An example of an appalling sales approach

Don't get me wrong I am all for prospecting for new clients and using many different routes to find leads but I think one of our competitors "PrintWeek" have gone too far.

Yesterday one of PrintWeek's sales people registered as a job seeker on our job board, she then proceeded to apply to one of our advertisers with the following in the cover note section.

"Hi My name is Hannah and I am contacting you from PrintWeek magazine. I have seen that you are recruiting for a National Sales Exectuive, and I am quite suprised that this role is not being advertised with us. PrintWeek and Printing World are the market leading magazines for the Printing Industry with 99% of the marketshare We currently hold 64.48% marketshare online. (Stats are by HitWise, an independent organisation) Please call me, and we can discuss some oppotunities further. my telephone number is .... alternatively, you can email me. I look forward to your call Kind Regards Hannah Executive Recruitment Sales"

Our customer contacted us to let us know that he had received this and notified us that he had contacted Hannah directly to express his disappointment.

Now I could rip her sales pitch apart but I am far too professional to do this. The only thing I will pull her up on is to make sure you have spell checked any sales literature as it makes you look even more incompetent.

So many of todays sales people don't do any research to find out more about organisations before they approach them. This email highlights that she simply fired off an email without any thought and preparation. Surely you don't need to send sales approaches through your competition because you can't be bothered to get the customer's email address directly.

Things must be tough at PrintWeek if they are resorting to these subterfuge sales tactics.