Bad Salesmanship

[billbenson]

Got a call today from someone selling web design. In her defense, she had a heavy Asian accent and probably didn't know our culture or western sales very well. I often listen to sales pitches if it doesn't take away from what I am doing. You can learn a lot listening to the pitch of a good sales person.

So she gave a 15 second pitch. I said politely 'I'm not interested'. She said politely 'ok, thank you for your time' and hung up.

There are so many counter pitches she could have done. She gave up at the first NO.

I was dumbfounded that she didn't come back at me with a backup pitch or two.

I guess it just goes to show that not everyone is a salesperson

[Freelancier]

She could just be paid by the call and not by the outcome. Not everyone is smartly incentivized.

[Harold Mansfield]

That's what it sounds like to me too. I get those all the time too and you can tell the difference in the pitch between people who make commission and people who are just paid to make the calls. I actually used to be one of those people.

[KristineS]

Personally, I'd love to get a call from someone who just took no for an answer. I agree that a good sales pitch is a must as is tenacity, but I get sales calls all the time and sometimes the only way to end one is to hang up. I think there has to be a balance between knowing who is a viable prospect and bothering and annoying people. How many answers of no are enough?

[billbenson]

You don't need to be pushy to be a good sales person. What a lot of people don't realize is sales is about asking questions to find out what the prospect wants. Worst case there is still no sale, but you learned what your product base wants.

An obvious response out of this sales person would be something like 'how is your site getting you so much traffic / leads'. Tons of other approaches as well.

As for your point Kristine, I don't ever recall having a prospect hang up on me. If you want to go for the hard sell or are an appointment setter I can see that. But not a professional salesman.

When I get a call and don't have time to mess with it I always politely say 'I'm sorry, but I'm not interested. Have a good day.' and hang up.

There was a time a number of years ago that I kept getting repeat calls from a company. I recorded on a audio recorder a screeching noise, kind of like a fax tone but loud. They quit calling me.

@ Harold. It's not a case of commission vs salary. The employee is representing their company. Doing a good job can lead to promotions. An appointment setter with a high closure rate is learning something, has resume material, and may get promoted. Of course there are call centers that don't care, pay minimum wage, and may farm the employees to India or elsewhere. BTW, I have had competent technical support from techs in India. Rare, but there are competent people there.

[larrytoxi]

I think this is one of the toughest job there is the world can offer. And not everyone can be a salesman. Maybe most of them can sell things but not everyone can truly call themselves a salesman.

[David Hunter]

Looks like she's just trying to hit the numbers. Eventually someone will say yes.

[billbenson]

Looks like she's just trying to hit the numbers. Eventually someone will say yes.

Ya, and that may be ok for her or her firm. I don't really look at my web site stats as long as the phone is ringing...