My Inbox Is a Lesson in What Not to Do.

Two pitches landed in my inbox recently. Different products, different people, same problem.

Neither of them did the homework.

I'm going to walk you through both, not to embarrass anyone, but because if you're a founder hiring marketing help or buying marketing services, you need to know what to look for. And if you're doing your own outreach, you really need to read this.

The First One: Wrong Name, Wrong Read, Wrong Market

An email arrived at felicia@storyverseland.com addressed to Jane Phang.

Jane Phang is one of our authors at StoryVerse Land. I'm the publisher. Different person, different role.

The last I checked, that isn't my name or surname. Not even close.

The sender had found one of Jane's storybook titles. Jane has two books in our StoryVerse Land catalogue, and I'm the publisher of both. She pitched to Jane (via my email) that she could assist with one of her books. Not both. Not my catalogue either.

So, one book, to the wrong person, at the wrong email address. What about all my other books? I feel so sad for them.

She positioned herself as a relationship-based outreach specialist. Targeted visibility. Thoughtful, personalised campaigns.

And the outreach email started with the wrong name.

When I replied to clarify who I actually was and what the business does, she pivoted her pitch to focus on Jane specifically. Still not a publisher.

I had to tell her a second time. The pivot after that was reasonably well done. She reframed her services around catalogue-level strategy, asked a smart question about growth priorities, and sounded considerably more credible in her third email than her first. But it took two corrections to get there.

Her markets are the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. All five. For a solo operator with a Gmail address and no visible website, claiming strong outreach relationships across five distinct markets is a stretch. The US and Canada make sense as one cluster. Throwing in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand on top of that is either a very well-staffed operation or optimism dressed up as capability.

I asked for pricing and case studies from comparable clients. We'll see what comes back.

The tell wasn't that she got the name wrong. People make mistakes. The tell was that her entire pitch language was built around a single-product author, and StoryVerse Land is a publisher with a growing catalogue. Anyone who had spent two minutes on our website would have known that. She didn't spend any minutes.

The Second One: My Numbers, But Wrong

This one arrived with more flair.

Someone had found a small publication I write in occasionally. Not a priority. Just a space I use when I have something to say that doesn't fit anywhere else. I share it on Instagram from time to time if a piece feels right for it. That's the extent of my growth strategy for it.

The pitch opened by telling me I had five subscribers. It used that number as a pain point, framing it as a problem I should be embarrassed about. Then it pivoted to a compliment, pointing out that my engagement ratio was impressively high, evidence of untapped potential that only needed the right growth infrastructure to unlock.

The logic was: you're good at this for your clients. Why aren't you doing it for yourself?

I checked my numbers.

I have four subscribers. Not five. He got it wrong by one, which at that scale is a 20% error, and he built his entire opening argument on it.

Now here's the part I want you to sit with. I almost didn't check. This is a channel I don't think about often. If someone tells me a number about something I don't monitor closely, my instinct isn't to immediately verify it. And that's exactly the gap these pitches are designed to exploit. They find something you're not paying attention to, tell you it's a problem, offer you the solution, and count on the fact that you won't look too carefully at the premise.

I'm a marketer with twenty years of experience, and I almost let a wrong number slide. If that can happen to me, it can definitely happen to a founder who is already stretched thin and not thinking about every channel they've ever touched.

Oh, and his tracking notification accidentally forwarded itself into the reply chain. So I could see exactly when he had registered that I opened his email, and how his tool had flagged it as a "revival opportunity." The surveillance infrastructure that's supposed to be invisible was right there in the thread.

Look, we all do it. Technology helps us focus on the people who might actually be interested, instead of blasting everyone and hoping for the best. But to send me your tracking details.

That's a new level of "Oh, I fudged up", very politely said.

Psst: that's not a great advertisement for the service.

What This Actually Tells You

I'm not sharing this to be cruel. Both of these people may be perfectly capable at what they do for the right client. But the right client isn't someone who can immediately see the gaps in the pitch.

The markers are consistent across both. They scraped a surface detail and built a story around it without checking if the story was true. They positioned themselves as specialists in something targeted and relationship-driven, then demonstrated the opposite in their own outreach. They assumed the person receiving the pitch wouldn't look closely.

If you're a founder evaluating marketing services, the odds are already stacked against you. You're time-poor. You're likely making this decision alone, with no one to sanity-check it. And if marketing isn't your core skill, you may not even know what questions to ask. These pitches are built for exactly that gap.

Here's what's worth checking before you say yes to anyone:

• Did they actually read about your business? Not just find a detail, but demonstrate they understand what you do, who you serve, and where you are right now.
• Can they show you real work? It doesn't have to be from your exact industry. Good work travels. But they should be able to show you something and talk about it with some knowledge of how it applies to you.
• Are their numbers right? If they're quoting your own data back to you as evidence of a problem, verify it. Takes thirty seconds. Could save you a lot of money and a lot of wasted time.
• Does their pitch match their positioning? Someone selling relationship-based, personalised outreach should demonstrate that in the way they reach out to you. If the pitch contradicts the promise, that's your answer.

And if you're doing outreach yourself, for your business or for clients, the standard really isn't that high. Read the website. Get the name right. Know what you're selling and who you're selling it to before you press send.

That's it. That's the whole bar.

It shouldn't be this easy to clear.

If this is the standard some people are setting for our industry, we might as well all just dance on our socials and let the algorithm gods bless us if they so please.