Advertising with 60+ magazines and numerous web sites at any one time has allowed me to say no to many publications over the years. I've taken a special interest in remembering how different people take the rejection. There are those people that know that I was only testing their publication, didn't get the results I needed, and respond gracefully. Often they ask if they can get in touch with me in a few months to see if anything has changed. I remember those people very positively and (if things do change), I'll give them another shot. Next are the sales people with the back-pocket deals that suddenly come out. If you can improve my ROI, I'll probably test you again...but I'll want to keep the new rate.
But my favorite type of salespeople are the ones that try to shame me. "Why would you throw away your ad money like that?" "That's a huge mistake." Or my personal favorite was the SEO company that called and when I politely told them that I was happy with my optimization that we do in house and hung up, they called back to yell at me "Listen you little f****r, do you know who I am???" Yep. You're an idiot. But thanks for playing.
You won't win my business by shaming me. You won't win my business by telling me that I'm making a mistake. Convince me by providing the figures that back you up. Convince me by giving me a different solution that might work better. What do you think? Am I being too hard on them? Should I accept more pushback from someone I say no to and still give them another chance?
