Recently I was talking to one of my clients, the president of small technology firm. She was livid. Earlier that morning, a salesperson had contacted her firm and the conversation went like this:
"Who am I talking to?" he immediately demanded.
She gave him her name - which isn't a typical one.
"How do you spell that?" he asked.
She slowly spelled it out. Confused, he asked her to repeat it several times, which she graciously did.
"What does your company do?" he asked next.
That was the final straw. She finally butted in: "Are you selling something?"
"Yes," he said. Then, undaunted, he continued his interrogation. "So, what does your company do?"
"I can't believe you're asking me this," she said in disbelief. "You expect me to take up my time to educate someone who's too lazy to even visit my website and find that out? Why would you think I'd do that?"
He sputtered a couple of times and then apologized. But he'd already blown it. No recovery was possible.
The lesson: Contacting prospective customers before you've invested time learning about their business is a sure recipe for disaster. Don't do it!
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