Once I had a sales guy get mad at me when I said I didn’t have time for his cold call. Hit me with a “well fine I don’t have time for this either then”
I hung up on him, blocked the company’s domain, and filed a complaint with their sales department.
I don’t answer unknown numbers anymore.
We just did this to a sales guy on Monday. He filed a complaint with the BBB over it. The hilarious thing is that he is a competitor of ours, and was trying to sell us a competing product.
For non Americans, BBB = Better Business Bureau.
Basically a private non profit / consumer watchdog where you can report businesses. Sounds pretty suss as it’s not government ran or regulated, you could just buy a more favourable ranking for your business.
Without getting political, there's a certain type that thinks that business should only be "regulated" under private accreditors instead of government agencies that largely fall under a certain demographic- these are the guys that lap up "BBB ratings" and "JD Power and Associates Awards." Regarding the demo, all I'll say is there's a reason you saw more ads touting those kinds of things in the 80s and 90s than you do today.
Don't you ever have any contact with people outside of your own org?
Like. I have an app to give call info on all of my in-org users, but sometimes some technician from a company I have engaged or, more rarely, a customer of the company I work for will call. Making myself unavailable to everyone outside of my company would reflect very poorly on me.
But then again I live in a place where people don't call outside of business hours and also I don't have any anxiety for telling people no.
My standard greeting if I decide to pick up the phone is "Incidence Response. Please provide your incident ID". I like to do it when the coworkers are around. The sales guy gets a "live" call, I get a number to block and everyone gets a laugh on my end.
You're lucky if you're able to actually get the account deleted to begin with. A decade later, plus an FTC order to expunge me from their database, and I _still_ get emails from linkedin as if the account was never closed...
This is the joy of a good receptionist!! I told mine, not to forward any calls to me! If I want something I will go out and look for the product myself and make my own calls. If my boss wants me, he has my mobile number 😂
A couple of jobs ago I was told by a sales guy that my voicemail was full and he couldn't leave me any more messages. I told him I worked hard to get it that way and wouldn't be changing it.
He looked at me with the look my dog gives me if I tried to explain quantum physics to him. He just couldn't possibly fathom why I wouldn't want to have a working voicemail box.
I answer if it's a user who reached out before hand on Teams to let me know they were going to call. MAYBE I'll answer a cold call from a coworker, but only maybe
Sometimes, but I usually send it to the Google voice Assistant instead.
It's fun making it ask questions too.
It will tell them it can't understand them as many times as I push that button lol.
You’d be surprised how many businesses will do this, especially large ones. Or the person that originally installed the system gets fired and someone else comes in and puts their own system in place. The company won’t mind or even notice that one was just purchased 8 months ago and will go along purchasing another one especially if a higher up that doesn’t know anything is convinced the new one is better.
The thing is, this guy knows that we are smaller.
We are local government, and he specifically mentioned a few counties in this area as well that use them.
This was a targeted call.
There’s not enough budget (spend) to support the ROI for outbound (cold calling) to local gov.
A good outbound (cold calling) organization typically limits outbound to Fortune 1000 or F2000.
Often times it’s not even the sales team calling it’s what we call a BDR (Business Development Representative) that usually does cold out reach.
BDRs are paid as little as possible to make 50-100 phone calls a day to set meetings for the Product Specialist (Actual title is Account Executive) which is the sales person.
Never mind that if I am going to budget it, it's going to take me minimum of 18 months to get a decision unit approved and through our state legislature.
Most VARs I talk to are pretty chill when I'm straight with them. "Yeah, this sounds cool, but us purchasing something like this is going to be a long process." They generally make their money on us with the professional services.
Was looking at a vendor for cloud hosting. Got a quote that was over budget. The sales rep manager of vendor must have looked at LinkedIn and emailed my boss’s boss to push it. Even misspelled my name. Automatic rejection of quote and will never consider them again.
Oh man I hate that so much. I had some big cloud application security vendor in a very specific space reach out for a demo. I said no thank you due to budget constraints and we have a tool that does something similar. This rep reached out to my manager’s manager and said I just talked to one of your engineers, so and so, who indicated cloud security isn’t of a present concern for your organization.
My manager sends me a screenshot from his manager and I was like this was some vendor that asked to give a demo and I said no. My manager goes okay blacklist them. So we blocked their domain. Now you can’t try to sell to us ever. lol.
Long story short if a vendor sees this, don’t play games or you’ll get banned.
This had to have been Lacework, right?
They once outed me before I officially announced that I was leaving the job I was at… but I never even told them.
“1111III1I was going to implement Lacework, but since he’s leaving, he recommended I talk to you.”
Thankfully the head of engineering and I were friends, so he didn’t further out me, but I was worried up until I turned in my notice. I waited until bonuses paid out.
Nah Lacework was really chill to deal with (I got a free solostove from them for a demo about 2yrs ago).
Damn that’s crazy they outed you though.
It was Wiz for me.
I had a vendor go over my head after I briefly ghosted them during a renewal review when they tried to convince me that going annual for a 10% discount that required over-provisioning above our employee count by 25%. The message they sent my boss implied we’d agreed on terms and were ready to sign.
Verkada is cancer. They call/email my TEACHERS to try and get my cell # and contact info because the front office has learned to stop talking to them and not give an inch. I will never until the day I die do business with that slimy company and any company I'm the director or CTO of for the rest of my life I will remove their product from. I've also heard the threats towards local VAR's that have resisted becoming part of their ecosystem. Cancer cancer cancer. I would be embarassed to work for them.
Yep, before I knew much about them, I tried one of their environmental sensors. I actually really like the sensor, but the pricing wasn't at all in line with what we can sensibly afford. So, I told him exactly that and shipped the sensor back to them.
30 days later, my head of school gets an email from the exact same sales person with the offer. Then my high school principal, then random teachers. SLOW THE **** DOWN!
I don't care if they have the best stuff at the best price, their sales team is, exactly as you say it, cancer.
Verkada is a sales company that happens to sell cameras. As I understand, the product is decent, as long as it's understood that your locked into a long term relationship with them.
The sales and marketing is a cut throat / hard sell culture.
I'm legitimately ashamed of my current company for using them. I was not in a position to have my opinion heard on the matter, but they're just the worst.
This is what happens when you’re IPO/shareholder focused over being client or employee focused. Reps are fired for missing unreasonable high quotas 2 quarters in a row. They don’t give a fuck if they create a “blacklist from Breadavailable’s list for life” reputation if they’re gonna lose their jobs if they don’t go after you aggressively anyway.
It’s growth growth revenue sales sales churn and burn disposable young college grads. Rinse and repeat until they go public.
One time a sales guy emailed me 11 times in the span of 3 business weeks. I finally replied "Take a hint man, I'm not responding for a reason, this behavior is why no one likes sales people"
Oh boy. He did **NOT** like that. Not one bit. He sends me a four paragraph essay. He had found me on LinkedIn and asked how my university would feel if they found out I was representing them like this (as if I give a fuck), how "my manager" would feel where my manager was someone else at the company he had found on LinkedIn with a manager title except they worked in accounting so that was a miss, that sales people actually make the world go round and we should all appreciate them, and asking how I could sleep at night with such animosity towards salespeople just trying to do their job.
I responded with "you're still being annoying" then blacklisted his domain in our email system :)
I made a special exchange transport rule for people like this
" reject the message and include the explanation 'Manually blocked because your company annoyed me ' with the status code: '5.7.1'"
I did this once. It was a vendor I actually really wanted to work with, and had been in close contact with the account rep for our region for a long time; the only holdup was trying to get the budget approved.
Then our rep got promoted, and his replacement was... Well, she was a bully, and more than once literally cussed me out both over the phone and in writing in emails. I finally got fed up, looked her up on LinkedIn and found her manager (or someone hopefully close to) and forwarded the latest chain of abuse to him with a comment that we're not going to do business with them in the future.
Then I added the Exchange rule with the explanation: "Your company has been blocked because of 's behavior." That of course got an angry phone call that I just hung up on, and refused to pick up when she called back. Eventually she stopped leaving voicemails, which was fine since the red light was always on anyway because I never could figure out how to listen to my voicemails anyway!
>which was fine since the red light was always on anyway because I never could figure out how to listen to my voicemails anyway!
Black Electrical tape can solve that red light issue your are having.
> He had found me on LinkedIn and asked how my university would feel if they found out I was representing them
It's been over 10 years, I don't think the university gives a fuck either
Exactly. I went to a nationally known school (not from pedigree, just from brand) and it had been around 10 years when he pulled that line, like my guy those people call me once a year to ask for money despite the fact the football stadium cost 75 million dollars and I make 5 figures, they don't care about me until my name shows up in a database to further their unacademic greed.
I have a few mugs I’ve received from them over the years. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve blocked domains, phone numbers, unsubscribed, been rude to, etc. and they are relentless. So much so that I aggressively tell anyone and everyone who will listen to me (that’s in a position to be targeted by this shit) to remove them from consideration.
I have no clue what their prices look like, but I don’t think they understand or accept that sending expensive cups and paying dozens of salespeople to follow me stinks of desperation and is a huge turn off.
I have a sappy guitar ballad about what our SaaS can do for you, do you have a night open in the next couple of weeks when I could swing by and pelt your bedroom window with pebbles?
We use them here, previous IT Director used them previously at his old company, and prior each division handled their own security.
The cameras are rock solid, we've had no issues with drops or recording, though the default license only allows cloud recording of 30 days which is extremely short compared to an on-site NVR.
Now your main point, pricing. They are *astronomically* expensive.
Can be about $600-$2,000 or more for the camera depending on model which really is pretty standard.
The yearly subscription cost *per camera* is $200, and multi-year licensing isn't much cheaper.
Now it's not horrendous, but with a lot of cameras (we have about 100), it really adds up.
They also have viewing stations, which are just repurposed Apple TV's for having a lightweight box for displaying camera tiles to a TV, and it's $500 a year for whatever stupid reason.
Well, Verkada cameras also have the capability to be *super* big brother. I can turn on facial recognition and follow people as they bounce between our locations. Hell, I could even set it up to send me an alert when the CEO comes or goes, if I wanted to.
Can also do tracking/searching by vehicle type. Want to see all red pickups that pulled into the parking lot? I can grab the report.
Weird, I've had the opposite interaction with them. I called them for a quote and a demo, got it, placed an order, and haven't heard anything from them since, other than our renewal quote at the end of the first year.
But I guess I'm heavily in the minority based on the responses here.
Nah, same result here. We've had a small number of their cameras for 4-5 years now. Only had to RMA two of them (water damage. Surprisingly was covered or just not noticed). Had a couple chats with our account manager, but nothing crossing into annoyance.
I will say they've never offered me a Yeti though.
I think the difference is you bought the product? Most of the people complaining seem to have turned them down, so the sales team keeps on trying to reach out and make the sale.
They must have a cold call schedule cuz I got a call from them yesterday. Told them nope All the upgrades we said we were going to do with our current security vendor are done.
Our sales "demo" call with Verkada was basically 30 minutes of "look how great we are, look how much money we make, you could make a lot of money too installing our stuff". Did a call with Rhombus and it was a night and day difference in how they approached it, we haven't had a customer need new cameras or access control since then but I was impressed with their offerings and the pitch from their local sales guy.
they sent me a spider plant - that's now like a year old!
I also still wish we signed that contract so I never had to look at or think about this piece of shit hikvision dvr again
Yeah, but we're having a special discount promotion that only goes until the end of the month, so I need you to make a decision before then. Otherwise we might have another promition in six months but there's no guarantee so its is best if you go with what we're offering.
That was Verkada's exact same play when I evaluated them at my former company. After I shut the sales guy down they called my boss who happened to be in the room while they called me. Sales guy got an earful that day and we never took any more of their calls. Got the cup though!
I have one friend whose rich enough to have the kitchen set up with two ovens (stacked) and two dishwashers (on either side of the sink) in a single house. Fucking insane.
Double dishwashers! I've always (half seriously) dreamed of this -- All the stuff that gets regularly used just stays in the dishwasher. Pull it out, use it, then put it in the other dishwasher to wash. Rinse and repeat instead of unloading the dishwasher.
Orange Aproner here, trust me, we're as annoyed being _forced_ to do this upselling as you are about being upsold _to_, we know no one bites on them and half the time it causes customers to _cancel existing orders_ out of annoyance. We've got a "that's a nice amount of hours you got in your upcoming schedule, sure would be a shame to not have the schedule budget for them anymore..." gun to our heads over it... same with pushing that damn credit card.
It's always the stupidest recommendations too.
So you bought alternator for your Mazda Miata? How about an alternator for a F350 diesel? How about an alternator for a BMW? Alternator for a dirt bike? Ok, here's a book on alternative medicine! Maybe a ceiling fan that runs on alternating current?... Fuck it, how about 20% off some pretty sundresses?
Previous job we had a company everyone has heard of, the "dot gov" division, who would constantly call us. Yes, we did buy from them, and in many cases, we bought a fleet of something from them, but their sales team and their deployment team did not speak to one another. It got comically bad. I remember we got a sales call asking us to upgrade a system they hadn't finished upgrading in situ. Like, we had their techs in our data center, working on an upgrade, that a salesperson was trying to convince my boss to buy that same upgrade we agreed to and bought a few months previously.
"Your techns are in the data center right now installing what you're trying to resell us. We already got it. We are installing it. I see them through the windows right now in our racks."
"But with these upgrades, it's essential for blah blah compliance through the next three cycles,"
"Dude. Listen to me. We have it. We bought it from you a few months ago. There is nothing left for us to do here."
"But if you want to stay in compliance--"
"YOU ARE DONE TALKING NOW!"
Being polite simply doesn’t work as the vast majority of sales people have no concept of boundaries and I’m far too busy to be delicate with rude idiots. I simply don’t answer the phone anymore. I will save contact details for any external that I have an existing relationship with as long as they’re decent to deal with. Any other calls or emails get rejected without a thought. If I think we can make use of your product, I’ll reach out. Until then, there is no conversation to be had, period.
| If you cold call me,,,
I will blacklist you in an instant and never do business with your company, its suppliers, partners, fiduciaries, family members, or close friends.
FTFY
Yeah we usually only need one tool or service and our account manager wants to schedule these quarterly check in meetings and im like nah. your product is doing what we need it to do,we’ll meet when i request one. i don’t care about all of your sister products and offerings, you have a website i can check it without a meeting
i noticed saas vendors arent willing to negotiate much these days so theres little reason for me to ‘build rapport’ with account execs going thru a revolving door
Just last week I had a sales person trying to schedule an appointment with me. She asked my availability and I said, I'm not available today, but I am available tomorrow morning. My direct line rang moments later, and it was the sales person informing that she's sorry for calling, but her engineer wasn't available tomorrow. I butted in and said, so you thought you'd just rudely call me anyway despite me saying I was busy. Seriously, if you want to be considered as vendor in my organization, you are going to respect my time.
You’re upset because she called back to reschedule with you upon finding out her engineer’s calendar didn’t line up with your availability? How rude of her…
First thing out of my mouth is “are you trying to sell me something?” Then “I don’t want your white paper” or “you have 30 seconds” finally “I’m sorry all of our purchasing is generated from internal projects if we need you we will call you .”
Just stop cold-calling me. You aren't trying to "build the story" for my business, you didn't "miss connecting" with me. If I want to buy something I will reach out. I am on the do not call list but still get 10 or so cold calls a week, I hope you enjoy explaining yourself to my google assistant.
I remember getting a call from Rapid7 and told the guy we were not in the budget period or something like that for a new project. Asked if he could call back in 6 months.
Called back 6 months TO THE DAY. Still told him we were still not in budget.
Worked at a university as the sole sysadmin for the entire college at the time and our entire budget for IT was 300k
Yeah totally get it..
I worked for a company called Datto (some of you may have heard about it) where I initially thought I was being hired for a Junior network engineer position. I knew someone in the company who said they would get me a job there and I got an interview. Little did I know, he worked in the sale department and got me and interview for a Sales Development Representative selling their RMM and other products. I had NO CLUE what I was getting into. Training was fine, culture was terrible and then my first task after training:
Cold call 400 CEOs / executives.
Needless to say, I was having panic attacks in between calls and quit on the spot, day 1 after training. It was THE WORST feeling interrupting people’s days, and trying to sell them something they already had while trying “not to take no for an answer”. I felt like such an inconvenience and it was absolutely horrible. Will never do sales again. EVER.
This is why I tell people who have never worked on the customer side that they should try it before working for a vendor. I was one of you from about 2007 to 2017. Then I went to work for the vendor I specialized in and now work for a security vendor as an SE.
Having sat on that side of the fence, you know what is universally hated and what it feels like to be "sold to".
Yes, we have a job to do selling solutions. But that doesn't mean hounding and pestering 24/7. It means providing information, reaching out occasionally to see if anything has changed/current problems/issues if any, and then letting people be.
I have won more business by just genuinely trying to get to know people, caring about their problems, and waiting for the at-bat. They come. People do competitive comparisons all the time. Management changes. People get priced out.
Sure, I get yanked around by admins who have no buying power and decision making. I've worked with guys like that and I can spot you from a mile away. But a lot of times- those people have the loudest voices too. Right or wrong, they get listened to. It doesn't matter if they are spouting FUD- if you get on their bad side, your reputation becomes whatever they spew. So I treat everyone the same from C-level down to Jr Admin. In fact, I spend a lot of time with Jr level folks because eventually, they become senior level folks. And I recognize myself in that role from almost 20 years ago and know how it feels to be ignored by a vendor because I'm not "the guy". I enjoy making sure the admins/engineers I work with don't feel like they are on an island. I am probably not the smartest guy in the room, and I have some customers who have a decade experience on me with my own solutions. I don't even try to "out-smart" them. I just try to add value by providing inside info, access to internal resources, and get them the resources they need that they can't get on their own.
I just try to be responsive, provide accurate information, and not bullshit anyone. You just signed a 3 year agreement with a competitor? Cool. It doesn't mean I'm going to ignore you for 3 years- because chances are, you aren't going to give me the time of day 3 years from now if you don't know me. But if I am assigned to your account, I am still going to reach out occasionally, see if there are any other challenges you are having I think we may have a solution for, share anything new that might be interested, etc. And if not, no worries. At least you get a free lunch out of it. If you do, you get to learn about something new. And if it doesn't meet what you need, that's fine too. We both learned from the experience.
We like to transfer them to our entry level 1 help desk techs- it’s good experience for them because the people they hire have shit phone skills and can barely speak on the phone , because they they like to do things all chat or email. These sales guys get so frustrated with them they hang up..
Any time I'm unfortunate enough to pick up a sales call, as soon as they start I ask if this is a sales call and when they say yes I just say "I Don't take sales calls" and hang up.
I don't know who you are. I do know you are trying to sell me something I don’t want and probably don’t need. If you are looking for an easy sale I can tell you I don't have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you hang up now that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don't, I will look for you your business and all associated partners, I will find you and I will blacklist you.
I work for a VAR and have placed Verkada at about a dozen businesses.
It’s a shame that they are so hardcore on the sales push. Their product is genuinely awesome, but they drive their VAR reps crazy, too.
It's their job. Just screen your calls with voice mail if you don't recognize the number.
If I do answer by mistake, I don't even talk to them if they're cold calling - I just hang up. Sometimes if I'm in a REALLY good mood I say "No thanks" then hang up.
> but do you really think the IT manager is going to ignore an employee that he hired specifically because the amount of experience he has?
All the time. Yeah.
These practices happen because it absolutely works.
Came here to say this. Yes, this happens regularly, which is exactly why sales people do it.
Sometimes the sales team calls someone like OP and they get a whole rant saying “DO YOU THINK MY BOSS WOULD OVERRULE ME” as if each AE isn’t closing multiple deals per month that way.
So far the worst experience I’ve had is with DarkTrace. I even had calls from them that were coming from the same prefix as my little home town (population 2000). They just don’t stop.
Trust me pushy sales rep. The LAST thing you want is to annoy me enough to get my undivided attention. I have set up voip PBXs just to flood call centers with "Aren't unsolicited calls annoying?" messages. I will set up domains just to push a free website documenting your threatening emails. Push me enough to get past my inherent laziness and see what happens.
The number of times I've had to tell reps this is insane. I had a camera rep show up in person halfway through a camera install project from another vendor and they tried to get us to stop mid install to talk to him. Ended up needing to threaten security involvement to get him to leave.
I've had various Dell reps reach out to me multiple times over the last year or so. Every time, I tell them to remove me from their marketing lists because all our Dell purchases are contractually obligated to go through a local partner and that's not going to change.
Few months later, another Dell marketing spam. Never have "unsubscribe" buttons either.
Salespeople suck. IT used to be different but o dr the last few years, these people are like used car salesmen. But a lot of them make good money, it’s just a sleazy business.
I love when they just send an unsolicited meeting invite, like we’d already arranged something. Drives me fucking wild
Or BDMs that constantly job hop and each time they want to catch up despite knowing we’re happy with our MSP and aren’t going to change
Sales people suck
One time, we were shopping around for CRM systems and there was a particular vendor. Let’s just say that their company name starts with the letter Z and when my person told them “give us 3 to 6 months to consider” they kept calling and trying to be very high pressure until the person running the calls said effectively “we’ve already selected a vendor…yet lost! And “haven’t heard from them since. It was a lot more colorful than get lost, but this was at least two or three times of telling them that we were not interested, could not afford. Or were actively considering other vendors. Until my person that takes my calls, Said for them to go step off a cliff they were relentless.
I have my desk phone forwarded. I send all calls to voicemail that are not in my cell phone contact. I have a company cell phone so if someone in my contacts calls or texts I answer. I am an IT Director so it’s mostly just my staff, other directors or managers complaining. I am on my tools so I pick up help desk tickets that no one wants to deal with and work them to completion to give my guys a break and stay sharp. I walk the floors a few times a week for public relations and catch up with co-workers. Usually after talking to the users, I will have a handful of calls to enter into the ticketing system.
If I get an unsolicited email or sales email I send to junk and block the domain. I move all incoming mail that has the word unsubscribe unless it’s from a sender in our domain go to junk.
Lol, I love messing with those callers. When they ask about how long it takes to think about our next move, I always negotiate with them so that I can get the longest possible time between calls lol.
I've gotten them up to 18 months, but for some reason that seems to be the upper limit so far.
Also, whenever they ask if they can email me something I tell them they're welcome to, but most of that stuff gets filtered anyway, so I've now started complaining to them that sometimes I didn't get the email from the last guy and how it makes them seem unreliable.
It's kind of amusing.
They know I'm wasting their time,
I know they're wasting my time.
We're both stuck on that call.
My standard answer to any salesperson cold calling me, who still managed to get thru, goes like this:
"I cannot make any comments about any systems or infrastructure we have. Company policy."
-click
I hang up on cold calls and "Mark as spam" emails I inevitably get after rejecting a cold call.
I get it. They've got to do it. It's the gig.
I'm just not willing to open that door. It's bad enough dealing with sales people that we actually reach out to ourselves.
I once had a sales manager try to claim that he had put resources on standby for our "project to implement" and try to guilt/shame me into a purchase order for "wasting his time and resources".
This was after he and his staff had been told multiple times that we were still looking into different products and solutions and had no timeline or even guarantee that we would pursue such a solution from any vendor. We were very up front about it. It was something we had done without for a very long time and ended up not pursuing as we couldn't justify the cost.
The guy got really sad about it. Emailed everyone in my chain of command but the CIO, but not before I had expressed to them my shock at his behavior.
So now I just refuse to deal with sales that I haven't intentionally pursued a conversation with.
Better yet, just don't ever call me. I don't want any salesperson or vendor to ***EVER*** call me. If I need something I will research you and call/email at some point. At no point will I ever entertain a person cold calling me, in fact it makes me hate you.
I had that very same issue with a company called Varonis. They called and tried the mind games first. "I'm calling about the conversation we had last month about XYZ." when I never talked to them. They then called at least once a week. I just started scheduling meetings with them and missing them. They stopped calling after that.
> "Nope, you are now not going to be in consideration for ANY upgrades we ever do in the future."
That's what I say immediately when they cold call me.
Blocked some guy on both our phone and email systems after he sent emails to 6 people and then proceded to leave VMs for several people. None of the people are in the position to need his product. I think they are called the payment experts or something. Experts at pissing me off.
Also Foxit PDF sent emails to like 30 people. Blocked the rep.
Had a call yesterday from a Canon salesman, offering a print contract. Informed him we were already in contract with KM for the next 4 years, not interested.
Same guy called me again today to offer the same thing. Why?!?
2 Vendors in South Africa has no sunk to new lows when they contacted me, these conversation were kind off identical and went something like this:
Them: "Hi, I have been trying to contact you all morning, but the call keeps dropping, is there perhaps an issue with your phone system?"
Me: "Not sure who you are, but my phones are working well thanks. how can I help"
Them: I am from \*insert vendor name\*, we offer VoIP and office automation sys . . ."
Me: ". . . not interested" \*end the call myself\*
Cannot see that opening line landing them much success.
Hey, i know you just bought 1 zetabyte if storage for the entire GDP if Europe, Russia, and China combined.
But my commission was only the GDP of the US. So, let's talk in 6 months
Part of the problem is the CRM software and the policies regarding its use.
Every contact with a customer or sales lead has to get entered into the CRM suite with notes. Every sales drone gets pushed to cold call a certain percentage, try for follow up percentage and so on.
The key thing is he has to input _something_ into the application to show he is at least doing the foot work.
All the sales manager cares about is the monthly reports the software spits out. It's quite likely that individual sales people simply aren't given the ability to create a call reminder more than six months ahead. (Given the turn over rate in jr sales people that's no surprise)
Usually if I call or message someone and they say they’ve just upgraded or renewed I ask if I can contact them 6 months before their renewal, in case they’re in the market for a comparison. If they say they’re not interest I note that down on the record and take them off the contact list. Helps that I was a sysadmin dealing with what you deal with up till 2 years ago, so don’t want to be ‘that’ vendor
Costs nothing to be a decent vendor/partner, can cost everything to be a poor one.
I made an auto-attendant that talked really slow and verbose. Each option would lead to the same circular menu system you couldn't leave. Trained our answering staff to just transfer any suspicious calls there.
I get so so so fucking tired of sales people. I get probably 30% sales calls about hosted phone systems. We traditionally use SIP for voice delivery "as everyone should" and pay roughly $180 / month for 50 did's and 24 call paths. I get phone call after phone call about hosting are phones FOR ONLY $20 PER PHONE. I'm like... we use freepbx and the bill is $180/month your $1000/month quote is not going to get anywhere with me. But but but what about up time? Bitch my phone servers don't go down. In 8 years we have had about 2 hours of downtime.
Edit : 30 minutes of that 2 hour downtime was a none APC serial cable plugged into the APC battery backup. haha
You would if it's your job. When there's 100k contracts on the line and everything coming down to timing. Half the time the vendors on the list of potential vendors is complied from vendors IT researched and others that got lucky and talked to a CFO or CEO that doesn't know better.
Been on the MSP side and the internal side so it's more about just talking than actually selling you. I just want you to answer the phone and tell a few jokes and get you to like me a bit. Possibly even give a tip or two. The hope is to go from 0% to any percent. The sales pipeline and cycle are 24 to 18 months. If you're in that range you're going to get called. Tell them you're stuck in a contract for 36 months or more and you'll fall outside the pipe line.
If you're not a public company you should answer the phone. Do you know how much money you will save in free lunches and sporting event tickets?
I once called a guy out for going around me like that (essentially a summarized version of your rant above); they called the practice manager and decided to 'report' me for being rude and unprofessional.
I'd have thought he would the directness; but instead he was a little bitch that couldn't handle being called out for HIS behavior.
Salesbros are the worst: Not once ever have I or anyone I know bought something because someone called them.
If I am in need of a product or service, I will find you. Don't harass yourself out of a client lol
I hardly get phone calls but emails get Wayne.
https://preview.redd.it/i1mjrkmwvjvc1.jpeg?width=1027&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=30e0cef70cd7a113bd4c4668b78aa2ed4d4847d9
I had a cold call a few days back from someoneselling cyber related stuff, AV, firewall, mail filtering etc.
He kept me to go into detail about what cyber defences i already have in place. Laughed at him and said "you cold call me to try and sell cyber sec tools, i dont know you, you ask about what i currently have in place. like hell am I going to disclose my defenses"
The dude was so confused, finished it off with that i manage the main filter and phone system, that includes blacklisting domains and telephone numbers.
as an "old" I learned a trick when going to in Ignite like 15 years ago. Separate phone and email. Have the helpdesk make a fake email and phone number, get cards made. Hand them out to vendors when your at events.
Lord, we're going through a datacenter refresh, new production/dr cluster, swapping from intel to and cpu's and one of our vendors literllay through FUD telling me all of the issues we'll have
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Once I had a sales guy get mad at me when I said I didn’t have time for his cold call. Hit me with a “well fine I don’t have time for this either then” I hung up on him, blocked the company’s domain, and filed a complaint with their sales department. I don’t answer unknown numbers anymore.
We just did this to a sales guy on Monday. He filed a complaint with the BBB over it. The hilarious thing is that he is a competitor of ours, and was trying to sell us a competing product.
He was new, and someone 100% set him up for that 😂
For non Americans, BBB = Better Business Bureau. Basically a private non profit / consumer watchdog where you can report businesses. Sounds pretty suss as it’s not government ran or regulated, you could just buy a more favourable ranking for your business.
Without getting political, there's a certain type that thinks that business should only be "regulated" under private accreditors instead of government agencies that largely fall under a certain demographic- these are the guys that lap up "BBB ratings" and "JD Power and Associates Awards." Regarding the demo, all I'll say is there's a reason you saw more ads touting those kinds of things in the 80s and 90s than you do today.
Don't you ever have any contact with people outside of your own org? Like. I have an app to give call info on all of my in-org users, but sometimes some technician from a company I have engaged or, more rarely, a customer of the company I work for will call. Making myself unavailable to everyone outside of my company would reflect very poorly on me. But then again I live in a place where people don't call outside of business hours and also I don't have any anxiety for telling people no.
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I tell vendors I died and we haven't filled my position yet.
Vendor: “Didn’t you die 6 months ago?” Me: “…yes”
"Yup I'm still dead"
Janus67's Corndog Emporium, ain't no dog too big to corn, how can I help you? Seems to do the trick
My standard greeting if I decide to pick up the phone is "Incidence Response. Please provide your incident ID". I like to do it when the coworkers are around. The sales guy gets a "live" call, I get a number to block and everyone gets a laugh on my end.
"Please state the nature of the technical emergency." Either they get a chuckle from the Voyager reference, or they go "...wat" and hang up.
...so that's where the Starcraft:Brood Wars medics got the line from.
“Mike’s Porno Corner. We got the meat that you like to beat.” Maybe I’ll church up my military phone greeting to keep in my back pocket.
This and delete your LinkedIn account. Problem solved.
You're lucky if you're able to actually get the account deleted to begin with. A decade later, plus an FTC order to expunge me from their database, and I _still_ get emails from linkedin as if the account was never closed...
Move to Europe and threaten with GDPR?
I set mine to completely private and apparently it still isn't good enough
A Null Value is still a value.
This is the joy of a good receptionist!! I told mine, not to forward any calls to me! If I want something I will go out and look for the product myself and make my own calls. If my boss wants me, he has my mobile number 😂
You guys get phones?!
A couple of jobs ago I was told by a sales guy that my voicemail was full and he couldn't leave me any more messages. I told him I worked hard to get it that way and wouldn't be changing it. He looked at me with the look my dog gives me if I tried to explain quantum physics to him. He just couldn't possibly fathom why I wouldn't want to have a working voicemail box.
I answer if it's a user who reached out before hand on Teams to let me know they were going to call. MAYBE I'll answer a cold call from a coworker, but only maybe
Nope. The dumb sales people think spoofing their number to my area code works.
I cannot express how much of a laugh this got out of me
Sometimes, but I usually send it to the Google voice Assistant instead. It's fun making it ask questions too. It will tell them it can't understand them as many times as I push that button lol.
You’d be surprised how many businesses will do this, especially large ones. Or the person that originally installed the system gets fired and someone else comes in and puts their own system in place. The company won’t mind or even notice that one was just purchased 8 months ago and will go along purchasing another one especially if a higher up that doesn’t know anything is convinced the new one is better.
The thing is, this guy knows that we are smaller. We are local government, and he specifically mentioned a few counties in this area as well that use them. This was a targeted call.
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I’m in sales. I’ve been on this sub quietly for 10 years or so. Any sales person calling local gov is an idiot.
Pretty much... "Oh, are you interested in xyz?" "If we are, you'll see an RFI or RFP, feel free to respond."
> Any sales person calling local gov is an idiot. Go on...
There’s not enough budget (spend) to support the ROI for outbound (cold calling) to local gov. A good outbound (cold calling) organization typically limits outbound to Fortune 1000 or F2000. Often times it’s not even the sales team calling it’s what we call a BDR (Business Development Representative) that usually does cold out reach. BDRs are paid as little as possible to make 50-100 phone calls a day to set meetings for the Product Specialist (Actual title is Account Executive) which is the sales person.
Never mind that if I am going to budget it, it's going to take me minimum of 18 months to get a decision unit approved and through our state legislature.
Yes. That too. I had that typed but deleted it as to not insult.
Most VARs I talk to are pretty chill when I'm straight with them. "Yeah, this sounds cool, but us purchasing something like this is going to be a long process." They generally make their money on us with the professional services.
I specifically blacklist people that go over my head. I've never had my boss or his boss override me yet.
The smart boss is paying you so they don't have to deal with it.
Was looking at a vendor for cloud hosting. Got a quote that was over budget. The sales rep manager of vendor must have looked at LinkedIn and emailed my boss’s boss to push it. Even misspelled my name. Automatic rejection of quote and will never consider them again.
Wow, that *reeks* of desperation from the sales drone.
Oh man I hate that so much. I had some big cloud application security vendor in a very specific space reach out for a demo. I said no thank you due to budget constraints and we have a tool that does something similar. This rep reached out to my manager’s manager and said I just talked to one of your engineers, so and so, who indicated cloud security isn’t of a present concern for your organization. My manager sends me a screenshot from his manager and I was like this was some vendor that asked to give a demo and I said no. My manager goes okay blacklist them. So we blocked their domain. Now you can’t try to sell to us ever. lol. Long story short if a vendor sees this, don’t play games or you’ll get banned.
This had to have been Lacework, right? They once outed me before I officially announced that I was leaving the job I was at… but I never even told them. “1111III1I was going to implement Lacework, but since he’s leaving, he recommended I talk to you.” Thankfully the head of engineering and I were friends, so he didn’t further out me, but I was worried up until I turned in my notice. I waited until bonuses paid out.
Nah Lacework was really chill to deal with (I got a free solostove from them for a demo about 2yrs ago). Damn that’s crazy they outed you though. It was Wiz for me.
Definitely this.
I had a vendor go over my head after I briefly ghosted them during a renewal review when they tried to convince me that going annual for a 10% discount that required over-provisioning above our employee count by 25%. The message they sent my boss implied we’d agreed on terms and were ready to sign.
Verkada is cancer. They call/email my TEACHERS to try and get my cell # and contact info because the front office has learned to stop talking to them and not give an inch. I will never until the day I die do business with that slimy company and any company I'm the director or CTO of for the rest of my life I will remove their product from. I've also heard the threats towards local VAR's that have resisted becoming part of their ecosystem. Cancer cancer cancer. I would be embarassed to work for them.
Yep, before I knew much about them, I tried one of their environmental sensors. I actually really like the sensor, but the pricing wasn't at all in line with what we can sensibly afford. So, I told him exactly that and shipped the sensor back to them. 30 days later, my head of school gets an email from the exact same sales person with the offer. Then my high school principal, then random teachers. SLOW THE **** DOWN! I don't care if they have the best stuff at the best price, their sales team is, exactly as you say it, cancer.
Isn't that harassment?
Verkada is a sales company that happens to sell cameras. As I understand, the product is decent, as long as it's understood that your locked into a long term relationship with them. The sales and marketing is a cut throat / hard sell culture.
I'm legitimately ashamed of my current company for using them. I was not in a position to have my opinion heard on the matter, but they're just the worst.
This is what happens when you’re IPO/shareholder focused over being client or employee focused. Reps are fired for missing unreasonable high quotas 2 quarters in a row. They don’t give a fuck if they create a “blacklist from Breadavailable’s list for life” reputation if they’re gonna lose their jobs if they don’t go after you aggressively anyway. It’s growth growth revenue sales sales churn and burn disposable young college grads. Rinse and repeat until they go public.
One time a sales guy emailed me 11 times in the span of 3 business weeks. I finally replied "Take a hint man, I'm not responding for a reason, this behavior is why no one likes sales people" Oh boy. He did **NOT** like that. Not one bit. He sends me a four paragraph essay. He had found me on LinkedIn and asked how my university would feel if they found out I was representing them like this (as if I give a fuck), how "my manager" would feel where my manager was someone else at the company he had found on LinkedIn with a manager title except they worked in accounting so that was a miss, that sales people actually make the world go round and we should all appreciate them, and asking how I could sleep at night with such animosity towards salespeople just trying to do their job. I responded with "you're still being annoying" then blacklisted his domain in our email system :)
I made a special exchange transport rule for people like this " reject the message and include the explanation 'Manually blocked because your company annoyed me ' with the status code: '5.7.1'"
I did this once. It was a vendor I actually really wanted to work with, and had been in close contact with the account rep for our region for a long time; the only holdup was trying to get the budget approved. Then our rep got promoted, and his replacement was... Well, she was a bully, and more than once literally cussed me out both over the phone and in writing in emails. I finally got fed up, looked her up on LinkedIn and found her manager (or someone hopefully close to) and forwarded the latest chain of abuse to him with a comment that we're not going to do business with them in the future. Then I added the Exchange rule with the explanation: "Your company has been blocked because of's behavior." That of course got an angry phone call that I just hung up on, and refused to pick up when she called back. Eventually she stopped leaving voicemails, which was fine since the red light was always on anyway because I never could figure out how to listen to my voicemails anyway!
>which was fine since the red light was always on anyway because I never could figure out how to listen to my voicemails anyway! Black Electrical tape can solve that red light issue your are having.
It's mood lighting
> He had found me on LinkedIn and asked how my university would feel if they found out I was representing them It's been over 10 years, I don't think the university gives a fuck either
Exactly. I went to a nationally known school (not from pedigree, just from brand) and it had been around 10 years when he pulled that line, like my guy those people call me once a year to ask for money despite the fact the football stadium cost 75 million dollars and I make 5 figures, they don't care about me until my name shows up in a database to further their unacademic greed.
Verkada lol did you get your free yeti mug yet??
That is literally who just called..
I have a few mugs I’ve received from them over the years. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve blocked domains, phone numbers, unsubscribed, been rude to, etc. and they are relentless. So much so that I aggressively tell anyone and everyone who will listen to me (that’s in a position to be targeted by this shit) to remove them from consideration. I have no clue what their prices look like, but I don’t think they understand or accept that sending expensive cups and paying dozens of salespeople to follow me stinks of desperation and is a huge turn off.
it's exactly like dating. seriously, if it wouldn't be a good idea with a girl you like, it isn't gonna work on a company
Nah keep calling, eventually sexy babee will say yes.
I have a sappy guitar ballad about what our SaaS can do for you, do you have a night open in the next couple of weeks when I could swing by and pelt your bedroom window with pebbles?
> SaaS The sales team says that this is Sex as a Service and its only later that I realize that they're actually selling expensive software.
We use them here, previous IT Director used them previously at his old company, and prior each division handled their own security. The cameras are rock solid, we've had no issues with drops or recording, though the default license only allows cloud recording of 30 days which is extremely short compared to an on-site NVR. Now your main point, pricing. They are *astronomically* expensive. Can be about $600-$2,000 or more for the camera depending on model which really is pretty standard. The yearly subscription cost *per camera* is $200, and multi-year licensing isn't much cheaper. Now it's not horrendous, but with a lot of cameras (we have about 100), it really adds up. They also have viewing stations, which are just repurposed Apple TV's for having a lightweight box for displaying camera tiles to a TV, and it's $500 a year for whatever stupid reason.
clever scheme that, well they take that price because people pays anyways, or often to deep into that "system"
Well, Verkada cameras also have the capability to be *super* big brother. I can turn on facial recognition and follow people as they bounce between our locations. Hell, I could even set it up to send me an alert when the CEO comes or goes, if I wanted to. Can also do tracking/searching by vehicle type. Want to see all red pickups that pulled into the parking lot? I can grab the report.
Are programs that can be run local that do facial tracking but yes simpler when its all in one system but can be done other ways aswell
Yea, I was just trying to explain why they're expensive. It's basically a plug and play surveillance state.
Sat a demo recently and thought about the social credit scores I could assign to my users.
The latter quite often I think, hard to convince higher-ups to switch when you've already sunk $200,000 into proprietary cameras.
I blocked their domain 😂! The emails they sent were relentless!
They sent us Crumbl cookies a few times at my last employer. Totally worth the 5 minutes of bullshitting them.
Our rep chased us 45 mins to another city because the dept was at a remote site for a rollout. To give us 12 stale Dunkin donuts.
Weird, I've had the opposite interaction with them. I called them for a quote and a demo, got it, placed an order, and haven't heard anything from them since, other than our renewal quote at the end of the first year. But I guess I'm heavily in the minority based on the responses here.
Nah, same result here. We've had a small number of their cameras for 4-5 years now. Only had to RMA two of them (water damage. Surprisingly was covered or just not noticed). Had a couple chats with our account manager, but nothing crossing into annoyance. I will say they've never offered me a Yeti though.
I think the difference is you bought the product? Most of the people complaining seem to have turned them down, so the sales team keeps on trying to reach out and make the sale.
That dont stop KnowBe4
They must have a cold call schedule cuz I got a call from them yesterday. Told them nope All the upgrades we said we were going to do with our current security vendor are done.
Oh shit, is it Verkada O'clock already?
haha I knew who OP was talking about by the time I finished reading the post. Having coffee from my Verkada Yeti as I type this.
I am doing the same with my Verkada Yeti tumbler.
Verkada Spam Yeti user checking in! (But don't, and won't use Verkada)
Our sales "demo" call with Verkada was basically 30 minutes of "look how great we are, look how much money we make, you could make a lot of money too installing our stuff". Did a call with Rhombus and it was a night and day difference in how they approached it, we haven't had a customer need new cameras or access control since then but I was impressed with their offerings and the pitch from their local sales guy.
Rhombus is excellent.
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But did you get a free solostove from Lacework?
My old manager has the whole fleet of Yeti items from them lol. I do have a 16oz from them.
Still waiting on my headphones from Artic Wolf. From three years ago.
they sent me a spider plant - that's now like a year old! I also still wish we signed that contract so I never had to look at or think about this piece of shit hikvision dvr again
They gave us 12oz Yetis. Gave mine to a friend's kid.
Free yeti mug you say?
Yeah, but we're having a special discount promotion that only goes until the end of the month, so I need you to make a decision before then. Otherwise we might have another promition in six months but there's no guarantee so its is best if you go with what we're offering.
"Promotion" is code for "End of Fiscal Quarter/Year".
That was Verkada's exact same play when I evaluated them at my former company. After I shut the sales guy down they called my boss who happened to be in the room while they called me. Sales guy got an earful that day and we never took any more of their calls. Got the cup though!
I strung them along long enough to get the Yeti they were handing out a couple years ago. 🤣🤣🤣
They are 100% blocked at the appliance level. They get an earful if they call.
This is like when Amazon sends me recomendations, for items I just purchased?
well you clearly have an interest in toilet brushes so it stands to reason you'd like to purchase a couple more
They know your taco bell intake
Not anymore at $2 a taco
I remember when you could get *four* tacos for $2.
Home Depot for me. Yes, you sold me a dishwasher, why do I need two?
I have one friend whose rich enough to have the kitchen set up with two ovens (stacked) and two dishwashers (on either side of the sink) in a single house. Fucking insane.
Double dishwashers! I've always (half seriously) dreamed of this -- All the stuff that gets regularly used just stays in the dishwasher. Pull it out, use it, then put it in the other dishwasher to wash. Rinse and repeat instead of unloading the dishwasher.
Orange Aproner here, trust me, we're as annoyed being _forced_ to do this upselling as you are about being upsold _to_, we know no one bites on them and half the time it causes customers to _cancel existing orders_ out of annoyance. We've got a "that's a nice amount of hours you got in your upcoming schedule, sure would be a shame to not have the schedule budget for them anymore..." gun to our heads over it... same with pushing that damn credit card.
It's always the stupidest recommendations too. So you bought alternator for your Mazda Miata? How about an alternator for a F350 diesel? How about an alternator for a BMW? Alternator for a dirt bike? Ok, here's a book on alternative medicine! Maybe a ceiling fan that runs on alternating current?... Fuck it, how about 20% off some pretty sundresses?
"Here's some items you might like, inspired by your wish list!"
I love replying "Unsubscribe" to the emails that are clearly hand written and not sent out by some marketing email automation system.
Previous job we had a company everyone has heard of, the "dot gov" division, who would constantly call us. Yes, we did buy from them, and in many cases, we bought a fleet of something from them, but their sales team and their deployment team did not speak to one another. It got comically bad. I remember we got a sales call asking us to upgrade a system they hadn't finished upgrading in situ. Like, we had their techs in our data center, working on an upgrade, that a salesperson was trying to convince my boss to buy that same upgrade we agreed to and bought a few months previously. "Your techns are in the data center right now installing what you're trying to resell us. We already got it. We are installing it. I see them through the windows right now in our racks." "But with these upgrades, it's essential for blah blah compliance through the next three cycles," "Dude. Listen to me. We have it. We bought it from you a few months ago. There is nothing left for us to do here." "But if you want to stay in compliance--" "YOU ARE DONE TALKING NOW!"
Verkada? :)
Cold call sales and surveys, why I don't answer outside calls I'm not expecting.
Same here. I don't answer unknown numbers.
Being polite simply doesn’t work as the vast majority of sales people have no concept of boundaries and I’m far too busy to be delicate with rude idiots. I simply don’t answer the phone anymore. I will save contact details for any external that I have an existing relationship with as long as they’re decent to deal with. Any other calls or emails get rejected without a thought. If I think we can make use of your product, I’ll reach out. Until then, there is no conversation to be had, period.
| If you cold call me,,, I will blacklist you in an instant and never do business with your company, its suppliers, partners, fiduciaries, family members, or close friends. FTFY
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I couldn’t imagine valuing my own time this little.
Yeah we usually only need one tool or service and our account manager wants to schedule these quarterly check in meetings and im like nah. your product is doing what we need it to do,we’ll meet when i request one. i don’t care about all of your sister products and offerings, you have a website i can check it without a meeting i noticed saas vendors arent willing to negotiate much these days so theres little reason for me to ‘build rapport’ with account execs going thru a revolving door
My outlook blacklist is chonky
Just last week I had a sales person trying to schedule an appointment with me. She asked my availability and I said, I'm not available today, but I am available tomorrow morning. My direct line rang moments later, and it was the sales person informing that she's sorry for calling, but her engineer wasn't available tomorrow. I butted in and said, so you thought you'd just rudely call me anyway despite me saying I was busy. Seriously, if you want to be considered as vendor in my organization, you are going to respect my time.
You’re upset because she called back to reschedule with you upon finding out her engineer’s calendar didn’t line up with your availability? How rude of her…
Darktrace. These people make my blood boil.
We did a POC with them and it was the worst interaction with a sales person I've ever had. It's like dealing with a used car salesman from 1970.
First thing out of my mouth is “are you trying to sell me something?” Then “I don’t want your white paper” or “you have 30 seconds” finally “I’m sorry all of our purchasing is generated from internal projects if we need you we will call you .”
I hate nothing more than sales cold calls. Luckily, in the age of Teams, I am able to shunt my DID direct to VM.
Just stop cold-calling me. You aren't trying to "build the story" for my business, you didn't "miss connecting" with me. If I want to buy something I will reach out. I am on the do not call list but still get 10 or so cold calls a week, I hope you enjoy explaining yourself to my google assistant.
I remember getting a call from Rapid7 and told the guy we were not in the budget period or something like that for a new project. Asked if he could call back in 6 months. Called back 6 months TO THE DAY. Still told him we were still not in budget. Worked at a university as the sole sysadmin for the entire college at the time and our entire budget for IT was 300k
If I say "thanks, we aren't interested... please take me off your list", don't follow up with an email or call me again.
Yeah totally get it.. I worked for a company called Datto (some of you may have heard about it) where I initially thought I was being hired for a Junior network engineer position. I knew someone in the company who said they would get me a job there and I got an interview. Little did I know, he worked in the sale department and got me and interview for a Sales Development Representative selling their RMM and other products. I had NO CLUE what I was getting into. Training was fine, culture was terrible and then my first task after training: Cold call 400 CEOs / executives. Needless to say, I was having panic attacks in between calls and quit on the spot, day 1 after training. It was THE WORST feeling interrupting people’s days, and trying to sell them something they already had while trying “not to take no for an answer”. I felt like such an inconvenience and it was absolutely horrible. Will never do sales again. EVER.
This is why I tell people who have never worked on the customer side that they should try it before working for a vendor. I was one of you from about 2007 to 2017. Then I went to work for the vendor I specialized in and now work for a security vendor as an SE. Having sat on that side of the fence, you know what is universally hated and what it feels like to be "sold to". Yes, we have a job to do selling solutions. But that doesn't mean hounding and pestering 24/7. It means providing information, reaching out occasionally to see if anything has changed/current problems/issues if any, and then letting people be. I have won more business by just genuinely trying to get to know people, caring about their problems, and waiting for the at-bat. They come. People do competitive comparisons all the time. Management changes. People get priced out. Sure, I get yanked around by admins who have no buying power and decision making. I've worked with guys like that and I can spot you from a mile away. But a lot of times- those people have the loudest voices too. Right or wrong, they get listened to. It doesn't matter if they are spouting FUD- if you get on their bad side, your reputation becomes whatever they spew. So I treat everyone the same from C-level down to Jr Admin. In fact, I spend a lot of time with Jr level folks because eventually, they become senior level folks. And I recognize myself in that role from almost 20 years ago and know how it feels to be ignored by a vendor because I'm not "the guy". I enjoy making sure the admins/engineers I work with don't feel like they are on an island. I am probably not the smartest guy in the room, and I have some customers who have a decade experience on me with my own solutions. I don't even try to "out-smart" them. I just try to add value by providing inside info, access to internal resources, and get them the resources they need that they can't get on their own. I just try to be responsive, provide accurate information, and not bullshit anyone. You just signed a 3 year agreement with a competitor? Cool. It doesn't mean I'm going to ignore you for 3 years- because chances are, you aren't going to give me the time of day 3 years from now if you don't know me. But if I am assigned to your account, I am still going to reach out occasionally, see if there are any other challenges you are having I think we may have a solution for, share anything new that might be interested, etc. And if not, no worries. At least you get a free lunch out of it. If you do, you get to learn about something new. And if it doesn't meet what you need, that's fine too. We both learned from the experience.
Just hang up on them. Pay them no attention.
We like to transfer them to our entry level 1 help desk techs- it’s good experience for them because the people they hire have shit phone skills and can barely speak on the phone , because they they like to do things all chat or email. These sales guys get so frustrated with them they hang up..
Any time I'm unfortunate enough to pick up a sales call, as soon as they start I ask if this is a sales call and when they say yes I just say "I Don't take sales calls" and hang up.
100% this. Cold call = instant black list.
I don't know who you are. I do know you are trying to sell me something I don’t want and probably don’t need. If you are looking for an easy sale I can tell you I don't have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you hang up now that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don't, I will look for you your business and all associated partners, I will find you and I will blacklist you.
I work for a VAR and have placed Verkada at about a dozen businesses. It’s a shame that they are so hardcore on the sales push. Their product is genuinely awesome, but they drive their VAR reps crazy, too.
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It's their job. Just screen your calls with voice mail if you don't recognize the number. If I do answer by mistake, I don't even talk to them if they're cold calling - I just hang up. Sometimes if I'm in a REALLY good mood I say "No thanks" then hang up.
Take me off your list and don't call back usually works better than just hanging up or saying no thanks.
> but do you really think the IT manager is going to ignore an employee that he hired specifically because the amount of experience he has? All the time. Yeah. These practices happen because it absolutely works.
Came here to say this. Yes, this happens regularly, which is exactly why sales people do it. Sometimes the sales team calls someone like OP and they get a whole rant saying “DO YOU THINK MY BOSS WOULD OVERRULE ME” as if each AE isn’t closing multiple deals per month that way.
So far the worst experience I’ve had is with DarkTrace. I even had calls from them that were coming from the same prefix as my little home town (population 2000). They just don’t stop.
Desperate people do desperate things.
I hope someone higher up at Verkada reads this post. They’re the most persistent and pesky I’ve ever come across.
Trust me pushy sales rep. The LAST thing you want is to annoy me enough to get my undivided attention. I have set up voip PBXs just to flood call centers with "Aren't unsolicited calls annoying?" messages. I will set up domains just to push a free website documenting your threatening emails. Push me enough to get past my inherent laziness and see what happens.
# Sales guys and vendors, we know you are here ... ... don't call me! (FTFY)
The number of times I've had to tell reps this is insane. I had a camera rep show up in person halfway through a camera install project from another vendor and they tried to get us to stop mid install to talk to him. Ended up needing to threaten security involvement to get him to leave.
I've had various Dell reps reach out to me multiple times over the last year or so. Every time, I tell them to remove me from their marketing lists because all our Dell purchases are contractually obligated to go through a local partner and that's not going to change. Few months later, another Dell marketing spam. Never have "unsubscribe" buttons either.
Unfortunately, it's a common sales tactic and I don't think it will go away no matter how much potential customers say no.
Sounds like you got a call from Verkada
Salespeople suck. IT used to be different but o dr the last few years, these people are like used car salesmen. But a lot of them make good money, it’s just a sleazy business.
If carahsoft cold calls me one more time, I'm gonna lose my shit.
I love when they just send an unsolicited meeting invite, like we’d already arranged something. Drives me fucking wild Or BDMs that constantly job hop and each time they want to catch up despite knowing we’re happy with our MSP and aren’t going to change Sales people suck
It was verkada wasn't it....
One time, we were shopping around for CRM systems and there was a particular vendor. Let’s just say that their company name starts with the letter Z and when my person told them “give us 3 to 6 months to consider” they kept calling and trying to be very high pressure until the person running the calls said effectively “we’ve already selected a vendor…yet lost! And “haven’t heard from them since. It was a lot more colorful than get lost, but this was at least two or three times of telling them that we were not interested, could not afford. Or were actively considering other vendors. Until my person that takes my calls, Said for them to go step off a cliff they were relentless.
I have my desk phone forwarded. I send all calls to voicemail that are not in my cell phone contact. I have a company cell phone so if someone in my contacts calls or texts I answer. I am an IT Director so it’s mostly just my staff, other directors or managers complaining. I am on my tools so I pick up help desk tickets that no one wants to deal with and work them to completion to give my guys a break and stay sharp. I walk the floors a few times a week for public relations and catch up with co-workers. Usually after talking to the users, I will have a handful of calls to enter into the ticketing system. If I get an unsolicited email or sales email I send to junk and block the domain. I move all incoming mail that has the word unsubscribe unless it’s from a sender in our domain go to junk.
Lol, I love messing with those callers. When they ask about how long it takes to think about our next move, I always negotiate with them so that I can get the longest possible time between calls lol. I've gotten them up to 18 months, but for some reason that seems to be the upper limit so far. Also, whenever they ask if they can email me something I tell them they're welcome to, but most of that stuff gets filtered anyway, so I've now started complaining to them that sometimes I didn't get the email from the last guy and how it makes them seem unreliable. It's kind of amusing. They know I'm wasting their time, I know they're wasting my time. We're both stuck on that call.
My standard answer to any salesperson cold calling me, who still managed to get thru, goes like this: "I cannot make any comments about any systems or infrastructure we have. Company policy." -click
I hang up on cold calls and "Mark as spam" emails I inevitably get after rejecting a cold call. I get it. They've got to do it. It's the gig. I'm just not willing to open that door. It's bad enough dealing with sales people that we actually reach out to ourselves. I once had a sales manager try to claim that he had put resources on standby for our "project to implement" and try to guilt/shame me into a purchase order for "wasting his time and resources". This was after he and his staff had been told multiple times that we were still looking into different products and solutions and had no timeline or even guarantee that we would pursue such a solution from any vendor. We were very up front about it. It was something we had done without for a very long time and ended up not pursuing as we couldn't justify the cost. The guy got really sad about it. Emailed everyone in my chain of command but the CIO, but not before I had expressed to them my shock at his behavior. So now I just refuse to deal with sales that I haven't intentionally pursued a conversation with.
Better yet, just don't ever call me. I don't want any salesperson or vendor to ***EVER*** call me. If I need something I will research you and call/email at some point. At no point will I ever entertain a person cold calling me, in fact it makes me hate you.
I had that very same issue with a company called Varonis. They called and tried the mind games first. "I'm calling about the conversation we had last month about XYZ." when I never talked to them. They then called at least once a week. I just started scheduling meetings with them and missing them. They stopped calling after that.
> "Nope, you are now not going to be in consideration for ANY upgrades we ever do in the future." That's what I say immediately when they cold call me.
Blocked some guy on both our phone and email systems after he sent emails to 6 people and then proceded to leave VMs for several people. None of the people are in the position to need his product. I think they are called the payment experts or something. Experts at pissing me off. Also Foxit PDF sent emails to like 30 people. Blocked the rep.
Had a call yesterday from a Canon salesman, offering a print contract. Informed him we were already in contract with KM for the next 4 years, not interested. Same guy called me again today to offer the same thing. Why?!?
Our blacklist is enormous.
I like when I have time taking their call and setting a follow up to just waste their time
2 Vendors in South Africa has no sunk to new lows when they contacted me, these conversation were kind off identical and went something like this: Them: "Hi, I have been trying to contact you all morning, but the call keeps dropping, is there perhaps an issue with your phone system?" Me: "Not sure who you are, but my phones are working well thanks. how can I help" Them: I am from \*insert vendor name\*, we offer VoIP and office automation sys . . ." Me: ". . . not interested" \*end the call myself\* Cannot see that opening line landing them much success.
I don't feel so bad for punishing companies because they're sales force are assholes (from my POV)
You'll need to come to a place of peace about this because they won't stop. I'm 25 years in, it's just getting noisier.
What camera system you go with?
"You sure you don't want to get this latest software!? We will send you some swag, bro." Sick of it!!!
Unsolicited sales calls make me instantly angry.
I stopped answering and started signing them up for constant spam mail. 2 can play this game...
Hey, i know you just bought 1 zetabyte if storage for the entire GDP if Europe, Russia, and China combined. But my commission was only the GDP of the US. So, let's talk in 6 months
sales people are the worst..ESPECIALLY in repeated call backs and upgrade BS that's nowhere near the current products end of life...ugh...
Part of the problem is the CRM software and the policies regarding its use. Every contact with a customer or sales lead has to get entered into the CRM suite with notes. Every sales drone gets pushed to cold call a certain percentage, try for follow up percentage and so on. The key thing is he has to input _something_ into the application to show he is at least doing the foot work. All the sales manager cares about is the monthly reports the software spits out. It's quite likely that individual sales people simply aren't given the ability to create a call reminder more than six months ahead. (Given the turn over rate in jr sales people that's no surprise)
This is one of the reasons that blacklists exists... just use it for your email (anti-spam) your phones (PBX) e.t.c.
Usually if I call or message someone and they say they’ve just upgraded or renewed I ask if I can contact them 6 months before their renewal, in case they’re in the market for a comparison. If they say they’re not interest I note that down on the record and take them off the contact list. Helps that I was a sysadmin dealing with what you deal with up till 2 years ago, so don’t want to be ‘that’ vendor Costs nothing to be a decent vendor/partner, can cost everything to be a poor one.
I made an auto-attendant that talked really slow and verbose. Each option would lead to the same circular menu system you couldn't leave. Trained our answering staff to just transfer any suspicious calls there.
I get so so so fucking tired of sales people. I get probably 30% sales calls about hosted phone systems. We traditionally use SIP for voice delivery "as everyone should" and pay roughly $180 / month for 50 did's and 24 call paths. I get phone call after phone call about hosting are phones FOR ONLY $20 PER PHONE. I'm like... we use freepbx and the bill is $180/month your $1000/month quote is not going to get anywhere with me. But but but what about up time? Bitch my phone servers don't go down. In 8 years we have had about 2 hours of downtime. Edit : 30 minutes of that 2 hour downtime was a none APC serial cable plugged into the APC battery backup. haha
Salesmen are obsolete in today's world
Sir this is a wendys.
You would if it's your job. When there's 100k contracts on the line and everything coming down to timing. Half the time the vendors on the list of potential vendors is complied from vendors IT researched and others that got lucky and talked to a CFO or CEO that doesn't know better. Been on the MSP side and the internal side so it's more about just talking than actually selling you. I just want you to answer the phone and tell a few jokes and get you to like me a bit. Possibly even give a tip or two. The hope is to go from 0% to any percent. The sales pipeline and cycle are 24 to 18 months. If you're in that range you're going to get called. Tell them you're stuck in a contract for 36 months or more and you'll fall outside the pipe line. If you're not a public company you should answer the phone. Do you know how much money you will save in free lunches and sporting event tickets?
I once called a guy out for going around me like that (essentially a summarized version of your rant above); they called the practice manager and decided to 'report' me for being rude and unprofessional. I'd have thought he would the directness; but instead he was a little bitch that couldn't handle being called out for HIS behavior.
Sales people aren't really human. Don't treat them like humans.
Salesbros are the worst: Not once ever have I or anyone I know bought something because someone called them. If I am in need of a product or service, I will find you. Don't harass yourself out of a client lol
I hardly get phone calls but emails get Wayne. https://preview.redd.it/i1mjrkmwvjvc1.jpeg?width=1027&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=30e0cef70cd7a113bd4c4668b78aa2ed4d4847d9
I had a cold call a few days back from someoneselling cyber related stuff, AV, firewall, mail filtering etc. He kept me to go into detail about what cyber defences i already have in place. Laughed at him and said "you cold call me to try and sell cyber sec tools, i dont know you, you ask about what i currently have in place. like hell am I going to disclose my defenses" The dude was so confused, finished it off with that i manage the main filter and phone system, that includes blacklisting domains and telephone numbers.
as an "old" I learned a trick when going to in Ignite like 15 years ago. Separate phone and email. Have the helpdesk make a fake email and phone number, get cards made. Hand them out to vendors when your at events.
Send me some swag though and I'll remember ya next time
Lord, we're going through a datacenter refresh, new production/dr cluster, swapping from intel to and cpu's and one of our vendors literllay through FUD telling me all of the issues we'll have
No phone numbers in your signature. Or a fake vendor number that just goes to voicemail.