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March 18, 2004
A B2B do-not-call list?
Jackie's Nov. 21 post about cold-calling sales people and her vision of a B2B do-not-call list has provoked several reactions from... sales people, one of whom encourages Jackie to get a life. Rest assured, she has one, and it's quite busy.
Which is exactly the point: Jackie's work requires intense focus. Cold-calling sales people waste her time trying to sell her stuff she would rather research on her own time, and on her own terms. What do you think: Do cold-calling B2B sales people steal your time?
Other blogs that reference A B2B do-not-call list?:
I make it a point to never do business with companies that cold-call me. If I need a product or service, I'll look for it. Want me to choose your product? Design a good website that (a) I can find in Google based on my needs and (b) answers the questions it normally takes 3-4 calls to get answered.
That might be a brilliant way to qualify internet marketing firms, but that is about it. I just typed "computers" into Google - IBM isn't on the first page. So if you are buying 100K worth of unix servers you don't want to talk to IBM? Right....
Outbound sales is a fact of life - deal with it. If you don't have time to talk , don't answer your phone if you don't recognize the caller ID number
Ben, let me ask the flipside of this question: If you were the VP of Sales, setting up an enterprise sales channel, what would the hilights of a respectful lead generation program look like? What metrics would that program have that would allow you to measure a pipeline and forecast closes?
Josh, this is where sales and marketing must team up to focus intently on Napsterizing as much of the company's knowledge, intellectual capital and customer experiences as possible.
If people are in the market for a rack of Unix servers, they're inately more savvy than using a vanilla search term such as "computers." An IT manager needs servers to run specific tasks, loads, or applications. It's highly likely he wants unfiltered data on what his peers are saying, too.
Napsterizing everything imaginable about the problems a company's product line solves creates more roads through the Roman Google empire than a "just live with it" interruption call from the outbound sales group :)
The fast and efficient distribution channels of that knowledge trove are a company's website, email newsletters, blog or webinar. All are centered around selling to prospects who want to be sold.
Chris,
"Computers" is far too generic a term. You just said you were looking for Unix Servers. Why did you start with those two terms? Oh, and yes, I most definately do not want to talk to IBM.
Be, any examples of an enterprise tech company you think is doing a great job of Napsterizing, that doesn't also have inside/outside sales, etc?
There really needs to be some sort of recourse for these "Private Number" calls who will never tell you who they are or where they're from- I'm immediatly suspicous when people won't tell me anything- just try to provoke any sort of positive response from me- today it escalated from just hanging up or making crank call type comments (want a five foot margarita?) to being told the phone number was 888-Don't Bother Calling Cause You're A Rude F** B**. This after I was given a price for 300 keychains and I asked for their phone number to place my order. This was most defintely a SCAM- and I get nearly same 'offer' every week- why is my business not as protected from SCAMMERS as homes are?
