Beware the Default Message When Building Local Business

There’s a new business development and professional networking tool on the scene: Alignable. What makes the tool different from LinkedIn or other social tools is its focus on connecting local business representatives. Here’s the message I received today to connect with someone on the platform:

This is a fine message, in general. The problem is that I’ve known the sender for about ten years. We’re connected in about a dozen ways and have done business together before. That’s a pretty common story for the majority of people in business in my local network. This message comes across as not only ridiculous but offensively impersonal. The default settings of these tools ALWAYS make it easy to blanket your contact list with the same default introductory message in an effort to build your network quickly. Don’t do it. You run the risk of having the opposite effect.