Bad sales approaches

Frank Ready's article this morning will resonate with virtually everyone I am sure - those annoying vendor sales practices. Jim McKenna (Fenwick & West) and Joe Tate (Cozen O'Connor) share their issues on the receiving end and Chris Ballod (Kroll) shares his from the vendor side. I have noticed that the whole Amazon gift cards and Uber Eats thing have really spiked since COVID and in-person meetings stopped. I'm totally with Jim when he rails against "If you aren't using us, you are putting your employer and employment at risk!" type pitches. I'm also not a fan of the "The products you use now suck" belittling the competition approach. Chris thinks sales people not having experience with the products they sell is ok as long as they don't try to use technobable to cover it up. I'm not sure I agree with that. When it's clear the sales person doesn't know how the product works or what the use cases are, it's a waste of my time and theirs. I do agree with Chris that knowing your audience is critical. Asking me ten questions about my firm which are easily available via the website and other sources is a no-no. Joe takes issues with the inside sales rep approach that sets up a meeting with a more senior representative. To this list I would add a dislike for the calendar appointment as the initial contact and endless responses to their own email (the record so far I have seen is an even dozen). We recently had an issue where sales rep was calling our lawyers to pitch their products. I have no issue with that and in fact it sometimes sparks a different conversation with lawyers, which I welcome. As with Joe, I'm on the firm website if they want to reach out to me directly. But when that lawyer tells you they are not the best contact, hanging up on them is not exactly an award winning approach. And telling a layer you're part of my IT team and helping us deploy software is just despicable. When I worked for Hildebrandt, it was impressed on me as a young consultant that the best way to sell is to educate your audience, to sell with your knowledge. That would be my advice to anyone selling in legal. Read more at Legaltech news: From Ethics Violations to Scare Tactics: Legal Tech Sales Techniques Clients Don't Appreciate

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And now for the mini

Yesterday Jeff Richardson posted about why lawyers will love the new iPhones and today he turns his attention to the 6th generation iPad mini. At roughly the size of a 5x7 photo, in-between a phone and a full size tablet, Jeff says the size is a key factor. As Jeff concludes, "Sometimes, less is more." Read more at iPhone J.D.: Why lawyers will love the iPad mini (6th generation)

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Jeffrey Brandt, Editor

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