My Favorite Sales Pitch of All Time

Ok, are you ready for it? "The technology is so unique I can't describe it in words. You have to see it."

No kidding, a woman calling to sell me an online advertising vehicle just said that. What an idiot.

I had a pretty good sense what her product was, so I humored her for 5 minutes. Humored her in that grumpy and impatient way I have when I know another silly person is wasting my time.

She embarked on a long-winded presentation that I forcibly cut short, and by the end I asked her to pull out a pen and take some dictation. I wanted to arm her with some actual words to explain what she was selling the next time a prospect asked, "Can you describe it to me?"

1. We developed some software that helps parents of myspace.com users protect their children from sexual predators. It is free to the parents, that's why 12.5 million have already downloaded our tool.
   
2. Once installed, that same software allows us to spy on their search behavior. When they type a phrase in any of the top search engines, we see it.


3. In response to what they type, we can hijack their browser and place an ad (your website) above the search results page.


4. You can actually buy a keyword! Own a keyword! And have your site appear above the search results whenever that keyword is used by someone in our network at any of the major search engines.

See now, that wasn't so hard.

Here's the part they left out. As soon as you subscribe, expect more hate mail than new customers. It's not clear to these 12.5 million parents of myspace users that the price they pay for the free software is having their search activity spied upon and their browser hijacked by massive 1/3 page ads.

We've run a few test campaigns on different networks with this same platform in the past...the results were beyond horrible. What resulted was a backlash against the advertisers, phones ringing off the hook accusing them of putting a virus on people's computers. It was a huge mess.

So, when your phone rings and the sales person says, "The technology is so unique I can't describe it in words. You have to see it." Just hang up, it's Portal Response Technology calling.