11 Oct 2005

If You Own A Company That Sells Things, Please Read My Post

First things first, my weekly, uncool weigh-in: By some gracious Thanksgiving Miracle, I am down 1.6 lbs. I’m now essentially down to where I was a couple weeks ago (11 lbs gone). Completely undeserved, but I’ll take it. I now need to really keep on things if I’m to meet my goals.

In other news (and the part that relates to today's post's title), because it’s budget season at work, I’ve been contacting all sorts of people looking for quotes on all sorts of products and services. It is stunning how horrible some people are at sales, to the point that I’m embarrassed for their companies. I am not a salesperson, yet I’d like to think that if I were, I would know to:

  • Use real, complete sentences and not fill an entire paragraph with ellipses and hope that they fill the void that verbs and nouns usually take up
  • Spell simple words correctly (I shit you not, in one quote, the rep wrote “I estamate one weak until delivery”)
  • Not to send back a useless, info-less e-mail response to my original e-mail that asks me to call them (Dude, I’m e-mailing you for a reason. Respect my chosen communication method. I don’t want to bloody chit-chat)
  • Answer questions that get asked (wow!), especially when they’re really obvious and numbered and bolded in an attempt to draw attention to their importance
  • Refrain from sending a canned response that has nothing to do with what was being asked. There’s no way that this company or industry is so busy that it can’t customize their e-mails. Or, you know, read them.
  • Remember the person’s name, especially seeing as it’s in the e-mail address (although I can totally see how someone would confuse ‘Jen’ with ‘Mandy’, as happened in my case)
  • Avoid pretending to be the client’s best friend / sorority sister / 12-yr old daughter by using fake, overly excited language and punctuation marks (“Hi Jen!!!! Thanks so much for your request!!!! This is going to be such a fantastic investment for you, I just know it!!!! LOL!!!”)
Naturally, I don’t write back to these people and correct them of their sales atrocities because that would be bitchy (as if blogging about them isn’t). I just don’t give them any of my company’s money. Haha.

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I have no shame

Need words? I'm a Toronto-based freelance writer who injects great ones into blogs, websites, magazines, ads and more. So many services, one lovely Jen (with one 'n').

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