What it looks like

​“Hey, Jeff. Love what you’re doing at Communications Edge...” 

Reality: The seller knows nothing about what my business is doing lately.

“Hi Jeff, I am very interested in what you are doing and wanted to invite you to combine forces to help your business have more exposure…”

Reality: In most cases, the sales rep is not interested in what I’m doing. Because he/she has no idea what I’m doing. The rep is interested in creating the illusion of interest… all aimed at earning my gullible response.

“Hi Jeff, I came across your website this weekend and was really impressed by your expertise. I was wondering if you had ever thought about teaching online? I think you could teach a great marketing class…”

Reality: The rep is not impressed. Because he/she has not examined my expertise. I’ve been teaching online for years. That fact is obvious if you invest 10-15 seconds in noticing. This seller could not be impressed by my expertise---without noticing the fact.

Why do I mark such messages as spam, so quickly? Why are your potential customers doing the same?

Because I’ve made myself vulnerable once too many times. So have your customers. How about you? Been burnt?

We’re being trained by sellers to distrust sellers. 

Saying whatever is needed to trick prospects into speaking is, too often, fair game. It’s become a "best" practice. 

Insincerity is, right now, a mainstream component of sales prospecting culture.

So what’s the big deal? 

Do your messages reek of insincerity?

Making ourselves vulnerable cuts both ways. Making ourselves vulnerable is the open, kind, positive-minded thing to do when receiving a cold email. We like to offer consideration to anyone who asks for it. Especially the sincere. It's what humans are programmed to do. 

We tend to think positively… maintain an “abundance mentality"... naturally. 

But trick me three or more times and shame on me!

Hence, we all learn to distrust sellers who exploit our vulnerability. Because it takes too much effort to sort the truly sincere from the (fake) “sincere.”

In the end, sales (and your brand) earns a bad reputation. 

“Buyers have seen it all,” says Scott Channel.

“As soon as they sense a whiff of insincerity, or that their time is being wasted, you are done. And for those that do agree to speak, the no-show rates (to meetings) are high and the closing rates are low.”

“Your closing rate is going to be lower when you start the relationship faking genuine concern and interest or rely on gimmicks. That sales relationship is built on sand.”

Lies? Misrepresentation? Surely this could not be true in your situation. 

But if you/your inside sales team practices activity based selling (ABS) you may have reason to pause. 

Most inside sales teams are becoming de facto marketers---ramping up activity “touch points” to scale outreach. More meetings or demos demands more emails, voicemails… more outreach.

This is leading to a dangerous need: Looking sincere, authentic and relevant to large numbers of people using mass email.   

But is your sincerity being seen for what it actually is? (insincere)

The problem with 'Activity Based Selling'

The ABS culture, mentality and practice is all about the numbers. ABS helps managers know how many proposals it takes to get one deal… and how many meetings are required for a proposal… and, thus, how many calls and emails must be sent for one meeting.

With ABS, success is reduced to squeezing more activities out of inside sales reps. But there’s a hidden problem emerging: Communication techniques reps are resorting to when communicating “at scale.” 

Lying. Insincerity. 

Indeed, how much sincerity do you have to fake to earn trust?

To be fair cold emailing prospects isn’t about earning trust. It’s about earning a response. I get that. But how effective is it to earn replies using an insincere advance?

What kind of replies can you expect? In my experience you may earn conversations with unsuspecting prospects. But once you engage in honest discussion they quickly back out of the “conversation.” 

Have you ever traded emails (or LinkedIn messages) with someone and suddenly realized, “hey… wait a minute, this isn’t about me after all… this ‘conversation’ is purely about them! They tricked me into listening to a sales pitch!”

Let’s set aside the issue of sabotaging one’s ability to close deals. How many times does it take for prospects to learn the pattern---becoming skeptical about all all inbound emails they receive?

Quick example & a fix