No, I have not had a chance to review the fake email referenced in your “follow-up” email (ahem, HPE, F5, Oracle).

Don’t call me and tell me I just downloaded a whitepaper for your product / service when you clearly know I hadn’t (ahem, Snowflake).
No, you can’t have 15 minutes for a webinar / phone call / drive-by from a sales exec. Ever. (Too many to list here)
Stop using rookies for the cold calls. The word “um” is not for verbal decoration.
Stop asking about my hardware or software. If I give an answer, I’m just making %#! up to mess with you (ahem, Workday).
I’m not interested in your free lunch, a $10 Chipotle card, or the opening night of some B-movie.
Did I miss anything?

73 Spice ups

Don’t let me piss you off today :slight_smile:

1 Spice up

What I hate is when they send calendar items to me as they automatically get put in my calendar. Then I always get follow ups or questions when I “miss a meeting”.

“Hi there, we had a meeting setup earlier today at 3:00 but I guess I missed you, when can we reschedule?” Uhm, NEVER. I don’t know you and didn’t request a meeting. My email filter just blocked a new e-mail address.

6 Spice ups

Just my two cents… I’d do anything for a free burrito :wink:

But really, I’m curious- if you aren’t a fan of those tactics, what would you prefer? Always interested to know!

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14 Spice ups

I keep getting calls from “survey” companies. They seem to go by a different name every time they call. There is zero chance that they don’t have a sales angle going.

Tactics and cuteness will not get your foot in the door. I don’t read white papers, prizes really don’t help lure me in either. If the pitch is made in a respectful and professional manner I may read it and hit you up for a followup. I think a lot of the stuff thrown around by vendors doesn’t even fit into the SMB scheme of things.

I was just going to post a rant about and MSP doing an end around and emailing/calling the CFO and owner directly. This is a sure way to get your phone number and domain whitelisted.

3 Spice ups

Who hurt you?

And how were you NOT interested in Bee Movie?! What is wrong with you?!??!

12 Spice ups

I would prefer that if I call you when I need something you answer, I’ve had some reps where they call me but when I call them back they don’t answer.

Also, pricing I find is an issue, my initial research I always look at the potential costs of the solution. The tactics of “We can make this work within your budget” usually mean cutting key features. Hiding pricing from me until I talk to somebody is annoying.

I wouldn’t say vendors suck more like the methods need to be changed to improve the relationship

11 Spice ups

Seeing as I just a cold call yesterday and it is fresh on my mind…

I don’t know about anyone else but I respect honesty. If you’re cold calling me be up front about it and state your purpose for calling. Also I don’t like it when people are too general with their offering especially in e-mails. Pick one specific product to sell/inform me about.

8 Spice ups

This reminds me of something @davison wrote years ago: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/100220-moving-beyond-cold-calling-an-open-letter-to-vendors

5 Spice ups

In all honesty, I’d prefer you didn’t contact me unless I specifically asked for information. I think vendors are missing the boat on qualified leads by using these junk tactics to (unreliably) drum up new business. A lot of times when we reach out to a company for info it takes days to get a response - probably because all of the sales folks are busy cold-calling or creating new drip campaigns to meet their call quotas.

17 Spice ups

Make it general knowledge what you have for sale in as discreet a manner as possible. If I need what you’re selling, I’ll come to you.

If you won’t answer questions with correct technical data, and you choose instead to give me a list of buzzwords and specs I didn’t ask for, expect to be hung up on. If you don’t know the answers, that’s fine, just transfer me to someone who does. Tell them who I am and what I want before the transfer. Engineers are preferred. Sales managers are not. If I need a follow-up, I’ll ask for one. If I don’t ask for one, it’s not because I forgot.

“I’ll be in touch” means just that: if the need exists to further the relationship, I will call you guys back. I have several lists, which would you like to be on? :slight_smile: If I said I might call back, you’re on the “maybe” list. If you call me back more than once, or within less than a week, you’re going to be on the “no” list. If you call back after I’ve said “no thanks”, you’re going on the “black” list. It’s the only permanent list I’ve got. Side note: “I’ll think about it” probably means “no”, but don’t necessarily lose hope. If you hear that, don’t bug me. I might call back, I might not. Even if I don’t, though, I won’t recommend against you if a colleague asks. That’s important.

If what you sell is worth its weight in gold, I’ll hear about it from colleagues and you don’t need to do a thing but pick up the phone and answer some questions. Makes your life easy doesn’t it!

If, however, your product is crap, I’ll know that too, again from colleagues.

If I don’t reach out, it’s not because I don’t know about you … it’s most likely because I’m not interested. I don’t buy things I don’t need … period. That’s what makes sales calls so fruitless for us both.

I know this goes against pretty much everything they teach to sales people though.

19 Spice ups

Latest for us is business financing and credit lines. Emailing all of our mailing lists and VP’s. We are pretty strict at ignore and delete. The crazy thing is they are from legit sources!

Like what part of a sales plan says “just spam the shit out of them and see what sticks…” Does anyone actually take them up on these offers?

There is probably some higher up marketer somewhere in a plush office citing bogus statistics on how these tactics work. And someone up above him agreeing.

Well not with us. In fact you just went on the “we will never use this product, service. Like never. Ever.”

3 Spice ups

Not sure how I missed that, but it’s fantastic.

1 Spice up

Workday did this to me today - “Who else could I speak to about …”. Just said “Nobody, thanks” and hung up. You would think from a sales perspective that if I said no, calling or emailing the CFO / CEO (who is just going to forward back to me anyway) would be a waste of time.

4 Spice ups

Can’t spice OP enough! I’ve been dealing with this recently too. It’s gotten so bad that I don’t answer out of area or out of state phone calls. Nine times out of ten they are a harassing vendor. I have one recently that is calling me three times a day out of California.

If they get me on the phone they usually start asking all these detailed questions about our environment. I work at a financial institution…you want me to describe our network and layout and everything to someone I don’t know from atom? Why suuuurreee. Why not? Let’s just throw security out the window. Who needs that anyway? Also not a fan of the emailing calendar invites that even if I don’t click on, end up on my calendar.

10 Spice ups

I know that it isn’t going to be “sales appropriate” - we have people that work in sales here and it’s important to make those meetings and put out what you sell – but what i think a lot of sales people aren’t even asking first is “Do they need us?”

Where there is a demand, or even a curiosity, sales people will have a way in. But I get a lot of calls for general IT products or services that just don’t make sense, and regardless on if I tell the salesperson directly we aren’t interested, we often get those same calls or emails repeatedly.

It’s quite a simple procedure. A solid introduction without the gimmicks, or tricks. Let me know you exist and then if I’m interested I will reach out. Repeated follow ups and white papers and mailing lists to drum up business alienates me more, I don’t want to come to you if I never showed interest and don’t need to constantly be updated or pressured into learning about something I never asked for.

2 Spice ups

I’m IN sales and would never blindly place an invite on a prospect’s calendar. I don’t know where this new sales tactic comes from but I find that appalling.

9 Spice ups

The only thing that’s worse is for any/all of the above to occur AND they fake their telephone number to mimic something from inside your own area code. I think the phone companies need to provide for the use of SPF records with telephone numbers.

3 Spice ups