Which sales methods irritate customers most (and least)?
Thoughts and opinions from an engineer-turned-marketer
Shortest answer:
Outbound methods.
Why outbound methods irritate customers
Outbound irritates potential customers for one simple reason: by definition you’re pushing yourself on them.
They didn’t ask you to interrupt whatever they were in the middle of doing. They may or may not want what you’re offering.
A lot of noise is generated by outbound selling (and outbound marketing).
If you’re going to do outbound selling, you’d better have a damn good message that’s going to resonate instantaneously.
Tips for being less irritating with outbound
I think the majority of outbound selling should go away or be dramatically reduced.
It’s a waste of people’s time and energy. There are usually (not always) better ways to sell.
However, if outbound is necessary, a few tips to improve outbound selling:
- Do a better job filtering down your list of permissible contacts.
- Be empathetic. What do they care most about?
- Be succinct. Hone your message. Ruthlessly eliminate words.
- Listen to what the potential customer is saying, not what you want to hear. This is not only good for the conversation you’re having, but good feedback for future conversations with other potential customers.
The spectrum of potentially irritating sales methods from most to least irritating
This is my sense based on my experience in marketing and observations I’ve made over the years. I don’t have data on this. However, I’d be surprised if a poll or study showed significantly different results.
A key point: your approach can have a dramatic impact on how irritating the method can be.
Here’s my ranking of selling methods from most irritating to least irritating to customers:
Level of irritation to customers |
Selling method |
| High – Should be wiped off the face of the earth | Outbound calling – see Inbound vs outbound marketing – this method should not exist in my opinion. Assuming you technically have permission to call these people, they still don’t want to hear from you. Just stop it.
Outbound Email – this method should also not exist. |
| Medium-high – Should be used very strategically and sparingly to be less annoying. | Outbound social media – mostly annoying. If the value proposition is strong enough and the fit is good enough, and the market isn’t aware of the product or service category, I can see the potential utility. However, the way it’s currently used is annoying.
Networking – mostly annoying. People acting like your friend and then trying to switch to selling to you. Puts a bad taste in my mouth. Referrals – see How to encourage referrals. I like this one when done sparingly and strategically. However there’s only so much that can be done actively. |
| Medium – Should be used very strategically to be less annoying. | Account-based selling – see ABE vs inbound. I think this has its place, but requires a very sophisticated organization to do well.
Tradeshows – what I like about tradeshows is that the expectation of selling is already set. Everyone knows that they’re going for a common set of interests and that there will be buyers and sellers. |
| Low – when done well, shifts from irritating to helpful | Partners – see partner channel sales & marketing tips. Partner channels can be a great sales method when the relationship is naturally symbiotic.
Inbound – organic or paid search. Positioned from the outset to be found when someone needs help with something. Philosophically I love it. |
Why inbound selling is generally the least irritating to customers
It’s simple: inbound selling is less irritating because your potential customer reached out to you for help.
They either did this because of:
- your inbound marketing efforts (i.e. organic search (SEO), paid search (e.g. Google Ads)), or
- another unsolicited method. For example, maybe they were talking to a colleague and asked them who they use to do X because they liked what they saw. So they reached out to you directly to see if you can help. This would be an inbound referral.
The general flow with inbound marketing looks like the following. Sometimes it’s more complex or nuanced than this, but this is the primary thrust:
- Potential customer has a need or wants to learn about something.
- Potential customer searches in a search engine or asks an AI chatbot (e.g. Bing Copilot, ChatGPT).
- Potential customer lands on your website.
- Potential customer gets what they were looking for and decides they’d like to discuss whether or not you think you can help them.
- Potential customer fills out a form on your website to initiate.
- You respond to them to set up a sales call.
- You have one or more sales telecons.
- You and the potential customer decide to move forward and work together (or not).
Notice the first several steps are initiated by the potential customer. They are in control of their journey. That’s a good thing in my mind.
Next steps
Want help being less irritating to your customers?
RocLogic is generally philosophically aligned with inbound marketing, in large part due to it being a less irritating and more help-focused method. If you’re interested in getting help with your inbound marketing, feel free to reach out for a chat.
In learning mode?
Check out these inbound-focused case studies:
Check out these articles:
- Roadblocks that stop tech services companies from moving forward on their marketing journey
- Actionable inbound sales tips for your first meeting
- Assessing the health of a B2B services business
- Good reasons and bad reasons to overhaul your website
- How can marketing actually help salespeople?
- How to Sell Engineering Services
- How to sell to existing customers
- Tips for selling software development services
- Inbound marketing for engineering companies
- Inbound marketing strategy for business services
- Inbound Marketing Readiness Self-Assessment Calculator
- Inbound marketing strategy for software development companies
- Marketing problems vs fundamental business problems
- Marketing strategy for launching a new service
- Pros and Cons of Inbound Marketing
- What data to capture in your CRM, why, and how to use the data
- When should you contact inbound leads?
- Why inbound marketing experiments fail
