The Audacity of Sales People

I'm getting tired of the Sales Grift. It is usually cold-contact, but it's also from people that I already have relationships with. And it usually boils down to this: would you mind doing my job for me?

What do I mean by this?

Let's look at the cold-contact scenario, wherein I don't have a relationship with this person. They've usually bought my phone number from some scummy aggregator (spoiler: we will never do business in this scenario), or messaged me on Linked In.

Them: this is our super amazing product ... can we arrange a demo?

Me: sorry, this isn't in my remit/isn't a priority now/isn't interesting to me

Them: who can I speak to then?

Now usually I end the conversation there and we'll never talk again. But I've tried to be less angry and short with people over the past few months because I feel it making me calloused in real life and so, sometimes, if I think there's a possibility that this product or service might actually be interesting to someone else I might suggest they contact them on Linked In to let them decide. This has proven to always be a mistake.

Me: you could contact John Smith/Jane Doe

Them: can you give me their email address and phone number?

Me: No, use Linked In

Them: Ok, can you contact them and ask them to reply/say how much you recommend us?

And here we arrive at my point: I am now to make a sales pitch on your behalf, for a product I don't want, to someone you don't know. I'm now here to do your job. You've cold-recruited me to do your job for you.

And a little later on...

Them: I didn't hear back from John Smith/Jane Doe, could you follow up with them for me? / Could the 3 of us jump on a quick intro call?

I do not work for you and I am not interested in selling your product. When you get to this point in the conversation with me you've now made an enemy of me, and you've made it so that even if you did happen to turn up one day selling the exact thing I needed, we're still not talking.

The next scenario is found where I'm actively engaging suppliers and we're already in conversations about their products. I've been really clear that we're interested, we've talked about the problem that I want to solve and we've talked about how I think their product or service might help me.

As this conversation develops, in nearly all recent cases involving US-based firms, we get to the point where they're having me dictate their sales deck to them so that they can send it to me as some kind of leverage.

Them: and what would you say is the main reason you want our product?

Them: and what else is important to you about our product?

Them: and what would be the consequence of not getting our product?

I see what you're doing. It's the establishment of the business case for their product, by me, in my own words, and the subtle replacement of my business case to solve my problem, with this one I just created. And because I had a hand in creating it, it's much more important to me than if it were just sent to me ("The Ikea effect"). So if I'm not on-guard, wise to - and bored of - this approach you'll catch me out and I'll be singing your company song by the end of the week.

So again we're at the point where I'm doing your work for you. I'm writing your business case for my buying your product.