Dear all, I recently launched an independent consultancy and started making contacts in the industry via LinkedIn which has generally been positive. Following a recent email I sent to a potential client I was met with my first genuine rejection which I decided was not necessarily completely negative. I have copied in the initial letter I sent plus the response below. Any suggestions on how I would go about replying to such an email? Much appreciated.------ My Letter ----Dear __________,I hope you are well, thank you for accepting my LinkedIn connection request.I run a Design Management firm specialising in Service Design, Creative Management Consulting and Business Innovation.I was intrigued to read your professional profile and would appreciate the opportunity to learn more about your role at _________. Could we arrange a suitable time to meet for a coffee when you are next available?Please look through our new website (mywebsite.org) and let me know if any of our services could add value to your work. I look forward to hearing back from you, talk to you soon.Regards, Jon...----- The Response -----HI Jon - I am happy to meet up with you but having looked at your website all the services you offer we either provide internally or already have long standing arrangements in place.________

Nothing negative here at all.The negative (if you want to find one) is your approach - contacting someone out of the blue and asking them to do the work (look at your website) to decide if your services would be of use currently. That's a bit lazy. You need to get in front of people, articulate a value proposition not point them to a stock list of services.This contact has agreed to meet with you (informally maybe, but nonetheless to dedicate time in their schedule to meeting you). Yes they have come back to say the services you provide (from your website) are already catered for, but without meeting this person and understanding more about their role and organisation you wont know whether these current suppliers (internal/external) are meeting needs (or are juiced in).

+1Have the meeting, even if he doesn't decide to buy from you now you get a great opportunity to understand more about his business and the issues the sector is facing. That stuff is gold.

You've reread it three times and still it seems like the email message was nothing but rude. But should you call them and clarify if they meant to be rude... or not? Netiquette at work is as important as anywhere else. Allowing the standards of politeness to slip simply because the medium used emboldens people who would usually not be so forthright in a face-to-face context is not acceptable. However, it's also important to be realistic and objective about those emails that you think are rude but might be quite something else.

Be careful for sarcasm though