Imagine meeting someone for the first time. He or she approaches you, introduces themselves, then proposes marriage.

Insane, right? Not likely to lead to marriage, right? Of course, nobody would be foolish enough to think an approach like this would work.

Well then, why the flip do so many people try to persuade like this?

In the last week alone I’ve received five, count them, five e-mails that aren’t much different. And no, they weren’t SPAM. These were real e-mails written by real people, which makes it even more perplexing.

They start out with something like “Hi Warren” (Yes, they actually get my name wrong) or just “Hi” or my favorite, no salutation at all.

Then these smooth operators go into full bore pitch mode with something like, “I’m a writer/salesman/whatever and I want to invite you to be my partner on a project I’m working on.”

Excuse me? I don’t know who you are. You don’t know who I am (even if you’ve read my material, how do you know I’m someone you’d like to do business with?). You don’t know anything about my current projects or interests. You don’t know anything about my plans for the future. And yet you already want to “invite” me to be your partner?

Might as well just say hi and ask people if they want to get married. Your chances of getting a ‘yes’ are about the same.