Not long ago, I accepted a LinkedIn connection request from someone I didn’t know.

Almost immediately, I received a sales pitch.

That happens often enough that it barely surprises me anymore. Someone asks to connect, I accept, and before there has been any real interaction, I’m being told about a service I supposedly need.

That approach has its own problems and is the subject of another article (and a big part of the message behind my book, Build Trust Before Business). But what catches my attention even more is how often those pitches contain obvious mistakes.

My name is misspelled.

The message includes a typo that should have been caught with even a quick review.

The person refers to the wrong company, the wrong type of work, or something else that makes it clear the message wasn’t written for me at all.

Some of the pitches were almost funny. Back when ghostwriting and book production were a significant part of my business, people would contact me offering ghostwriting and book-production services. They weren’t just failing to get to know me. They apparently hadn’t even taken a minute to look at what I did.

And I always wonder: If you’re asking me to trust you with my business, what am I supposed to conclude when you didn’t take the time to get the basic details right or even understand what I do?

Small errors send larger messages

Accuracy is about more than spelling and grammar. It’s more than proofreading. It’s about getting the person right.

It communicates attention.

It tells people whether you noticed the details, whether you checked your work, and whether you cared enough to make sure the information you sent was correct.

That matters any time we communicate, but it matters especially when we’re trying to establish a new relationship.

A first interaction is one of the few times when the other person has very little information about us. They don’t yet know how carefully we work, whether we follow through, or how seriously we take our commitments.

So they use the information they do have.

And sometimes that information is a misspelled name.

My name is often misspelled because most autocorrect systems prefer to spell it JacqueLINE instead of Jacquelyn. But the person who addressed me as Jacuelyn while pitching his book production services definitely got off on the wrong foot.

Of course, one typo doesn’t prove someone is careless or incompetent. Everyone makes mistakes. I certainly do. And we’ve all had autocorrect embarrassments.

But avoidable errors can undermine the impression we’re trying to create—especially when those errors involve information that was easy to verify. And when you’re trying to make a good first impression, that’s a particularly bad time to look as though you didn’t bother to check.

If you want someone’s business, spell their name correctly.

If you refer to their company, make sure you have the company name right.

If you include a link, test it.

If you say you attached something, make sure it’s attached.

If you give someone a date, time, price, phone number, or address, check it before you send it.

These are small things.

But small things are often how people decide whether they can trust us with larger ones.

Accuracy matters after the first impression, too

This isn’t only about sales pitches or LinkedIn.

Accuracy affects ongoing relationships as well.

People notice when you repeatedly get their name wrong.

They notice when meeting times have to be corrected, links don’t work, documents contain careless errors, or information you provide turns out to be inaccurate.

Over time, those things can change the way people receive everything else you communicate.

They may begin double-checking your numbers.

They may hesitate before relying on your instructions.

They may wonder whether the document you sent really is the final version.

Eventually, accuracy becomes part of your reputation.

So does inaccuracy.

The goal isn’t perfection

None of this means every email, message, proposal, post, or document has to be flawless.

That isn’t realistic.

The goal isn’t perfection. It’s care.

There is a difference between an occasional mistake and a pattern that suggests nobody stopped to check.

And there is a difference between making an error despite reasonable care and sending something that clearly received very little attention in the first place.

We are all communicating quickly these days. We send texts between meetings, answer email from our phones, post on social media, use templates, automate messages, and increasingly rely on technology to help us produce more communication in less time.

While those tools can save enormous amounts of time, they do not remove our responsibility to make sure what we send is accurate.

In fact, the easier it becomes to produce and send information quickly, the more important that final moment of attention may become.

Before you hit Send, take another look.

Is the person’s name right?

Are the facts right?

Are the dates and numbers right?

Does the link work?

Did you attach what you said you attached?

Does the message actually apply to the person who is receiving it?

Those few seconds may prevent an embarrassing mistake.

More important, they communicate something valuable:

I paid attention.

I respect your time.

And I care enough about the work I do to get the details right.

Accuracy may seem like a small thing.

But when people are deciding whether they can trust you, small things rarely stay small.