How Are You Being Sold To?

Daily, my inbox, voicemail, texts, and social feeds are filled with prospecting outreaches–people trying to sell me, helping me sell more/better.

As you might guess, most of it is appalling!

One wonders, if they represent their company/products/services/themselves so poorly, how would they represent our company? If their attempts at selling themselves is so bad, how could they ever do anything that would produce the kind of results we want?

This morning, I got an InMail from someone who’s company apparently “hounds” prospects for leads:

David: I created an 11 minute “behind the scenes” video that shows exactly how we are starting 60-120 qualified sales conversations per month on Linkedin by taking a “relationship first” approach.

Unlike automated “spray and pray” tactics that ruin your brand and get instantly deleted, we lead with value so our messages build relationships and start conversations that actually lead to sales appointments.

And the best part is, you don’t have to spend a dime on advertising to do this.

Would you like me to send you the video? I don’t believe in spam so I’ll spare you the pitches and empty promises and wait for your permission to send. Jake.

I almost fell out of my chair laughing with the irony of his approach. Everything he claimed they didn’t do in their lead gen approach, he was demonstrating in his outreach to me.

Let’s dig in:

1. He and his company start with a “relationship first” approach, not a “spray and pray” approach. Yet he, or someone from his company has never looked at my LinkedIn profile or our websites. He has established no relationship, has no understanding of my goals, priorities, dreams.
2. They lead with value, I don’t know what he means by this. There is nothing in this message that creates value for me. In fact there is nothing in this message that is about me or my company. It is all about him and what his company does. Is that value creation?
3. He says he is sparing me the pitches and empty promises, but this whole email is a pitch and empty promises. He cites a number of 60-120 conversations a month. Is he implying he will do the same for me? Is he trying to impress me? Is 60-120 conversations a month even an impressive piece of data.

Sales and marketing organizations represent a target rich environment for people selling their products and services. We get inundated with people and organizations trying to sell to us.

We can learn a lot from them–usually what we shouldn’t be doing. We should think, “Do we do the same things to our prospects/customers?”

As we consider their offerings, we have to think, “Do we want our companies, brands, products, services represented in the same way as they represent their own?”

It’s often sad to see how poorly people sell. It’s even sadder to see people to see how badly people sell to people who sell (or market).