21 Best Answers to “What Is This Regarding?”
“What is this regarding?” sounds innocent, yet it can derail a cold call, stall an email thread, or expose a novice negotiator. The next seven words you choose decide whether the gatekeeper becomes an ally or an impenetrable wall.
This guide gives you 21 field-tested replies, each mapped to a real-world scenario, so you never freeze again. Every answer is framed to protect rapport, surface urgency, and move the conversation forward without sounding evasive or scripted.
Psychology Behind the Question
Gatekeepers ask “regarding” because their job is to filter noise from signal; they want a label that fits an existing priority bucket in the executive’s mind. If your label is fuzzy, you are routed to voicemail purgatory.
The secret is to anchor your answer to a business outcome the listener already cares about—budget line, quarterly OKR, compliance deadline, or competitive threat. When the words you use mirror their internal agenda, the gatekeeper hears “familiar” instead of “sales pitch.”
Core Principles for Every Reply
Lead with specificity, never generic categories like “consulting” or “software.”
Quantify impact in verbs—reduce, defend, accelerate, protect—because action words create mental movies. End every reply with an invitation that lowers risk: “a quick diagram,” “a two-sentence check,” or “one data point to confirm fit.”
High-Stakes Gatekeeper Scenarios
1. Cold Call, No Prior Contact
“This is regarding the $1.2M overspend on cloud fees that’s showing up in this quarter’s P&L; I have a 90-second method the CTO at NovaTech used to claw back 18% without ripping out vendors.”
2. Executive Assistant Blocks You
“I’m calling regarding the board memo that requests a contingency plan for GDPR Article 32 violations by week’s end; I have the one-page template the EU regulator accepted last month.”
3> Front-Desk Reception, No Name
“This is regarding the pending OSHA inspection that starts tomorrow; I’m the safety engineer who flagged the missing SDS sheets on floor three.”
Email Subject Line Equivalents
Gatekeepers often transpose the “regarding” question into email by scanning subjects. Your subject must do the heavy lifting before the body is opened.
Use the pattern:
21 Best Answers to “What Is This Regarding?”
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This is regarding the 34% spike in customer churn your earnings call slides flagged; I have the retention playbook that recovered 12k accounts for FitBit in 21 days.
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It’s regarding the RFP 22-18 that closes Friday for supply-chain visibility software; I’m the former Deloitte manager who wrote the evaluation criteria you’re using.
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I’m calling regarding the ransomware advisory the FBI sent to healthcare CFOs yesterday; I can share the 30-minute containment checklist that kept Methodist Hospital offline for only 42 minutes.
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This is regarding the carbon credit shortfall that will trigger the $4M penalty clause in your Walmart vendor agreement next quarter; I have a verified offset source with 48-hour close.
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It’s regarding the talent retention memo your CHRO posted on Slack last week; I deliver same-day visa-to-green-card conversions for STEM hires at half current legal cost.
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I’m regarding the PCI compliance gap your QSA found on 3.2.1 encryption protocols; my patch ships in 72 hours and passed Visa’s lab last month.
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This is regarding the inventory write-down your auditor estimated at $800k; I move excess semiconductor stock through a Japanese buyer network in ten days.
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It’s regarding the TikTok ad account suspension that cut 22% of e-commerce traffic overnight; I have the insider form that restored spend for Gymshark within six hours.
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I’m calling regarding the freight contract that expires August 31 and will raise COGS 9% if rolled to spot rates; I locked last year’s Asia-US pricing for Nestlé through December.
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This is regarding the Series C pitch deck that needs a 24-month revenue model; I built the forecast that got Snowflake their $479M round.
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It’s regarding the deferred maintenance backlog on your Oklahoma pipeline that PHMSA flagged; my crew completed similar repairs for Enbridge with zero shut-down days.
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I’m regarding the Shopify Plus storefront that crashes at 1,200 concurrent users; I tuned the same bottleneck for Allbirds and lifted conversion 11% Black Friday.
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This is regarding the state tax audit notice dated May 3 that disallows $2.4M in R&D credits; I recovered 94% of disallowed amounts for Zoom last quarter.
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It’s regarding the counterfeit SKU that appeared on Amazon and is eroding 30% of your Buy Box; I have the Brand Registry escalation path that removed 1,800 fake listings in 48 hours.
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I’m calling regarding the upcoming H-1B lottery whose denial rate jumped to 32%; my legal team secures cap-exempt slots at university hospitals within 15 days.
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This is regarding the Azure rep who told you EA renewal pricing is non-negotiable; I benchmarked 47 similar renewals and carved out $1.9M in concessions for Kellogg.
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It’s regarding the influencer contract that demands a $250k upfront fee with no ROI clause; I restructured the deal to pay 70% on performance and still secured the creator.
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I’m regarding the battery recall notice that will hit the CPSC website tomorrow; I managed the crisis comms for Samsung Note7 and can share the 90-minute response template.
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This is regarding the insurance premium that rose 40% after the cyber claim; my policy re-quote brought it back to last year’s rate with broader coverage.
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It’s regarding the Slack outage that cost your support team 600 tickets yesterday; I deployed the redundancy stack that kept Discord live during the same AWS region failure.
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I’m calling regarding the board meeting Wednesday that needs a one-slide risk summary on crypto treasury exposure; I condensed Coinbase’s 10-k into a 7-bullet brief the CFO loved.
How to Customize Each Script
Strip the example company name and insert the prospect’s exact metric pulled from earnings calls, job posts, or 10-k risk factors. Swap the metric for a smaller, more recent number if internal data is unavailable; precision beats scale.
Add a sensory detail—“the 42-minute outage” or “the 3 a.m. alert”—to make the image sticky. Finally, replace “I” with “we” when you represent a larger brand to borrow credibility without sounding like a lone wolf.
Delivery Tactics That Triple Success
Speak the first six words in a single breath; it signals confidence and prevents interruption. Pause one beat after the company name to let the gatekeeper process the familiar context before you finish the sentence.
If the reply exceeds four seconds, you’ve lost them. Time yourself; 2.8 seconds is the sweet spot for maximum retention without sounding rushed.
Common Mistakes That Trigger Instant Rejection
Never say “partnership” or “synergy”; both words scream time-waster. Avoid acronyms the prospect doesn’t use daily—your “CRM” is their “customer database.”
Do not ask, “Is now a good time?” after you already answered “regarding”; you just handed back control. Instead, embed the time ask inside the value: “a 90-second method.”
Advanced Role-Play Drills
Record yourself on your phone; play it back at 1.5× speed to catch filler words. Swap roles with a colleague; score each other on whether you can draw the hidden metric from the reply.
Create a bingo card of negative responses—“not interested,” “budget locked,” “send info”—and practice pivoting each into a diagnostic question without repeating your opener.
Measuring Reply Quality Over Time
Track the ratio of “regarding” replies that earn a follow-up question versus an instant brush-off; aim for 60% curiosity rate. Tag each call in your CRM with the exact phrase you used; after 100 calls, retire any line below the 40% threshold.
Layer in sentiment analysis from call-recording AI; sentences that score above 0.8 positive correlation map to closed deals 3× faster than neutral replies.
Quick Reference Cheat Sheet
Keep a sticky note on your monitor: Metric + Verb + Timeframe + Asset. Glance at it while the phone rings so every reply forms in under two seconds.
Refresh the note weekly; stale numbers erode credibility faster than no numbers.