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No Calls

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1603 points ezekg | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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freedomben ◴[] No.42728008[source]
I'm a CTO who makes purchasing decisions. There are numerous products I likely would have purchased, but I either find a substitute or just go without because I won't play the stupid "let's get on a call" game.

If your website doesn't give me enough information to:

1. Know enough about your product to know that it will (generally speaking) meet my needs/requirements.

2. Know that the pricing is within the ballpark of reasonable given what your product does.

Then I will move on (unless I'm really desparate, which I assure you is rarely the case). I've rolled-my-own solution more than once as well when there were no other good competitors.

That's not to say that calls never work or don't have a place, because they definitely do. The key to using the call successfully (with me at least) is to use the call to get into true details about my needs, after I know that you're at least in the ballpark. Additionally, the call should be done efficiently. We don't need a 15 minute introduction and overview about you. We don't need a bunch of small talk about weather or sports. 2 minutes of that is ok, or when waiting for additional people to join the call, but beyond that I have things to do.

I know what my needs are. I understand you need some context on my company and needs in order to push useful information forward, and I also understand that many potential customers will not take the lead in asking questions and providing that context, but the sooner you take the temperature and adjust, the better. Also, you can get pretty far as a salesperson if you just spend 5 minutes looking at our website before the call! Then you don't have to ask basic questions about what we do. If you're willing to invest in the time to get on a call, then it's worth a few minutes of time before-hand to look at our website.

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throwaway98797 ◴[] No.42731205[source]
your probably leaving money on the table then

i’d find that unacceptable as a ceo

you got to do the work to do what’s best for the company, not yourself

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TeMPOraL ◴[] No.42731338[source]
No, they're protecting money on their company's table from being taken by random sellers. "Let's get on a call" game seldom leads to better deals for the buyer.
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Moru ◴[] No.42731889[source]
I see it like this. If the seller can have salespeople waiting on a call, there can be better deals somewhere else. If the seller can have people cold-calling other companies, there most certainly is a better deal around that they don't want me to know about.

Over the years I have developed a salescall aversion to the grade that I hang up as soon as I my unconciousness have detected one. It has gone so far that I have had to apologize to our salespeople calling me and I just hang up by reflex. Very awkward I tell you.

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1. TeMPOraL ◴[] No.42732003[source]
Who knows, maybe there is no better deal, maybe the cold-calling salesman is actually offering the very best deal there is on the market. Then again, maybe the Nigerian prince really needs help with their fortune, and I really just won a car for being the millionth visitor on that news site[0].

Point being, some stranger is calling me and asking for my money. I don't know enough about them to give them money just because they say it's going to be worth it.

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[0] - https://xkcd.com/570/