Today I returned to the office after a lot of time away this summer — working remotely, traveling for Inbound ’13, and filling the summer camp void with my son — and wasn’t at my desk more than 30 minutes before I received the first sales call, from an overly energetic inside sales guy reading a script about how his company can “fuel” my brand with content marketing. I told him I already use HubSpot, am quite happy with it, don’t have a marketing budget, and will just continue doing our content creation in-house. He suckered me into a meeting for next Monday.
Twenty minutes later I received a call from a woman saying she can help me “optimize my online marketing.” This time I was mad. I was missing valuable time on catch-up reports for August, and was supposed to be designing a new “trading GUI” for an international bank (my job is a hodgepodge of responsibility, for sure). I told her thank-you-very-much, but I use HubSpot and am happy with them, and not interested in any other services at this time.
I hung up and announced to my cubicle-mates that,
I’m not answering my phone anymore — it’s nothing but people trying to sell me something I don’t want, need, and would never get a budget for!
Then I realized I was saying this to a bunch of sales people whose cold calls go unanswered all day.
During the 2012 election my husband and I decided to get rid of our home landline because, even though we were longtime members of the Do-Not-Call-List, the incessant robocalls were driving us crazy. We are now a happily-uninterrupted two-iPhone household with a Do Not Disturb period of our choosing.
There’s a lesson in this, right? Outbound interruption sales and marketing is OVER. If you’re not delighting me, telling me the truth, and educating me on something I’ve expressed interest in, then stop messing with my day. HubSpot CMO Mike Volpe told us the first morning of the Inbound ’13 conference that even he doesn’t have a phone at his desk.
So, I’m not answering the phone anymore. If I want to find you, I will do it online in my own time. And you better damn well make sure I’m able to find your business when and where I want to find it.