Random thoughts on sales calls and spam
Having been on the receiving end of hundreds, if not thousands of these things in all kinds of media, from phone calls to email to social network messages to physical letters, one commonality stands out.
If the sender has obviously spent no time at all considering my personal situation, I'm going to spend no time at all consigning them to both the wastebasket and the spam filter.
And no, having my name in there doesn't count. Nor does having anything in there which can be directly lifted from internet compilations of data (my business name, address, phone number, or the title of whichever sales seminar I left a business card at last).
Email: spam filter.
Snailmail: bin.
Social network messages: filter AND bin.
Sales calls: you better be able to tell me within three seconds of picking up what you can do for me personally. Guessing does not count. Guessing based on what you THINK my business to be does not count. If you're not hiring me, you better be able to tell me immediately how I'm going to profit from this call in a way that shows you've done your research.
Sure, it's arrogant. But honestly, I do NOT owe 967 salespeople per day five minutes of my time. I don't like talking to people [1], I don't like being pushed to buy something, and I particularly don't like being telemarketed at.
[1] ETA: Clarification - as an introvert, it's not that I hate people, it's that interacting with others wears me down. I thus tend to try and limit chatting to people I know well, or lines of conversation which are truly interesting... or at least going somewhere. Talking for the sake of talking - or for the sake of grubbing about in my wallet - isn't the best way to get on my good side.
If the sender has obviously spent no time at all considering my personal situation, I'm going to spend no time at all consigning them to both the wastebasket and the spam filter.
And no, having my name in there doesn't count. Nor does having anything in there which can be directly lifted from internet compilations of data (my business name, address, phone number, or the title of whichever sales seminar I left a business card at last).
Email: spam filter.
Snailmail: bin.
Social network messages: filter AND bin.
Sales calls: you better be able to tell me within three seconds of picking up what you can do for me personally. Guessing does not count. Guessing based on what you THINK my business to be does not count. If you're not hiring me, you better be able to tell me immediately how I'm going to profit from this call in a way that shows you've done your research.
Sure, it's arrogant. But honestly, I do NOT owe 967 salespeople per day five minutes of my time. I don't like talking to people [1], I don't like being pushed to buy something, and I particularly don't like being telemarketed at.
[1] ETA: Clarification - as an introvert, it's not that I hate people, it's that interacting with others wears me down. I thus tend to try and limit chatting to people I know well, or lines of conversation which are truly interesting... or at least going somewhere. Talking for the sake of talking - or for the sake of grubbing about in my wallet - isn't the best way to get on my good side.