Escape from salespeople

I’m not sure if I’m unique… I‘m even quite sure I belong to the majority. I don’t like salespeople. Sometimes I even hate them. My attitude towards them is (not surprisingly) directly proportional to their technical knowledge (or at least the visibility of that knowledge) and inversely proportional to their persistence.

Professionally, I often deal with people selling software, and I would place almost all of them into the following three categories:

1. “Not technical guys”. Their presentations are voluble and facile; they apparently describe the best software that ever existed on Earth. But… “I’m not a technical guy, I’m just a salesperson, I can put you in contact with the right people…” – it’s their answer to any in-depth questions.

I really believe you have to be a good salesperson to sell you-don’t-know-what. I don’t see they’d have a goal. Even if they seem to have the goal, it’s talking, not selling. And I‘m certainly afraid that a company that did not invested into training salespeople properly may also have not invested enough into software development and/or support.

Whenever I start talking to salespeople, I do know what kind of software they sell – I simply come to them because I’m interested in their particular application, not because “I liked the name of your company and decided to find out what are you guys doing”. Moreover, I normally know at least 2 of their competitors and would like to compare. I don’t need this generic info; I need the facts, benchmarks, differentiators, advantages, plans and their vision of the future. Am I really so unique in that? Is general information really what the rest of people seek? No, I don’t think so.

2. “Generally speakers”. They are often not so brilliant speakers, and this is mainly because they don’t need to learn by heart what to say. They know what they sell, but again they describe the main functionality for the broad audience. However, I don’t care of broad audience, I know what their software is about and I want to know what the difference between it and XXX’s system is. But if I ask this question, I get a generic reply – additional highlight of what they already said. I think this is because they are really committed to their software – so much committed that they just didn’t care to benchmark it against the competitors. They do like many little things about their application and will tell you everything about them – but they don’t have an idea if their competitor’s software has the same or more interesting things. They may suggest sending you more information via e-mail, but the outcome is that YOU have to be insistent to get the info you need. Even if they sell wonderful software, they have a good chance to lose lots of potential buyers.

3. “Ubiquitous”. They are ready to answer all your questions. They’re in fact eagerly waiting for any opportunity to talk to you. You make them happy showing your interest, and they are everywhere ready to serve you. They naturally follow you, so you eventually get tired and feel uncomfortable. They give you lots of arguments in favor of their software, but rarely listen to your “contras”. They have a classification of possible "contras" and ways to use them as a start to talk about "pros" which you're not interested in. They have answers to all your questions, but these are standard “yes, but…” answers you don’t need. And when you discover your only wish is to get rid of them they already know your schedule and your favorite trails and they are waiting for you on the right time at the right place.

And luckily there are exceptions. There are salespeople who know what they sell, try to find out what you need and have the most accurate answers to your questions, who are exactly where you need them and when you need them. They listen carefully to what you say and make sure they understood you correctly. They also make sure you understood what they wanted you to know. They know how to guide you step by step to the point where you fall in love with their software. They don’t know if you’re going to buy it eventually, but they’re pretty sure you’d remember it and them as salespeople. And if they eventually realize they sell not what you need, they won’t insist, but the software after all will be step by step updated towards your needs. This is so simple, isn’t it? Why is it so rare that I meet salespeople of that sort?

And another little thing that I like about salespeople is arguments like “You’d rather buy today or tomorrow it’ll get…”

Come on, do you really sell a one-day thing? Is it really important for you that they buy today or is it important that they just buy? Do you really think they will buy if you push them? Some of them may, but do you really think they’re going to be a good referral in the future? Or is today sale more important for you than a dozen in a few months? Do you really mean to tell them they’re not going to get what they need if they don’t buy something they don’t need first?