You: Found a cool product and filled out a web form to get more information.
Salesperson: Emails you, asking to set up a phone call.
You: “I don’t even know what it costs or what it does. Can you send me some background and pricing first?”
Salesperson (thinking that getting a live lead on the phone is all that matters): “It would be better if we could talk for 10 minutes so we can understand what you want to do. Happy to get you pricing based on what you want to accomplish. Can you give us 10 minutes at 1:00?”
You: (thinking that they are acting like a total ass and not wanting to waste your time with a product that may not do what you want, that you don’t know if you can afford, from company that responds to an interested prospect with high-pressure sales tactics): “No thanks.”
I hate this. SO many sales people do this. WHY? It is so annoying, ineffective, oh and did I mention annoying?
Andy: we had this exact experience as we searched for a “software as service” provider to help take our agency systems to the next level.
Because the service suite seemed “perfect” for us on their web site, we sucked it up and took the call. Wasn’t all that bad, but we were in pure information gathering mode. Forget our time, not a good use of the sales rep’s time.
Great presentation of an awful sales practice. I’ve found throughout my career that the best closers are the ones who quickly learn how to communicate with me on my terms.
I’ll buy from someone who doesn’t bother to learn, but the product or service has a strike against it, and if the switching barriers aren’t high, I’ll jump to a substitute.
Post-sales account managers do the same thing, and I always told my teams to cultivate a relationship so that someone *wants* to take your call or read your email.
This just happened to me recently, except after giving the guy ten minutes in which he couldn’t come up with a value proposition, he was unable to email anything either. But he still wanted a face-to-face meeting. Bleah! I’m not familiar with “old” sales, only “new” sales (consultative etc.) and can’t grasp how this approach might result in revenue for the sales guy. Were there once people who had so much trouble saying “no” that they could be worn down by the relentless talking and buy something just to escape?
it all comes down to how the VP sales measures his team. many companies fall into the trap of focusing only on the activities they can easily track & measure. in this case – a lead (or some might say – a qualified lead). There are better ways to focus on the activities that bring value to the company (and the customer!) and they are measurable, but it takes more to measure them. Ironically, senior staff usually prefer simple measurements
Whats a better way to handle this type of potential buyer?