Everyone here is talking about Evan's response, so I may be misunderstanding something, but... If I'm billed for a dedicated email for years and it hasn't been provisioned for me, isn't that a major problem with the service?
Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
21–30 of 99 posts
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#22Ugh, that salesman is a sleeze. lol
With the caveat that I know nothing about mailgun, so may have misunderstood parts of the conversation, it sounds, to me, like the salesman did a few very helpful things...
1. Pointed out that the user had been spending money on a service which was not actually being provided. Presumably, mailgun would correct this error.
2. Exposed that the "mail success rate" which the user was seeing might not be the full story.
3. Showed the user that he was paying for suppressed emails, so could (presumably) save some coin by cleaning up his list. (Note that the cost of cleaning might be higher than the extra payments, but good to know that there's a cost to suppressed emails so that the user can make a judgement.)
This rep was honest ("it was a template"), gave a specific agenda when asked, and gave useful information. Complaining that your rep has access to your data when that's his entire job is ridiculous. Data security best practices are that data should be provided on a "need to know" basis. In order to provide the above 3 values, the rep needs access to that data.
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that it sounds harsh to say "I don't take meetings with no agenda", but is the right thing to do. Everyone wants your time, and it's the most valuable resource you possess, so being protective makes a lot of sense. I wouldn't reply to someone's email and accuse them of "low-effort sales" or whatever. I'd just say "thanks, not interested" and then be internally mad at the low effort. From the other side, I thi…
> it sounds harsh to say "I don't take meetings with no agenda", but is the right thing to do Evan's is the wrong way to do it. "I am busy–do you have specific recommendations you can share over email" is more concise, polite and to the point. (Ignoring the e-mail, or a simple not interested, are also options.) And if you want to use those words, fine, but leave off the "low effort" insults at the end.
Well, if you read the exchange below, it might not be an insult after all. It definitely was low-effort: he started by saying that he admires Even's work, but then admitted it's just a formula and so on. Really, if the words you use have no meaning, why to use them? He is definitely not the worst of all salesmen I met, but not particularly bright, and the effort he put into the initial email wasn't really above average.
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#24I thought Evan had stopped working on Phab. Does anyone know Phabricator's status? Is it still under active development?
This work is "Bonus Content" https://secure.phabricator.com/w/changelog/
Thanks!
It was quite sad to read the announcement that development had stopped. Phabricator provided me with one of the best development experiences I've ever had. I guess Github + Gitlab won, and it became insanely difficult for the smaller players to make a dent.
I'm keeping an eye on SourceHut, though.
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that it sounds harsh to say "I don't take meetings with no agenda", but is the right thing to do. Everyone wants your time, and it's the most valuable resource you possess, so being protective makes a lot of sense. I wouldn't reply to someone's email and accuse them of "low-effort sales" or whatever. I'd just say "thanks, not interested" and then be internally mad at the low effort. From the other side, I thi…
> it sounds harsh to say "I don't take meetings with no agenda", but is the right thing to do Evan's is the wrong way to do it. "I am busy–do you have specific recommendations you can share over email" is more concise, polite and to the point. (Ignoring the e-mail, or a simple not interested, are also options.) And if you want to use those words, fine, but leave off the "low effort" insults at the end.
I think it is useful, though, to teach people that it's disrespectful to send vague meeting requests without an agenda. Using your "I am busy -- do you have specific recommendations..." response obscures the real objection.
Certainly I think there's a better way of saying it than OP did, though: perhaps, "before we schedule anything, can you propose an agenda so we can both be sure a meeting is the best use of our time?" or something like that.
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#26Ugh, that salesman is a sleeze. lol
With the caveat that I know nothing about mailgun, so may have misunderstood parts of the conversation, it sounds, to me, like the salesman did a few very helpful things... 1. Pointed out that the user had been spending money on a service which was not actually being provided. Presumably, mailgun would correct this error. 2. Exposed that the "mail success rate" which the user was seeing might not be the full story. 3…
The other possibility, which would explain the different delivery numbers and different understanding of the dedicated IP status, is that the sales rep was confused, screwed up, and was looking at some other customer's data while thinking it was Phabricator's.
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#27Sorry to say but Evan does not come across as particularly pleasant or likeable to anyone he corresponds with. Common courtesy would go a long way.
> Common courtesy would go a long way. I don't believe this applies to salesmen, though. They're trained to exploit all holes related to human decency and courtesy. They expect a polite person will not reject an invitation (to a meeting they absolutely don't need and which serves only one party) and so on.
1. It's a bit different if it's a 'customer success' type person from a product that you're already using- that's different from totally cold outreach
2. You're free to just ignore them, especially over electronic communication. (Silently mark it as spam if you're really annoyed). I teach my kids that the adult way to respond to this kind of pushiness over something like email is to simply ignore them. Responding back with rudeness is juvenile, this is like day 1 of Being A Professional 101 kind of stuff. 'No thanks' and/or then ignoring them puts you in control of the situation, it's ultimately the high road
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#28The only thing questionable I see here is that random sales employees seem to have access to customer information. It's not clear to me that the information they have access to is actually all that sensitive, though. Delivery rates and whether or not they've purchased a dedicated IP address? Eh, not sure that's a big deal. Of course, we have no idea what other customer information this sales guy might have access to.…
I don't think I'd be happy if sales people had access to the recipient domains of my outbound emails, which seems to be suggested?
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#29I agree with the sentiment, though not the execution.
Time is certainly the most valuable asset, and if someone is wasting my time/energy then I just ignore them.
If I see an email that's coming from a random sales-related channel and not from my support rep, I'm ignoring it. If I'm using a service incorrectly, and the email is vague and gives the same vibe when someone asks "Can I ask you a question?" on slack and waits for a response, then I'm not going to bother replying.
Waste your time, but don't expect the same from me.
Re: Discourage use of Mailgun as a mail provider
#30> This request is so vague and nonspecific ("Let's take a look"?) that it feels kind of like a low-effort template sales email. If it is, and your primary goal in sending me this email is to get me to purchase more Mailgun services, please do not send me any more emails like this.
This entire sentence was unnecessary..
> Mailgun's hiring or training process for sales employees doesn't seem to be very good: Joe didn't seem to understand the Mailgun system. Beyond not needing it, I also don't think it is acceptable for staff who can not consistently demonstrate a high level of competence to have access to customer data.
He blames the training AND the hiring, lol