No one likes being pestered. This is especially the case, when they are extremely busy.
I was thinking of this, whilst sitting in a friends restaurant. He received a telemarketing call from one of the many salespeople, who target his industry with cold calls. The call was made during lunchtime, on a Friday afternoon. This is a very busy time for city-based restaurants, as they deal with not only a large volume of diners, but diners, who need to get back to work quickly.
You would think that people selling to the industry would have the common sense to avoid making cold calls, during these super-busy times.
Not only are they seldom going to speak with the decision maker (he or she’s too busy) but the caller actually positions themselves to the person receiving their unwanted interruption, as a nuisance or pest. That’s not a great way to start of a relationship or a sales negotiation.
So, why do these kind of poorly timed telemarketing calls get made?
In my experience, many telemarketing companies believe that although they will probably be seen as a pest to 99% of the people they call during that peek time, maybe 1% might speak with them. That’s a limited and short-sighted mindset! It’s a mindset that says it’s fine to be seen as a pest by 99% of your prospective marketplace. This is a VERY short-term strategy and quickly sees those use operate from it, running out of people to call; as their reputation sinks lower and lower and their phone numbers get barred.
The thing with marketing is this: Just because you CAN do something, does not mean you SHOULD do something
Whether it’s cold calling people, when they clearly don’t want to be called or adding people to your newsletter list, when they never asked to subscribe (do you get that too?), it’s a bad idea to do anything that will almost certainly anger or alienate 99% of your prospective clients. None of us need that kind of reputation.
I would be interested to know, which types of marketing “interruptions” you see as most annoying. Share your experiences, below.
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Photo: Victor Castillo