When does a person begin to consider someone who is persistent has crossed the line into being overly aggressive or even harassing? There is a company I had spoken to at one point about possibly providing data services for the one company I work for. They have a quality product, at a very reasonable cost, but their recent actions are bordering on getting themselves blacklisted from ever doing business with me in the future.

At first everything was great, and they would check in with me every couple weeks as we began to collect our data and make the first steps in replacing our current connectivity provider. Recently they have become very persistent, calling more and more frequently. Their responses slowly seemed to turn from friendly and jovial to almost offensive, to where if we didn’t choose their solution we were making a dire mistake, and that we wouldn’t be capable of living without them.

Fast forward to Friday and today. Multiple calls during the course of the day, asking people to walk around the office looking for me. Suddenly this company who at first I had some high esteem for the way they were conducting themselves as sales people have become those I despise the most. They seem to have forgotten the dynamic of our relationship. I am the potential client, and they are the eager sales representative. Never under any circumstances (unless something drastic happens after I’ve signed a contract) should a sales or account rep for a potential vendor ever demand that someone scour the office looking for me.

I am the client, I dictate our relationship. I like their product, and I’d love to use it, but right now I really don’t believe I will be able to fit it in our budget. As we grow within our office, I’d love to upgrade to their service as some point, but really, with the way I’m being treated right now, I don’t know if I would want to bother with it.

I think the old adage of you leave one message with your client and await their return call. There are simply times when talking with a potential vendor is not anywhere near the list of things that require your attention at that moment in time, and these past few days have been one of those.

To all those sales people out there, think of it this way. Customers have almost always made the decision of if they would like to use your product in the first couple times of talking with you; everything else is always details, timing or budget. But if you press too hard, well you just might just lose that future sale because you pressed to hard now.