I was talking to a colleague yesterday about an encounter she had with a young salesperson. My colleague, let’s call her Carol, and I were co-presenters at a networking event and met the salesperson there. After the event, the salesperson, I’ll call her Sue, called Carol.

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I just experienced a perfect example of how not to do sales. Someone I met at a networking event followed up with me by leaving a voicemail message marked urgent. He said he wanted to talk. Didn’t say why he was calling but wanted me to call him right away. I smelled a hardcore sales call. However, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was calling to talk about hiring my as a consultant or to build a relationship. [...]