I have never been in a position where I get more cold calls than now. I guess that is what happens in marketing. I have to admit, I have been super busy and my patience level is incredibly short. Probably the reason I have been furious lately when my phone rings.
However, some sales calls I get super excited about. Here is my advice to sales people – not only in multifamily. Some of them happen to apply to our leasing associates as well!
11 Sales No No’s.
(FYI, all of these things have happened to me in the last week or so)
- It’s about a relationship, stupid. Please don’t be fake.
- Do not cold call me with no knowledge of my company or what we do. At minimum, please use Google.
- I do not respond well to threats or super pushy marketing tactics like name dropping or insulting our current efforts.
- If we, or I, determine your product isn’t right for us (now or even in the future), don’t bully me to change my mind – that really ends the possibility of a future relationship.
- Don’t send pushy emails copying my superior, especially when I still don’t know why I should care about your product.
- Don’t request me on LinkedIn before we have had a positive conversation/interaction or any at all.
- Please be prepared. I don’t want to wait on the phone for 2 minutes while you look for your earring back or listen to your uncomfortable pauses and sighs when you aren’t sure what to do next.
- NEVER ask me what we pay your competition for their services. If you don’t know what your product is worth, I do – $0.
- Call a million times a day without saying why I should want to call you back, you will likely not get a call back if I have no clue why I am calling you. Its super weird for me to call you and say “Hi this is Melissa, I have no idea why I am calling you but please, pretty please, sell me something.”
- By the way, NOT COOL, when I finally begin to try to have a conversation with you (warranted or not), that you berate me for taking so long to call you. Give me a reason first and I will respond more quickly!
- This one is too hard to explain, so here is the actual email. Don’t do this, ever, and at least spell my name correctly!!!!!!! I have never interacted with her (I think she left me some empty voicemails)…
“Haven’t given up Melisssa…
Certainly don’t want to be a “thorn in your side,” so I’ll try & make this as painless as possible.
Eager to know your level of interest in our training offerings. Please check an option, promise no hard feelings : )
___ YES, send me a FREE DVD preview of your latest & greatest training programs, __customer service __leadership
___ I prefer to preview online, set me up with a FREE demo with your web-based platform.
___ Training doesn’t fall under my umbrella, try contacting ___________________________.
___ My plate is more than full, better timing would be ___later this year, ___ early 2012, ____ never darken my
doors again.”
The Best do these things. Short and SIMPLE and it doesn’t waste my time or yours.
- Interact with our company on our social media platforms in a meaningful way (not name dropping your company), we like that and builds trust.
- Start conversations, not sales pitches.
- Be an expert in your field and help us when possible – without our business at first.
- Go the extra mile.
- Help our company and teams increase efficiency.
- Use email at first then move to the more personal phone call. Refer to number 10 above.
Final Thought:
Above all else, do us all a favor, and LOVE what you do and what you are selling. If you don’t, why should I?
Thank you for listening to my rant. I really want to like sales people (I will always love ours though :)), but for some reason only a limited few really get it. Does your team?
I would love to hear that these things happen to other people, so please tell!
0 Responses
This is hilarious! Poor sales people that can’t get it right. I definitely agree with not cold calling with no knowledge of the company or calling 30 times a day. Obviously e-mails are the best way to go (and seriously are we in 3rd grade, what’s with the check boxes)? I think e-mailing with a little about your services and why you think they’re relevant and offering to set up a coffee meeting or lunch meeting to further discuss is the best way to go. Of course you can’t sell if you don’t continue to follow up but as they say: patience is a virtue.
You are totally right! The people I have the longest relationship with prior to getting our business are the ones that last and get more money in the long run because they really take the time to understand what we need and then meet those needs, not just sell a packaged product. Customization is always good too!
While I don’t work in the same industry as you, I definitely get my share of “sales” calls. Since I work in higher education in the student programming world, I receive anywhere from 5-10 phone calls a day from agents who want me to book their performers on our campus. It is seriously the most annoying thing to me, mainly because when I actually do talk to them, it eats up anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 minutes. Seriously? I don’t have time for that on a daily basis!
Here is my favorite story from this week. I’m going to be honest, I normally screen my calls…if I don’t recognize the number, I don’t answer it…leave me a message and I’ll call you back when I have time. Well, I answered a call this week and this agent was trying to sell me on a comedian. He started by saying that they had some great routing opportunities in our area (basically that the performer would be within a 3-4 hour drive of our campus which usually means that we can get better pricing). Spent the next 15 minutes talking without letting me get a word in. I informed him that while I direct our programming board, I actually make very few of the decisions…I leave it up to the students and that I would be happy to forward the information to our comedy chair so she could look at it. I asked what dates they were trying to fill…and his response was “you tell me when”. Um, you said you had routing dates…that means you are trying to fill specific dates, so how about you tell me! He tells me that they are trying to fill dates in the last two weeks of November. So, you mean the week of Thanksgiving when our students are gone? And the week before when students are so burnt out they don’t do anything? Um, yeah, no. Then came the best part. He said “remind me what school you are at.” Excuse me? You don’t even know what school you just called…but again, you had great routing opportunities? Wowza. I’m definitely going to work with you buddy!
So, that was just one example from this week! I could go on and on and on!!!
Hillarious! Thank you so much for sharing your story! The extra long conversations with sales people that feel more like interviews are awful! It is similar in the apartment industry, we all have some kind of information card we need to fill out, but make it a flowing conversation not a fill-in-the blank question and answer waste of time call!
Love the post! Sales people just turn me off as do really fake people and that often goes hand in hand. Have a conversation with me, ask me what I need, what’s going well and what needs some improvement. If I tell you I don’t need your service don’t insult my intelligence. This will just keep me from calling you if ever I do need you. Way to win one for your competition.
Totally agree Melissa! You can really tell the sales people that love what they do or believe in their product…helps with being less fake!
In most companies, it’s not the number of relationships you build it’s the number of dials you ring or the number of cold calls you make. Although, I understand the idea of the numbers game, I think it’s about being geniune.
I would have to agree with your rant! Be excited, be genuine and know your product it’s super exciting to meet people who can teach you new things and in the process make your job a little easier.
That is super frustrating…I think the model of # of calls/whatever really needs to be replaced in a similar way that we measure social media interations. How many times have your interacted with this company online, in-person, via email, calls (if we must), etc. Did you get a reply or any meaningful engagement via any of those avenues…those things should be tracked, not how many times you harassed someone.
Great post Melissa. All of your points resonated completely with me. I have been personally smacked by other vendors for preaching the above approach. It does not matter what role we fill whether it’s as a consumer or as a professional we no longer base our decisions on push or scare tactics. Most of us can see right through it. Even if we succumb to the pressure it is tantamount to consumer rape in my opinion. We were forced and the experience was terrible.
Focusing on both your Point 6’s- I personally do try to reach out on LinkedIn quite often prior to a phone call or a meeting. With the scope of people I deal with on a national level it is very hard to have a face on face initial meeting. Based on my level of use on LinkedIn groups I try to provide a safe first contact for people to get to know who I am and what I do. Even after that connection I feel that phone calls need an appointment. It is a rare small percentage of time that I have called someone even after some initial connections (email, social) that the call is accepted with gratitude.
Bottom line is that we as business professionals should never take the people we work with for granted. Never be arrogant about who you are or the product you represent. Be real, be human, be considerate. This may go against the typical sales mantra that most companies have but at the very least it allows a company to develop deep seeded relationships with its customers that demonstrate sustainable endurance.
Great post Melissa..love your perspective.
Great to hear from you Jonathan! I think you are totally on the right path – so kudos to you for being one in a very small group! I would love to see some changes in how sales people work and communicate.