Psst! Your Desperate is Showing…

My husband is a Network Engineer, and his day to day work brings him into contact with a variety of interesting individuals.  Every once in a while, he comes home with a story that leaves me speechless – something that is not an easy feat.  An email encounter between one of his clients and an overly pushy sales person this past week was too good not to share. 

The first email blatantly blasts Carbonite, a competitor of this data backup company that shall remain nameless:

“Dear XXX,

Here are just a fraction of the Carbonite reviews that are available on Google.  Unfortunately they give our industry a bad name.  If you already paid them for the year, I would chalk that up as a learning experience.

Since XXX is the owner and has the most to risk if the data gets lost, could you please forward these to him too.   You data is your most valuable asset and it needs to be protected properly.”

The person sending the email didn’t even bother with a personal closing greeting, he just attached an obnoxious, banner-width signature to the bottom – complete with his own head shot.  I kid you not.  In addition to asking the email recipient to share the email with his boss, Obnoxious Sales Guy took the liberty to CC him, just in case.

What is wrong with this type of sales tactic?  Aside from the fact that it is tacky, it does nothing to show the merits of this company’s product.  Simply attacking a competitor doesn’t show a potential customer any reason to choose you; it just gives them some possible reasons for not choosing someone else.

When Obnoxious Sales Guy didn’t get a response within a timely manner, he sent this follow up:

“Hey XXX,

I just wanted to touch base with you to see what you thought of the Carbonite reviews I sent you and if it makes you feel safe and secure.    No one in their right mind would, but I wanted to check just in case.

Actually, the one who should be the most concerned is XXX since he is the owner.  If the above email address is not his correct one, could you please forward him these?

Thanks.”

Hey kids, here’s a great idea!  When you don’t get a response from a potential customer, insult their intelligence!  And then verify that you had the right contact info when you tried to go over their head!

Here’s my question: Has anyone in their right mind purchased a data backup solution from this guy?  After a brief search on Obnoxious Sales Guy’s company name, I found that not only is he a sales person, but he is also the CEO.  In addition, there are more bad reviews out there about him than there are about Carbonite.  Methinks someone needs to revamp their sales strategy.  By sending Carbonite’s bad reviews, not only is he failing to show people what his company can do, but he’s giving them the idea to search for reviews.  I don’t think they’ll like what they find.