Bozzlife: One of the reasons I hate sales people
I don't know about most of you, but in my line of work I have to deal with a lot of sales people. I think on a daily basis I get at least fifteen emails from vendors who want me to look at their product because they are offering something I Just need to have.
On rare occasions, I actually seek sales people out on my own to try and get information about a specific product. That was the case yesterday and while most of the outcomes happened as expected, there was one that left me quite surprised.
My business is currently using Google Sites for our webpage. It isn't the prettiest thing out there, but the price is right (free), and it offers some very granular permissions settings per page due to us being a Google Workspaces customer.
Anyway, in a short time Google is going to be shutting down the old sites and moving everything to the new sites. My biggest issue with the new sites is that you can't edit the html code directly like you can with old sites. I don't do a lot of manual coding, but when I need to, I like that option. This has me looking at third party vendors to host our site and provide us with a CMS (content management system).
How my Tuesday went
Actually, before we even get to Tuesday, the first thing I did was reach out to my collogues in other school districts to see what they are using for their websites. Based on those responses, I had narrowed the list down to four candidates.
At this point on Tuesday I was just on a fact finding mission. I wanted to get a very rough idea of pricing to see if this is even something we can work into the budget. Less than $10,000 I can probably talk the business director into getting on board. More than $10,000 and I need to start looking at other options.
So I reach out to each of the four vendors yesterday and tell them what I am looking for, that I am not interested in seeing a demo at this time and asking if they can just email me a quick ballpark figure. I even provided them my current url so they could check out our site to see how difficult the migration might be.
As predicted, I immediately got a reply from three of the four vendors asking to have a phone call with me so they can talk about their product and maybe do a demo for me. The fourth vendor (who I have worked with before) promptly replied with the requested ballpark quote (score one for him).
I replied to the other three vendors and explained to each of them that I was not interested in wasting my time or theirs talking to them about something that may never happen. Until I had the ballpark numbers to compare and see the price range I might be looking at any further conversation would be pointless.
Two of the three vendors were more than happy to comply with my request. I think the one took another email exchange to finally get the quote to me though.
I should add a disclaimer here that I don't actually hate sales people. I just don't understand why they can't follow simple directions. If I ask to be contacted via email, don't call me. That is great that they love talking to people, but I personally despise it. Especially over the phone, I have never enjoyed it. I like being particular and meticulous about what I say and I can't do that over the phone like I can in an email. I understand each of their products has special features that are exclusive to them and they want to show them off, but I feel like I was pretty clear that demo's would come at a later time.
This is where it gets crazy
Anyway, then we have the fourth vendor...
Him
"I heard you reached out about pricing for your website. We obviously build websites but our platform typically includes a couple of other elements as well. I'd be happy to fill you in and walk through pricing on a quick call (no demo).
I have time at 1:30 and 2:30 this afternoon - let me know if that works!"
Me
"I am sorry, unfortunately I do not. I was hoping to get these three other ballpark quotes reviewed so I can see if this is something we want to move forward with before I start wasting people's time with phone calls and Demo's."
Him
"Gotcha -- I don't think the pricing will make much sense without knowing what you're getting for it. Let me know if you want to chat about it at some point in the future!"
(Funny, the other three vendors weren't worried about me being confused by their pricing)
Me
"Okay, no problem. We will probably just move forward with one of the other three companies that provided information."
(This is where I thought I would scare him into sending me a quote, afraid he might lose a sale)
Him
"Sounds good! Thanks for reaching out!"
Okay then, guess you don't want our business after all.... I am actually quite surprised they are willing to risk a sale simply because I am not ready to watch their dog and pony show. Thankfully, our board policy only requires us to have three quotes when making a purchase this large, but it would have been nice to have that fourth for extra measure.
I am just glad this vendor wasn't one of my front-runners.
Really though, how hard is it to just listen to the customer and follow directions?
End Rant
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
All pictures taken by myself or @mrsbozz
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
https://twitter.com/JayBosworth5/status/1351863473777504256
Maybe not relevant, but about the same as going to the mechanic... first thing off the bat... "we've got to do a diagnostic test". Then of course, there's an appointment to make for that. Why not tell me round about price... good post my friend...
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Yeah, you know that they have a fixed chart that they go by for pricing and minimum billable hours per repair. I think I remember like brake jobs are a minimum billable 2 hours even though they might be able to do the thing in 30 minutes. It is crazy.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
"Sounds good! Thanks for reaching out!" is one of the best responses that he could have given (personally, I'dve skipped the exclamation points). It's direct. It's cordial. And it stops spending either of your time on what appears to be a bad fit.
Consider that he is on the flip side of your proposition. His job is to establish relationships that make sense for his company. Just like yours, his interactions were meant to ascertain that "ballpark" of whether this potential customer makes sense for us.
Sometimes all revenue is created equal and it's worthwhile to entertain all prospects. But often it's not.
For example, a software company could plan to focus on certain features. Customers uninterested in those features will be more costly to support and satisfy. Or maybe their research has shown that customers the aren't motivated to talk/demo are 15% less profitable, on average.
Now he could be wrong. And it's possible their ballpark figure would have been in range of your $10k if he'd gotten to it. But each of you was willing to commit only a certain amount of resources to find out before moving to a next step. In sales it's commonly referred to as qualifying a lead/prospect.
You were both being reasonable.
From your set up I expected that we were about to go down an endless rabbit hole of needlessly persistent (i.e. desperate) sales tactics.
It was a bit anti-climactic for me when Mr. Sales did what I was already mentally hoping he'd do But I enjoyed the read anyway :)
Oh trust me, I have had plenty of those too. I had a guy use some pretty inflammatory language that set me off. I was going to let him slide for all the other stuff, but when he pulled out that phrase (can't remember what it was now), I tore into him. I disagree a bit on this occasion. I am the customer. I work for a school district and this companies target market is school districts. I made that clear with all of the vendors who no doubt have their own range of products and features that they wanted to share with me. They had no issue giving me the ball park figure I needed. I have a lot of colleagues who use this, so I have a feeling it is simply a matter of not reaching the right person versus their product not meeting our needs. Unfortunately, neither of us will probably ever find out based on his response.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
You woulda hated me - i sold 'home maintenance systems' door to door LOL
Knock Knock Knock - Hey king/queen of the castle , here's a free gift( probably from the dollar store )
for helping me out
We should break all the rules today - let's have a few beers while I waste an hour of your day and leave you with a $2k home maintenance system (vacuum cleaner).
Well, I thought it was funny anyway.
Have a great day ;)
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Haha, that is pretty funny!
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
I'm quite happy not to have to deal with sales people. My work buy some very expensive kit, but I think they have relationships with certain companies. Being messed around just wastes time.
Sometimes it feels like the sales people are or at least behave like some kind of machines that have only a few phrases recorded that they can use, sometimes over and over without being able to answer a question or request that is not found in their repertoire.
The same happens with most "customer service" people as well.
Post voted on ListNerds!
I just hate it when they are dishonest. I'd actually prefer them to say less as opposed to more because most of the time if they are saying more they are probably lying!
haha very hard! Nice one! !PIZZA
PIZZA Holders sent $PIZZA tips in this post's comments:
@mypathtofire(3/5) tipped @bozz (x1)
Please vote for pizza.witness!
Haha, I totally get it. Being in the technical sales field myself, I've learned how to listen. Really listen.
Times are changing, and so are the methods of communication. In my world, direct communication is #1, #2 would be a phone call, #3 email... With that said, things are changing rapidly when it comes to communication. I know a ton of people that simply hate phone calls.
!CTP
Yeah, I can't stand phone calls. I've never enjoyed talking on the phone, I don't know why that is. I call it phone-a-phobia.