The wrong way to make a sales call

Posted by Jeremy L. Knauff | July 14th, 2009

Sales people have used a variety of unconventional approaches when it comes to their sales calls. Some are more effective than others, but more importantly, some can cause serious damage to your company’s image. Ineffectiveness is one thing, but you definately can’t afford to have staff damaging your company’s image. You’re probably wondering what approach could a sales person possibly take that would have that effect. It’s one simple thing:

Lie about their intentions.

Sadly, it happens all the time, but when people are hungry and desperate, it gets worse.

I was recently contacted by a local organization who wanted me to come speak at their event. The woman who contacted me went on and on about how much they admired our company and were impressed by the coverage we’ve received in the media. She raved about the work we’ve done for some of our local clients. She then went on to tell me about how beneficial it would be for me to speak at her organizations event because they would be heavily marketing the event and me/our company to their members and we would get tons of exposure. At the end of a 15 or 20 minute phone call, her true intentions came out when she said “I just realized you’re not a member of our organization; since we only allow members to speak at our events I could email you our application. It’s only $XXX to become a member, are you interested?” The funny thing is that I had been planning to become a member of this particular organization, but now I will never consider it.

Yesterday, I was contacted by the producer of a national television program that you’ve probably heard of. I got the same spiel from this guy; we’re really impressed with your company and your work, we’ve seen you in the media, we’d love to do a story on you, and so on…then came the truth. “Oh, and we’ll just need a $9,500 affiliate fee to get the program on the air.” No thanks.

Having worked in just about every facet of advertising, I’ve seen first-hand that this happens in every major newspaper, magazine, television and radio company.

While the FTC is strongly considering enacting legislation to force bloggers to disclose if they are being compensated in any way for writing a review, posting a link or in any way providing exposure for a company or product, they turn a blind eye to big media companies. Obviously, the impact of bloggers (Twitter, Facebook or any other social media users too) is taking a severe bite out of traditional media who is retaliating by turning their army of lobbyests loose to stop competition. I guess what’s good for the goose isn’t good for the gander, but I digress.

When you make a sales call, don’t try to shroud it in some false pretense. You’ll waste your own and the prospect’s time, come off as shady and lose to opportunity to ever convert them into a client. Instead, make your intentions clear, be polite but get to the point. You’ll save time, make more sales calls and most importantly, close more sales.

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