A personal assistant that asks first.

By Polle de Maagt · First published · Updated · 2 min read

To promote the TNW Conference, Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten let his "personal assistant" Jarvis mail his LinkedIn connections, asking who would like to come.

From
Jarvis, for The Next Web
Received
2018

My name is Jarvis and I'm Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten's personal assistant. He asked me to go through his Linkedin connections to see who would be interested in visiting our upcoming conference in May in Amsterdam: https://thenextweb.com/conference

Do let me know if you're considering joining us so I can help you get set up.
All the best,
Jarvis Jeeves
Personal Assistant at TNW
See you at "The most intimate digital technology festival on the planet" (according to CNBC) in May? https://thenextweb.com/conference

Why it works.

Everybody has been spammed by an exported contact list. A playful go-between turns the same mail into a question, and makes it easy to say no.

The series

Automagic: nine automated mails done right.

  1. An order mail that knows it is software.
  2. A shipping mail with a story.
  3. A person, the day after you sign up.
  4. A newsletter that unsubscribes you.
  5. An autoreply that manages expectations.
  6. An autoresponder that says no, kindly.
  7. A personal assistant that asks first.
  8. A cold sales mail with a bet.
  9. A no that still sounds like a yes.
What they share →

Collected on polledemaagt.com, first posted on 5 April 2018. The mail as I received it; order details, account links and names of private people are left out.

Your version of this

Tried it, or thinking about it?

Let me know how it went.

Polle de Maagt

Keep reading

All thoughts →