Thursday Tips Series! Make Friendships not Enemies!

See, she emailed me this the other day:

Would love to share soon.

I had never seen her email before. Also meaning she was never to my blog before. If she had she has never entered a contest nor left a comment on any post. We had absolutely NO relationship.
Due to this I would never just hand out some of my largest contacts. I don’t share contacts and others don’t share with me. Maybe if I had a really close friendship with a blogger I would consider it but not to someone who I have never spoken to before. Someone who can’t address me by name or leave a name.
(There was no name removed from the email as she didn’t leave one)

My response:
Unfortunately I do not share my contacts. It has taken me along time to build up my contacts and I’ve worked hard to get them as I don’t ask others to share their contacts with me. While I don’t mean to be rude but you have never emailed me and I don’t recognize your email as one that visits my blog regularly, you didn’t bother to sign your email with a name or address me by name which is very unpersonal and you’d like me to hand over my two of my largest contacts. That just seems rather odd.

I personally feel as though I wasn’t rude. Maybe you feel differently.

This is what I got in return:
Jennifer-That is fine….and yes I have visited your site but I see that you are in with blogger name removed and I follow hers regularly. So I assume you got the contacts from her. LOL. Do you think that I haven’t worked hard to build up my contacts? Wow that’s pretty judgmental of you yourself. LOL. Mommy bloggers can be so mean and its a shame if you are falling into the same demo. I was prepared to share my top PR contacts for some big brands in time for Christmas but that’s OK I will keep them to myself too! I guess I just have to be a selfish blogger like all the others what a shame that we can’t all work together. I do work with other mommy bloggers and we all share so we have a lot more success. Best of luck with the way you are doing things. But remember networking is the best way to build your business. P.S. you may want to re read my email I sent you as I think I was pretty clear in the fact that I was asking to help each other out and you some how really misinterpreted it? (still nameless)

I didn’t attack her. I didn’t state she wasn’t any good. I certainly didn’t think she warranted coming back at me the way she did. I simply stated I wasn’t interested and I didn’t even know her first name nor did she take the time to know mine. The emails continued and got nastier as they went. I will admit I finally turned around and gave her a piece of my mind where she finally started threatening me. I finally asked her to stop emailing me. Let’s see if it works.

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So here’s my tip. If you don’t know someone and have absolutely no relationship with another blogger do NOT email them asking them for their biggest contacts. Don’t be rude and nasty if you ask something and someone isn’t interested. Just because things don’t work out the first time it surely doesn’t mean there can’t be a relationship built or something down the road. However if you turn around and be nasty the person will never want to work with you again and will warn others of you. Yes! I let my closer blogger friends know about this person. I felt I would want to know ahead of time if I had someone without a full deck of cards approach me.

While I am not telling you not to reach out. I actually encourage that. I reached out back in March/April when I first started getting into all of this and I met some amazing woman (and Rob! I didn’t forget you!). But even now almost 6 months later I don’t email them and say hey, can I have your contact for so and so. I’m not saying don’t share your contacts either, but if you don’t want to- you don’t have to and if you know someone well enough you’ll know if its safe to go there or not. I personally have busted my butt getting some of my contacts and I am not about to give them out to anyone who emails me for them.

I feel like I do try to help others and return what others have helped me with. That’s half the reason I started these tip series. So that you guys don’t have to try digging through pages on google trying to find answers that don’t make sense. When you guys email me I read EVERY comment. I try to respond to many of them too! I recognize who my loyal readers are and I also know who my loyal giveaway participants are (even when you don’t look at my regular posts).

So my tip: Be nice. Respect others if they say no. Build relationships. Make friends.
Just because a door closes today doesn’t mean one won’t open up later.
Don’t get discouraged and don’t let others get you down.
Be yourself and do your best.
If others still don’t like it, that’s their loss – not yours.

I don’t think she should be able to react in such a manner. We should be able to say no without being attacked and threatened. We owe the sponsor some courtesy. I have forwarded info before to a sponsor and let them decide on their own if they wanted to contact the blogger. But I personally shouldn’t be forced into giving out contacts or have to face consequences of wrath on the other persons blog. If we respect each other more the “Drama” rep that gets slung around wouldn’t be so out of control.

I also hate that people say be real on your blog, but when you actually post your beliefs or feeling on something people feel the need to attack. Why can’t we act like responsible respectable woman that we are and let us disagree without slinging out insults? When I was at the Table Talk Event in MN we ended up talking politics & Obama at the back of the boat. Even the General Mills people joined in. While it was a very heated topic and we all had strong beliefs and opinions on the subjects we all RESPECTED & VALUED each others side instead of screaming and acting like children. In the end we had such a memorable night that we really got to learn a lot about these woman (and make our points more heard). Why can’t we act like that on our blogs? Just because we don’t know each other face to face doesn’t mean we can’t treat each other as if we did.

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So my questions:
Do you share contacts?
What are your opinions on it?
Do you ask others for them?
How do you handle situations like mine if you’ve been in one like it?
I guess I also want to know is am I really a selfish judgemental mommy blogger that should be ashamed? I still stand on the blunt rude one I gave back that I didn’t post.