Welcome to the forth blog of my 30 day blogging project. Warning! All of the blogs for this project will be posted unedited, unfiltered.
Today’s blog is more of a rant than anything else.
I just returned last week from a work related conference. My pocket is full of business cards from all the wonderful people I met, and my mind is spinning with new information and techniques. Then, I get bombarded with the sales calls — some of which I have asked for them to reach out and others where I have no idea who they are. They overwhelm me and frankly just put a bad taste in my mouth. I realize that from a lead generation perspective that an event is a great place to generate new leads, but contacting them should be done with a sense of class and consideration. So I ask, how do we improve this new generation of the door-to-door sales guy in the digital age?
One guy called me this morning at 8 AM my time. He called my personal cell number too. Oh the humanity! Did he not realize that I was on my way to work? And my cell? Geez! He also emailed me, but never referenced the phone call. #Fail.
Then there’s the company, who shall remain nameless, who continue to reach out to me even though I have told them no. I have zero interest in giving them any business because they have personally treated their employees like crap – a few of whom are my friends. Can they not put two and two together? I mean after all, I was first introduced to them by their now ex-employees. Two words people – relationships matter!
And last but not least there’s the company that ceases to stop bombarding me with meeting requests. I have politely said no, I don’t have the time to look at their service. I hate to be rude, but sometimes it seems like rudeness is the only way to go.
I am very honest with businesses I am working with already. Sometimes, I have to wait on others to make the call, and I tell them that. So why can’t I be brutally honest with those that I would never even suggest hiring? Do I need to be rude?
If I could and really cared enough to, I would just hand all of these people over to lead generation and CRM solutions. Maybe there’s a form letter I could send as a reply that would direct people how to approach sales’ leads — a how to do it right.
Something like:
Dear annoying sales person,
Please look up not only what I do, but where I am located BEFORE you reach out to me. You have started out on the wrong foot by calling me early in the morning or continuing to reach out to me when I politely declined your meetings. You have treated others in the past like dirt, so why would I want to hire you just to be treated the same way. Look into a CRM or another lead scoring tool – believe me, they exist- before you try to land my business. Now, I politely ask for you to leave me alone.
Sincerely,
Annoyed
If you could craft a form letter to respond to this type of annoying sales calls, what would it say?
Amy W Higgins 
Alas, overzealous salesmanship is a sad part of conferences! I was at VMworld in San Francisco recently as press. I’m sure when booth employees scanned my badge, I was identified as press too. Yet, a day later, I got sales call. One caller was so stuck on her script she wouldn’t hang up even after I’d spend 3-4 minutes politely explaining to her that it’s no use trying to sell me a server because I was there to report on the industry, not to buy hardware.
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I wonder if there’s a Ms. Manners on how to say no to sales? 3-4 minutes seems like a long time to tell them you are not interested.
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I guess I didn’t have the heart to be mean to her because I sensed that she was desperate to meet her quota and under lots of pressure.
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That is a good tip especially to those new to the blogosphere.
Brief but very accurate information… Appreciate your sharing this one.
A must read article!
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