Don’t be that guy

I love to learn for the sake of learning. (Unless it has something to do with math.)

My favorite mode of learning is what they used to call in public schools “self-paced.” I am a frequent consumer of webinars and online courses. I’m a constant consumer of books. (Sitting in a classroom – or conference room – doesn’t work for me. I think my mom calls this “ants in the pants.”)

A couple of my favorite topics include marketing and sales. Which part? All of it. Lead generation, lead nurturing, lead conversion. Cold-calling, warm-calling, call scripts.

The funny thing is, I don’t study this stuff because of my job (although, as a marketer, it is tremendously useful).  I study this stuff because it’s interesting. It’s really about human behavior. Mine and everyone else’s.

So it was in this spirit of learning that I signed up for a webinar … about webinars. Which, by the way, I thought was terrific! (In fact, I plan to use the invitation/landing page concept right away.)

When I signed up, I received an email from Citrix. What struck me immediately was the first line of the email:

Thank you for your recent interest in GoToMeeting now with GoToWebinar, the 3rd generation of web conferencing and collaboration technology.

Hmm. I’m not at all interested in GoToMeeting. I simply signed up for a webinar. I hope they leave me alone.

Email marketing is, of course, part of what we do. You probably do it, too. In fact, our email campaigns are a key part of my job. So I consider each marketing email that I receive to be a learning tool. In this case, the lesson is “Don’t assume.”

I will be calling you in the next day or two to review your needs or interest and help determine if our service is the right solution for your online meeting & collaboration needs. If you would prefer to schedule our call, please let me know when you have availability.

Oh no. They’re going to call me.

I found this email to be so pushy and assumptive that I shared it with one of my colleagues. It turned out she had received the same emails – and already received The Phone Call:”I told them we were not interested at this time,” and added, “(they) were ‘pushy’; I didn’t like it.”

Whew. I was relieved that The Phone Call was over.

Or was it?

A couple of days later, I finally received The Phone Call. I was surprised because this was the same person that spoke to my colleague – what kind of sales manager would allow salespeople to call in to the company just a couple of days after already getting a “no, thank you”?

And wait till you hear how they started the pitch:

Hi, Rhishja. I’ve been talking to other people in your company and they have expressed interest in our product.

As soon as there was a pause I said, “You spoke to Denise a couple of days ago, and she told you we’re not interested at this time. All we cared about was accessing the webinar.”

Silence.

I broke the silence by thanking them for checking in with me.

I understand that prospects need to be contacted. I understand the concept of sending marketing emails to prospects. And follow-up calls. I get that. I live that.

But there’s no excuse for lying.

Have your own “don’t be that guy” story? Share it with us!