I'm a female in tech sales... I get a lot of gross comments. By far the worst was when before we kicked a meeting off the client asked if he could tell me about the sex dream he had about me the night before since he "knew we were meeting today".ย
This is just disgusting. Canโt believe anyone in their right mind would think this is even close to being in the same realm as acceptable or appropriate in ANY world. So sorry thank you had to go through that experience.ย
@ConstantineJohnsย thank you, it was a truly awful experience- and again the only reason I even put it on here to is hopefully encourage people to be proactively supportive of colleagues and offer to assist on meetings if a peer is ever uncomfortable with a DM. This type of thing happens more often than you'd know, every female b2b sales pro I've talked to has similar stories.ย
Thank you, the only reason I even told this was to hopefully open some eyes to the shit that female sales pros deal with (and other professions too, yes- but this one specifically incentivizes us to continue to pursue these kind of a-holes until we're financially able to say no to a deal)
Iโm sorry you had to deal with that. Just completely disgusting. I once had a new SDR who thought she was booking a meeting but in the exchange it was clear the guy was asking her on a date. I had no idea how to tell her that was happening.ย
I have a friend who has had similar things happen! She actually got out of tech entirely for this reason, kept having buyers ask her to do dinner meetings or happy hours that she wasn't comfortable with.ย
Nope- I just never went alone again. It's a double edged sword because he was one of my biggest clients and continually helped me hit quota. So, I wasn't about to ruin the relationship. However I did tell him "no, but you can tell my husband all about it" and that put a quick stop to it.ย
Still feel like I need a shower after just retelling that... euggh.
Prospect: My timeโs valuable. Do you wanna pay $10/ minute (or some shizz)? Letโs talk if you can. If not stfu and put the phone down. I was shaken for a good minute
Not mean or anything, but the "Just wanted to let you know we have decided to sign with your competitor." always hurts.
But worst I had personally, called a number, asked gatekeeper to put me through to XYZ, gatekeeper told me they passed away the day before. Had not had one of those before so that was a bit of a shock
Yeah, this is definitely painful. In some of my discovery calls where based on their LI profile they may have used a competitor software in a previous role, I'll flat out ask them their experience and whether they are considering that solution again.ย
Customer won't give me a yes or no on my pitch.ย A simple "no" would put an end to my calls/emails.ย Instead the guy says "I'm blocking you from ever calling or emailing me again"ย ย
dude blocked me in their exchange server and in their phone switch!ย ย
flash forward a few years and we acquire his IT/Phone company.ย He calls in and is forwarded to me and needs my help w some antiquated hardware.
I reminded him of how he blocked me... and then got him some new gear.
Somebody actually told me that they didn't need any financial planning because if they ran out of money they would just off themselves. Pretty terrible.
Yeah. A close friend of mine committed suicide about 1mo before that conversation so it really pissed me off. I made sure his supervisor (existing client) was aware of his gross unprofessionalism.
Once had the Managing Partner of a law firm ask me what floor my companies office was on in our building. Upon telling him that we were on the 26th floor, he responded promptly with:
"That's awesome. That's a high enough floor that you can jump out the window and kill yourself"
....I called him moments later to inform him I had jumped, not died, and wondered if that showed him I was serious about winning his business... Had to try get some entertainment out of a grim moment.
"The only thing wrong with this product is YOUR SALES PROCESS!" Guy was mad I was trying to ask questions to qualify his use case and that I wouldn't give him a discounted quote with no info.
I got a prospect that once said the following: "I'm going to pass you to my assistant" and he ended up putting the phone next to the toilet and flushed x4 times and then asked me, "What did my assistant tell you?"
Wasn't necessarily directed towards me but still by far the worst conversation I've had in my career.... Had a prospect get super testy with me about whether or not they would have the right to dox a private citizen using our platform (there was an advocacy / emailing component to the software).
Immediately had to take a shower after that negotiation...
I cold called a company, the owner went from "That's nice" to "Fuck off you scumbag fucking cocksucker" . I of course asked him to please refrain from using profanity ;)
"The only way you'll get 10-15 minutes of my time is if you hold me down and make me ;)" at 1 am, after he viewed my LinkedIn profile several times...I was an SDR at the time, and it fucked with my head for a few days. Forwarded the email to several other DMs in the company and asked if someone else would be more open to a conversation.ย
I was called a fucking scumbag parasite for enforcing a named user license password sharing problem.ย I have thick skin, but I had also just used their firm a few years prior to handle an issue for me.ย
Female in tech sales-Once had a prospect continuously hit me up on LinkedIn mentioning how Iโm a yoga teacher and sending me selfies and videos of him doing workoutsย
I know it isn't that harsh, but I like to build confidence and rapport but this email reply stung a bit:ย From Mr. Prospect - "Actually, you don't need to sell me. I will be back when we expand our operations."
Not the worst, but the countless times prospects from (DACH especially...) have threatened to sue me personally or report me to my company's DPO to get fired for calling them on the number they had on their LI profile or the CV posted on their LinkedIn...
Fucking. Puke.ย