BiggerPockets

I get alot of these and many without any message and I don't know who they are or what they want. I am not sure why are requesting. (I guess I am not much of a "networker")
My email address is in my sig and I would much rather them send me an email than a PM.
Should I accept? Is there a "risk" to accepting? I don't want to offend by denying or ignoring. Do they get a notice that I have denied them?

Thanks

Eric,
I guess it is just for the networking and ability to PM if you are not a PRO member. I don't have a lot of colleagues, but of the ones that I do have, I either have sent a note with the request or they did. Maybe we will learn some other benefits!
Bill

Good points Steve, I accept all requests and 90+% have a message. Something people should be aware of is that those intro messages are limited and I can see a that a longer message was sent, but I did not get it. Also, my list was probably not set up in the order of when they replied but in alphabetical order. I don't know who they are at first so I csan't locate them to answer. But my email is always full from BPer's so I guess it works out just fine.

Well, had my fun for the day, I'm outta here! Good night all.

Ha! Now that's funny! :lol:

I agree with Steve. Why would a person send you a Colleague Request without a message? Seems rather impersonal, at best. It seems to me that most of the Colleages I communicate with is by email. Occasionally we chat via PM. However, seems you need to be Colleages with most members to see the email. Either way is fine with me!

Following is one thing, since that is just tracking your BP activities. Colleague level is needed for messaging - that is a mutual following. Anybody is free to follow anybody else here.

Rich,

I agree that most will say something just like you mentioned. But those that don't have the time or effort to say something, I'll still choose to ignore. I will offer help when they post in the forums regardless of being colleagues or not, so the colleague status is simply to facilitate them to message privately.

Bryan,
That is true for me also. However when I get a colleague request, I also get a notification in my email. When I look at it there, I see the entire message. I also like that because I can save it if I desire to refer to later. The colleague requests (unless I'm missing something) aren't saved anywhere on BP. Once I accept them, I can't get to the message they sent with the request.

i am fairly new to BP and didn't quite understand what i was doing when i started following. i didn't realize that once i followed someone and didn't also send a colleague request that i would not be able to later send a colleague request. if i try to unfollow and try to refollow to send a colleague request that too will not give me a chance to send a colleague request. the only option that shows is unfollow. i've sent a couple of requests for help to see if i can change my follow request to a colleague request but have not gotten a response. am i missing something? i thought i went through follow and colleague instructions but have not been able to find a solution...

Sammy,
Thanks for helping Aimee! A month with no response to her request for help is awful! Sorry we all took so long to help Aimee!
Bill

thanks @sammy for your suggestion! i'll try your suggestion if they have a blog. if they don't it's the boat i failed to jump onto when i had the chance. @jimmy now i know better and am more careful when i start a follow to request a colleague request too.

hopefully a colleague request feature will be available at a later date.

thanks everyone for all your feedback! have a great weekend!