Seven things that can drive this salesman batty

Asking for sympathy for the sales person is a little like asking people to feel sorry for your sore muscles after working out for an hour when you have not worked out in years. But it occurred to me today as I was hearing a list of excuses that there are 7 nonsensical things I hear from prospects that can drive me batty.

For instance:

1. You call someone on the phone and as should be done introduce yourself and ask if this is an okay time to talk, and they say "not really, I am in a meeting." If you are truly in a meeting, then why did you pick up the phone? If a ringing phone is so intriguing you have to stop this alleged meeting to pick it up, then go with the intrigue, let's talk! Really now, you can't come up with something more original or more honest like, "I am really tired and stressed right now and no matter what you say I won't listen so maybe this is not a good time." In a meeting? Comon!
2. This one is a lot like the first one. You place a phone call and introduce yourself and ask if this is an okay time to talk and they say "I am on the other line." Again, if the other call was that important why does a ringing phone demand you interrupt that conversation? Why don't you simply let the call go to voice mail. Then you have the opportunity to ignore the message (come on we all hide behind voice mail)or ignore the ringing altogether.
3. Then there are the times that you introduce yourself and your product that you are selling and the prospect tells you: "we have been with our current supplier for 100 years and they have never made a mistake." I am all for long term relationships and I believe they are the best way to get the best value out of the things you buy. But if all the people who told me they have a long term relationship with their current supplier really have had that long of a relationship, about 90% of the businesses in any given field should shutter their businesses now.
4. Ever wonder where all the money has gone? It was all spent on the product you sell just last week or month or last year and will not be spent on that product again for 5-7 years. No wonder all the people that have seniority in the companies I have worked for all drive BMWs.
5. The current supplier is friends/neighbors/went to school with the owner of the company. I knew it! I did join the wrong fraternity in college. Actually I never did join one, maybe that is the problem. Otherwise there appears to be a really incredible neighborhood somewhere in the world where all suppliers and owners live next to each other, never tick each other off and are happily spending large amounts of money with each other. And I don't live there. Drat!
6. The one the bothers me and probably most other sales people the most is the one for CSI. This is where they drop off the face of the earth. This is where you have conversations, good conversations about the needs a prospect has and narrow down solutions to their problems and then suddenly after weeks of phone calls, emails and voice mails returned your new found friend suddenly disappears! Voicemails are no longer returned, emails are not responded to. Have they had a death in the family? Perhaps horrendous things have happened to them like they have been kidnapped and they are being tortured by some radical fundamentalist group. Okay, so the reality is for whatever reason the deal is not going down now and maybe never. So they can't send a message saying sorry we are not moving ahead with the project or we are going with someone else? It may be a little uncomfortable but it would save us both a lot of time.
   
7. Then there is more of an add-on that every sales person has heard before and after a year or two in sales you realize the line of bull you are getting. But you still hear "if you do really good on this project and give us a discounted price there is a lot more business to follow." I don't think there are any comments needed for this one.

So from the top of my head and out of my frustration of not being as good as I want to be there are the 7 blow offs that drive me batty. There are legitimate reasons for each one and I understand that 8 out of 10 people I talk to in any given day are going to tell me no, either for legitimate reasons or just because they are not feeling well or are having a bad or whatever. I just wish that in addition to a better response from my end that there would be a little more originality in the excuses.

Well there is good news and there is bad news, it is the same thing, it is only Tuesday night!