I’ve had some experiences of late with sales people I really feel the need to address. At the risk of going on a rant, I want to talk about the difference between trying to shout above the noise and trying to really help your customers or potential customers.
A Typical Cold Call
Like many of you, I get a lot of cold calls from sales folks. I don’t fault these people for calling and doing their jobs but I do fault them when they try the hard sell to get me to buy from them when I don’t need or want their services and tell them so. Here’s an example which is a conglomeration of several calls which stick out in my mind:
Her: I’ve done a search on Google for your key words and I noted you’re not showing up at the top of the results. Our company guarantees you top results in Google, Yahoo! and other search engines.
Me: That’s funny, when I checked the other day we were right on top. What key words did you search on?
Her: Well, I don’t really remember [or lists off key words which we don't try to rank on], but you weren’t showing up at all on the first page of Google.
Me: Really? Well, let me check my main keywords. (types in key word in Google search box and clicks) No, there we are, right at the top where we should be. Thanks for calling, but I don’t think we need your service.
Her: Well, you couldn’t have searched on the most important key words I searched on.
Me: OK. What key words do you think we should be hitting on?
Her: [lists off 6 or so words]
Me: Well, the reason we don’t show for those words is because we don’t consider them key. We know what our customers search on based on our keyword research and we show for those. Thank you for calling, have a nice …
Her (loudly): Well, you certainly don’t know how to do keyword research. Our company has an automatic tool which …
Me: Please. Our SEO efforts are really going along quite nicely. Thank you for calling …
Her (yelling): Do you even know what you’re talking about?
Me: (Click. Hangs up.)
So, what went wrong here?
It was pretty obvious that the people represented by “Her” are following a script and don’t know beans about SEO. Many also must have missed out on the part of the sales training program which advised not to insult a potential customer lest they become alienated and refuse to buy your product even if it’s the only solution to their problem.
Sadly, I get at least one call a week from people trying to sell SEO services who haven’t a clue how it works. Sadly, when people fall for their pitches and buy their software or services they are disappointed and legitimate SEOs around the world take another hit on their reputation.
Tech Support, Too
This someones happens with tech support people, too. Some colleagues and I were evaluating two very specialized software packages for a particular application. When we tried the demo of an upgraded version of the package we were already using we ran into this conversation between their tech support person and one of our senior network administrators (20+ years of experience and was teaching at a local college at the time, too):
Support: Well, it’s strange that you’re having this trouble. None of our other customers seem to have this issue. Let’s go over the installation checklist together. (lists off step by step the instructions we already read and followed on their web site).
Admin: (as the support tech goes through the list) Yes. Yes. Did that. Yes. Yes, we can ping the server. (etc.)
Support: Did you copy the config file from the old server to the new one?
Admin: Yes. I’ll even do it again here just to make sure. (copies file.) OK, it’s done. And we’re still getting that same error.
Support: And you’re sure you copied the config file from the old server?
Admin: Yes. I’ll do it again if you want me to.
Support: Are you sure you know how to copy a file?
Admin: (Click. Hangs up.)
The lesson here is simple
Everyone in your company works does marketing. This person marketed his way out of the sale of a software package worth tens of thousands of dollars. After this exchange (which was on the speaker on our end), the manager of the department we were helping told us, “I don’t care if we have to go back to paper and pencil, I will not buy software from that company ever again!”
A Good Example
Just to be fair, here’s one I thought went way right:
Him: Hi there. We offer training on [specialized high-end routers and switches]. Are you the person I should speak with about this type of training?
Me: No. I’m not the person.
Him: Would you please give me the name and number of the person who does?
Me: No. We don’t do that here.
Him: OK. I respect that. If I send you an email, will you please forward it on to the person who does?
Me (Very surprised at this – by now the conversations usually go bad): Yes I will. Email me the information at [my email address].
He was polite, respectful and nice. I happily forwarded his contact information because I thought any company who employs someone who operates like this has to have something good going for them. I took the risk of getting on someone’s spam list, but this happened a few weeks ago and I’ve not seen anything spammy out of them. Color me impressed.
The takeaways from this are:
- If you want to sell me something, let’s identify a real problem then help me solve it.
- If you are selling something, please learn about the industry you’re trying to sell to. Don’t try to baffle me with B.S. when you don’t even understand the vernacular.
- Don’t, under any circumstances, insult people you are trying to sell to or give tech support to. I’ve done tech support enough to know it’s easy to be snarky when you’re dealing with people who are less knowledgeable, but you must avoid this trap. Add value to the other person through education.
- Don’t argue if I say “no.” Even if at some point in future I might need your product or services I will not hesitate to avoid you if you pick a fight with me.
- Everyone is in marketing. If you don’t understand this then you need to educate yourself. Go through my book reviews section and check out some of the excellent instruction available from people a lot smarter than me on the subject.
- Listen first. Listen second. Talk third. Get to know me and understand what’s going on and you can truly help. I’ll likely be a customer for life if you do this.
What about you? What kind of lessons have you learned or would like others to take away from your bad sales or support experiences? Please feel free to share in the comments.
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