I bet you good money you wont forget the company or its product for the next few years though, and every time you see a similar product you can't help but compare them.
It was a friken cold call and it worked. You went through the trouble to blog about it. The salesguy has the wisdom to seek you as an influential web persona, and if he "failed" with you today it doesn't mean it's the end of his campaign, specially if he has a well-researched prospect list.
Instead of being cranky at him, if you had a shred of business sense you would have talked with the guy and possibly "flipped" him to promote your ventures and services; you can see he is already working at a very detailed nano-level; most software promoters go straight after big fish, write long boring articles and waste good money advertising with shell "industry" websites that are nothing more than a press-release dump; instead of harnessing visible personalities to be their word of mouth. BUUUUUT, you're designer, move along, select message and click "trash".
Business is give and take, rub my back I rub yours. You could have asked for a promotion offer, exchange contact details, added him on Skype/LinkedIn/Facebook, and got yourself a reseller deal with his firm and possibly a lead-generation fee for his own sales/marketing services you share with your network.
1) The blogger is a "freelancer", by his own admission, and someone out there rightfully thought the man's services where available to the market and wanted to establish a business relationship. I guess the blogger is not a businessman.
But wait ..
2) The blogger goes to write an article about how to market your products and services.
Fuck that shit! We've spent a long time online realizing that in a web environment, it's possible to promote ourselves without spreading the low-level negativity associated with older advertising methods. This is the Internet! Gaining lots of publicity for yourself can be achieved with good, happy, fun things! The advantage of giving everybody a voice is that now you don't have to contact everybody yourself. You can work on making something so good their friends contact them for you.
If you think cold calling is the most effective tool you've got when you're sitting in front of a computer, look just a smidge deeper. I think the point of the blog post was dead-on—if you're out to directly establish relationships with people, then establish them without making it a business. You'll find a way to mention the product to them without it deliberately being a sales pitch.
It was a friken cold call and it worked. You went through the trouble to blog about it.
I don't see how it worked. He blogged about it without mentioning the name of the product. When I read this, I don't feel any thoughts about the product he was pitched because I don't know what the product was. If the goal was to get promotion, it failed utterly.
I bet you good money you wont forget the company or its product for the next few years though, and every time you see a similar product you can't help but compare them.
I hear this a lot on Hacker News and related fori: People who think that just because you have a product in your mind, it's good advertising. I heard it a lot in particular with the weird Microsoft ads. Well, in the advertising world, that's bogus. People knowing your name does not translate to sales unless they know your name in the right context. Apple's 1984 ad is the one they teach for this reason: People discussed it the say after it aired, asking themselves what Macintosh was, what the ad meant, and so they came to the conclusion collectively that Macintosh was something big and new. It's an ad that made a positive spin. But when I see a weird, messed-up ad that I don't understand, or when somebody goes out of their way to mention their product to me, the name sticks around but there's no positive signifier to it. I'm not willing to buy a product just because I recognize their ad. There's got to be something that convinces me it's maybe worth buying.
So in this case, perhaps the guy will remember the product name—though I seriously doubt that. You underestimate our ability to block things out that we don't want to hear. I've received a dozen emails from people that wanted me to advertise them on my blog, and I don't remember a single product name. If he does remember it, though, that doesn't necessarily brainwash him. He won't see competing products and say, "Nope, can't think about this, I have another name in mind." Rather, he'll ask logical, uninfluenced questions, like "Do I need this at all? Why would I get this rather than that?" If there's any bias now, I'd say it's negative—"Well, this guy didn't think a good promotion would be cold calling. Looks like he's not so much a desperate fucker." (That would be my reaction, though to be fair I'm a mean person so it might be a bit over-the-top.)
When business people look at everything as a potential sale, they risk wasting a lot of time making a few sales. That's a bad way to do business. Much smarter to figure out how to do the most with a little effort—and friending somebody on Facebook is usually just a bit too much effort to close a sale, especially if you need a thousand sales a month to break even.
I am under the impression that he was being targetted as a potentially compensated public "reviewer", and possibly reseller. Nobody in their right mind will cold call a web socialite with a live twitter feed with product sales calls. It was a B2B call IMHO, reread it under that light.
Even the author himself could be misunderstanding the intent, btw.
To give you an anology, someone pitching their photo sharing startup to a potential investor will have to begin his introduction the same way he would when talking to a potential end-user: "it the world's fastest growing photo sharing site. Upload your photos and viola .." but the intent is different. The author pretty much shut the door on the sales guy without hearing him out further.
I'm going to go with, "this is the worst piece of advice I have ever read on Hacker News". The #1 rule of sales, all sales, everywhere: ASK FOR THE SALE.
What went wrong for this PR guy was the 1-2 punch he tried. He was clumsy about how he timed his pitch, and he was superficial in how he tried to connect to his prospect. But the blogger's response, "wait until I ask you about your product", is exactly the wrong lesson to take from this.
It's hard to generalize one person's reaction as a rule. Getting a conversion rate of 10% is often good for a campaign, but remember: that means 90% said no.
That being said, Don't burn your market! Don't be deceptive, because there are two conversion rates to worry about. The percent who said no and the percent who now hate you--and you can normally only track the one.
How many people have MS, Apple and Google burned? I think as a percentage it's quite low but does Bill G or Steve J give a crap about the few who hate them?
Just like meeting girls, the assholes usually win that battle and while 'taking the high ground' might mean you sleep better or have better karma, it also means you'll have to make due with a lot less (which for some is okay, we all have our threshold).
It's a balance between being that asshole sales/marketing guy who lands the project/sale/client and the guy who actually cares about the customer and their needs after the sale.
No, you're hungry, they sell cookies .. done deal.
I commented on this dude's blog but basically he's turned off by a rather soft sales technique. If he ever had to survive in a sales world .. he wouldn't.
People in business want .. more business. Just like people who are hungry want food. If you make a product that serves a need, you gotta get over that whole "I don't want to offend anyone" and get to it. Otherwise your competitor will.
It was a friken cold call and it worked. You went through the trouble to blog about it. The salesguy has the wisdom to seek you as an influential web persona, and if he "failed" with you today it doesn't mean it's the end of his campaign, specially if he has a well-researched prospect list.
Instead of being cranky at him, if you had a shred of business sense you would have talked with the guy and possibly "flipped" him to promote your ventures and services; you can see he is already working at a very detailed nano-level; most software promoters go straight after big fish, write long boring articles and waste good money advertising with shell "industry" websites that are nothing more than a press-release dump; instead of harnessing visible personalities to be their word of mouth. BUUUUUT, you're designer, move along, select message and click "trash".
Business is give and take, rub my back I rub yours. You could have asked for a promotion offer, exchange contact details, added him on Skype/LinkedIn/Facebook, and got yourself a reseller deal with his firm and possibly a lead-generation fee for his own sales/marketing services you share with your network.
Annoying sales guy 1
Annoyed web socialite 0.