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Dear Ramit, can I express interest in your class but do nothing?

October 6 2 Comments latest by south asian woman

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An email I got:

Hi,

I was referred to you by [NAME OF FRIEND]. I checked out your website and would like to learn something from you in the class. However, my friends are not interested in investments, they think that it is gambling so I don’t know how I can manage to get 10 people to be at a location at a specific time. But I really want to see what I will gain from the class.

I get these emails a lot.

I can already guarantee that she won’t take the class. The emails of people who are really interested read much differently.

This has happened before, many times. (That’s why I started the blog.)

I cut down on lame requests like this by creating a few more barriers for the 1-hour class. This weeds out some of the fakers like this.

It’s so funny because even if I gave the class and charged her $500, it would be worth it. She could break even on that money in less than 6 months, and the REST OF HER LIFE would be gravy. But people don’t think of certain things as investments…they just think “Oh my god, that’s expensive!”

Despite her friends that think investing is gambling (!), it’s really cool that she’s taking the initiative to learn. But taking initiative isn’t the same as following through.

After responding to her email, I waited 2 weeks before posting this. Still no response.



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Rachel
October 6th, 2005

I'm curious - what do the emails of people who are really interested in the class sound like?

Have experienced the "no reply to my thoughtful email" phenomenon, I can testify to how frustrating it is to try to help people and get little response. It takes only a minute to type out "thank you" in reply to someone, at least then they know you received their words of wisodom.

south asian woman
October 29th, 2007

wait, so you're asking people to bring 10 people to take your class? so you're scaring away your customers by giving them caveats to bring 10 more like-minded people. and then you mock them because most people believe that investing is like gambling, which in its essence, it is. so if you were a doctor, you won't bandage that wound unless the patient brings in 10 more patients. (bandaging a wound can be likened to something beneficial for the rest of the person's life)

who is a faker? is a customer a faker? the customer wants to give you their money. you don't want it unless they give you 10 times the money? that's snobbery on your part.

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I'm Ramit Sethi.

I'm a recent graduate of Stanford, where I studied technology and psychology. Now I'm the co-founder & VP of Marketing for PBwiki, a wiki startup in Silicon Valley.

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