do it. You think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn't. Charge for wasting our time. I will take a check. Like an old school check. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg.

The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. Nicole Lappin. Bad emails. We've all maybe received them, and we have all definitely sent some. But we can now put an end to iffy emails with a little help. And today that help comes to us from Entrepreneur Magazine Editor-in-Chief and one of Money Rehab's favorite guests, Jason Pfeiffer. Jason, I am so happy to welcome you back to Money Rehab. I'm excited to be back. I'm always excited to be with you.

So you were the first person I thought of when the show team talked about some of the future episodes we should work on because it was about the good, the bad, the ugly pitches and emails we've gotten. And we thought it would be hilarious to read them aloud and talk about what to do, what not to do, what works as this kind of teaching moment for people listening to not write certain emails. And I know you save these emails that you get and they are hilarious. I save them in a folder called bad PR pitches. I've just dug through bad PR pitches for you. And you know why I've started to do this? Why? Let me take you back. Years and years ago, I was invited to be a mentor at this retreat for entrepreneurs. And that meant sitting in a room as 10 people at a time would come in and we would talk for an hour. And a lot of people asked me about reaching out to media, pitching. And at some point, their questions were so specific.

What subject line do you write? That I just said, you know what? Can I just pull out my phone and just start reading you stuff? And the whole room changed. Everybody leaned in. And they were like, oh, I want to know what's in there. And I realized in that moment that sometimes the things that are the most woven into our everyday life that we don't think about, that we take for granted, are actually really fascinating and can carry lots of great lessons for other people. You are sitting on some gold and you think it's poop. And that's wonderful to know. So now I am happy to open my inbox whenever possible and share the mistakes that people make so that others don't make them.

It's so good because it's like you're spilling the tea. You're also showing us this sort of inside look. I think you could do a whole account, by the way, of just emails. That's a good point. Just fun. There it is. Unsolicited advice. Dropping some business advice. I appreciate it. Maybe I will.

I think it would be huge. I think just focusing on that because they're hilarious. So you brought some of your favorite. I brought some. I did. Can you read through? Yeah, I'd be happy to. Okay. So let's caveat this with everybody is reaching out to me for a very specific purpose. And that is that they are trying to get press in Entrepreneur Magazine. That's what they want. But this is relevant to you, the listener, who may not be running a magazine. And the reason for that is because the fundamentals of pitching me are the same as pitching anybody. And so whenever you're reaching out to people, you have to be thinking about what it is

that they're looking for and what they hear all the time. And I think that all these emails that I'm getting are missing that mark in really valuable ways that we are going to talk about. So okay, let's just start with this. It's a really simple one. It just reads like this. Hi, Jaden. My producer says he'd like to book me on your podcast. How do we do that? So, okay. Two things here. One, my name isn't Jaden. So that's a start. Always know the name of the person you're reaching out to. Yeah. It's one of my biggest pet peeves when people email me with an H in my name, like Nichole. And I get that some people spell their name that way. But I'm done after that. If you've misspelled my name, we're done.

This conversation's over. I've also gotten a lot of pitches over my career in magazines to just completely different magazines. They'll email me and they'll be like, Jason, I would love a feature in Forbes. And I'm like, well, that's cool. You should reach out to Forbes about that. Because maybe Forbes would be interested. I can't speak for them.

But I know you, you would probably write something sassy back like that. It's exactly what I did. I have done that. And then they feel terrible. And then I feel kind of bad that I made them feel bad. It's a terrible... And I feel great about it. Well, that's why I do it, just to delight you. But here's the second part of this, because the problem here is not just that they called me jaded. The second part is, how can we do that? Here's the thing. I don't sell hamburgers. Nicole, I don't sell hamburgers, but people keep treating me like I do sell hamburgers. They think that I am a service provider. They think that they can come to me and say, I would like some of what you

have. Can you serve it up to me? I would like a story. I'd like to be on your podcast. Let's get to how we do that. And the thing is, I'm not a service provider. I don't sell hamburgers to you. That's how it always feels. Somebody's like, can I get a hamburger from you? I don't sell hamburgers. You have to understand how the people who you are reaching out to think and what motivates them. And to be brief about it, it. My job is not to serve the people who reach out to me. My job is to serve my audience. There's an important distinction there. I am always looking for what is going to be valuable to my audience. And if that happens to be valuable to you, the person who I'm going to write about, then that's great, but that's not my job.

But you're approaching me as if it is my job. You're approaching me as if the thing that I do is give you press. And that's not what I do. What I do is serve an audience. You have to understand the way that people think before you reach out to them. Otherwise, you will not even speak the same language. To piggyback on what you do, people are assuming, or whoever wrote this, that you would receive, I mean, I think it's an important exercise potentially to put yourself in the receiver's shoes when they're getting this email. Like, what does this person think you're going to do? Oh my God, this guy who misspelled my name, his producer wants me to book him on my podcast. Let's stop everything. That is going to make me get a raise. Because by the way, you also have your own shit to think about. You have a boss too, and you need to get your job done. And this does not at all

help you do that. Sure it doesn't. Is that step just something that people should take and don't? Or is there another way to think about how it's being received? Here's the way I think you need to think about it. People keep reaching out, asking for an opportunity. Let's go back to that email. My producer says he'd like to book me on your podcast. How can we do that? Which is to say, hi, you hand out opportunities. I would like one of those. But that's not how the world works. Don't ask for an opportunity. Be the opportunity. Understand what someone is looking for so that you can fulfill it. If you do not understand that, then you have no value to them in this exchange, right? It should not be a one-way transaction.

It should be both sides. And if you don't understand the mechanisms of the thing that you're walking into, then there's no way that you can be valuable. You have to read the room. And these people do not. They think that I'm here to help them. Instead, they need to think that they're here to help me. Yes. Okay. So can we redo this email? Can we rework it in a better way?

Well, we could, but I don't know anything about this person. So it would be very hard to because what this person would need to do is understand the way in which I tell stories to my audience. to do is understand the way in which I tell stories to my audience. What is my role? What am I doing to serve my audience? And then they would need to tell me a story about them that fits the way that I'm delivering value. And that's when I would see... So I'll give you an example, a quick example. It was one of my favorites. So the thing that I'm always obsessed with are how are people making decisions that are smart and counterintuitive that are relatable to people in other industries? So if I'm going to write about someone who makes a butter dish, what that person did better be useful to lots of other people who do not make butter dishes.

That's my goal. So that you read the story and you think, oh, now I understand. Now I understand some way to think better about my own business. So one day, the butter dish thing, not random, actual story, I'm teeing it up. This woman reaches out to me. She has made a butter dish. It's called buttery. And fun fact, Nicole, maybe you know this, maybe you don't. You don't need to refrigerate butter. You don't. You can leave it out. And then it's nice and soft and spreadable. It's wonderful. The problem is that when you keep it in a butter dish and you lift the little top of the butter dish, you're going to accidentally bump into the butter and then it's going to make a mess all over the place. This is the problem. So this person made a

butter dish on a hinge. So it just go open and shut and it's always in the same place. It never bumps into the butter. Wonderful, brilliant. I don't care because it's not... I'm not running Bon Appetit. It doesn't matter to me. But then she tells me that when she was developing this butter dish, she wanted to do some market research. She wanted to figure out what would people pay for this butter dish? What would the colors of this butter dish be that they would like? And so she goes to a company and she asks how much it would cost to do this market research. And they say $10,000 and she doesn't have $10,000. So

she doesn't know what to do. And then at some point in the near future, she is sitting at an airport waiting to board a flight and she's looking around and she realizes an airport is full of people who have absolutely nothing better to do than answer questions about butter dishes. Absolutely nothing better, but they're just sitting there. And the best part is that you could start at gate one. And by the time you're at gate eight, there's a whole new set of people at gate one. You can do this all day. It's a revolving door of research. Of researchers. Revolving door of researchers. And so this is what she starts doing. She just starts... Oh, also, amazing thing about airports, you can show up whenever you want. So you could

show up at 9am for a 5pm flight. Nobody's going to stop you. Now you've got the whole day in the airport. Ask people questions about butter dishes. Get a ticket for spirit. Get a ticket for spirit. It costs you $100. You don't want to get on that flight anyway. And people love snacks. Probably even better on them. Right. It's true. Walk around, hand out some pretzels. People will talk to you. So this is how she does her market research. It's how she saves $10,000. And that is a story that I love to tell. You tell me that story in an email and it's going right in the magazine. Yes. And it's also paying attention to what you do, by the way. This has no specificity on Build for Tomorrow, what your recent episodes are, the crux of your voice,

what you're looking for, the sort of innovations that you talk about. Nada. Nothing. Okay. I can't wait to hear the next one. It's got nothing. Okay. Here's another one. Subject line. The next Elon? Question mark. And here is the body of this. All right. I'm going to skip a couple of points because I'm not putting anyone on blast here. Hi, Jason. Count on one notion in tech that innovation and the leaders behind it will never sit still. Case in point is the charismatic CEO and founder of a man who may be the next Elon Musk.

He possesses the brilliance to lead a dedicated team developing cutting edge technologies combined with business acumen and blah, blah, blah. Anyway. Okay. So then I go on to read this pitch. with business acumen and blah, blah, blah. Anyway. Okay. So then I go on to read this pitch. And here's the thing, Nicole, this person, probably not the next Elon Musk. Whatever. They're doing fine work. Fine work. But not the next Elon Musk. And this, I think, is a giant mistake. I call it story inflation. And I think that we need to stop it. Because if I told you, Nicole, if we had never met, and before we met, I told you, Nicole, I am a giant of a man. I have a hard time fitting into doors. I am so large. And then you met me, and I was five foot seven, you would think this guy is very small.

But if we had met and I had not said that to you, if I hadn't said anything about my height, you wouldn't have thought anything about it. The problem is that when we inflate our story, we actually look really small in comparison to our story. Don't overhype yourself. Instead, figure out what actually makes you distinct now. What can you pay off on? What does somebody not need to have some crazy imagination or believe in 10 steps of hypothesis in order to think that you're great? You're great now, but you're great on something else. So tell me that instead of trying to hype yourself up. I think people often think that they're up against so much noise that they must

inflate themselves in order to break through. But I'm telling you, all you do is set yourself up for disappointment because you do not live up to whatever crazy story you're telling. Tell the real story and find the most compelling way to do it. Yes, yes, yes, yes. It's like the adage, if you're rich, you don't need to say you're rich, if you're rich, you don't need to say you're rich. If you're powerful, you don't need to say you're powerful. Completely. You just are. You just are.

Hold on to your wallets, boys and girls. Money rehab will be right back. One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener,

you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. Chime feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boots are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some extra cash. But I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start, or even too complicated,

if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for, like managing your reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you. I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting

ready to travel always feels like a scramble, so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. Now for some more money rehab. Okay, so how would you redo this email? I would focus on the really interesting, surprising thing that this person has done to build this business. Because again, if you're pitching me, you better understand what I specifically am looking for. The best thing that you can do if you're reaching out to anybody is understand them down to an individual level. So there is a pitch that you could write that you could send to me and all of my competitors,

me, an editor at Inc., an editor at Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, whatever, whatever, whatever. But you will have a lot more success if you spend time understanding how each of those publications are telling stories. Because that way, you can write a pitch that is different to each of them. And again, I want to stress this is not just about press because you could take that and

apply it to anything. If you're applying for a job, yes, you could write one basic cover letter and send it everywhere, but you will have a lot more success if you get to know the company that you're reaching out to and then write a more customized version of that letter. The more specific you can be, the more that you can broadcast that I understand you, the more that somebody is going to perk up and say, oh, you understand me? Well, then you're probably going to be more valuable than all the people who I heard who don't understand me. That's a really interesting and important point because I think the

point because I think the impetus is to send as many emails as possible. Like I sent 200 pitches out today and the ROI would be way better if you sent out 20 or even two. So and that success rate, you know, so size doesn't matter. See where you're going in terms of quantity of emails, pitching yourself for press, pitching yourself for a job or pitching whatever. I think that the percentage of success would probably increase the more that overall number decreases. I think that the smartest publicists are the ones that I hear the least frequently from. The people who reach out to me, who really understand the publication, are the ones who are only going to reach out when they feel like they've got a bullseye. And as a result, they are training me to associate their name with quality. Because every time we reach out to somebody,

we are training them. Every single time, every interaction that we have, we are training people. We are training them for how to react to us. And you could either train someone to associate your name with mass amounts of garbage, or you could associate the name with quality, with the only

time that you're going to hear from me is when I've got something really good for you. And again, not just press. You and I both have friends who sometimes, you've got a friend who every time you hear from them, it's some other crazy drama thing. And it means that when you see them calling your cell phone, you're like, oh no, I don't have time for that. And then there are people who if they call, it's because boy, they got something to tell you and it's going to be good. And you're going to pick up that phone, right? You're training people every single time. So be mindful about the thing that you're broadcasting about yourself. For today's tip, you can take it straight to the bank, here's one last piece of advice.

Chill with the exclamation points. With your friends? Sure. Go exclamation point crazy. But keep it classy at work or you'll come across looking childish or immature. I know you are so excited by all the amazing things you're doing. But keep that excitement to yourself and show it with one little but very powerful exclamation point. Money Rehab is a production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Our producers are Morgan Lavoie and Mike Coscarelli. Executive producers are

Nikki Etor and Will Pearson. Our mascots are Penny and Mimsy. Huge thanks to OG Money Rehab team Michelle Lanz for her development work, Catherine Law for her production and writing magic, and Brandon Dickert for his editing, engineering, and sound design. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all.