08 February 2008
A couple of weeks ago I got a friendly call from a New York salesman who wanted to sell me some shares in something or other. At least it started friendly... it ended up with me putting the phone down.I'm not proud of it but I'm big enough to admit I enjoyed it. The guy was a bully, and while cutting him off feels like a failure of communication, the truth is we weren't really communicating anyway. He was just shouting at me, silly man.
My new theory is that a salesperson's confidence in their pitch is inversely proportional to the speed and volume at which they deliver it... and this fella was very loud and very fast! I didn't get a chance to say "no thanks" until about 25 seconds into the call... which is when he accused me of being "rude".
We get calls like this, and the one described in When Cold Callers Attack, from time to time. They remind us why we do what we do, and why we don't need loud sales people.
Bottom line. If you are good people will seek you out. If people aren't seeking you out you have three choices; get better, hire louder sales people or go find another gig. What are you doing?
Posted by Nick Warren at 9:31 AM
