I’m being flooded with business offers by friends and family — Ask a Manager

A reader writes:

I work in an industry and on a product where business is booming. We’re making headlines internationally and people are flocking to the product. With this attention has come a large amount of in-bound sales offers from other companies. Software, insights tools, celebrity talent agents, you name it. My inbox is flooded and I have account managers calling my personal cellphone.

Not only this, but they’ll reach out via “warm intros” through friends who I can’t really be very blunt with, and it’s at the point where even lovely family members are sending me business proposals for consulting, etc. It feels like a lot of pressure because we are actively and obviously spending on many things.

How can I say we’re not interested? Normally I’ll say something like, “Thanks, we will reach out if it makes sense for us.” But many of these personal connections are low on business. They do good work but I just don’t have a business reason to use their services. It’s feeling very awkward and I’d like to be kind. I feel like I’m in a position of financial power and the guilt is something I haven’t dealt with before, especially for family. I suppose I’m looking for something a little more sensitive to say. It feels a bit like being a lottery winner when others are struggling and have something to offer.

I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

• Performance reviews with two managers
• Can I ask that an underperforming employee not be assigned to important work?