Everyone loves to complain about dodgy sales tactics. The spam emails, the LinkedIn pitch slaps, the rep that won’t take no for an answer. Fair enough. Yes, I agree those people are out there. Yes, we are seeing unprecedented cold outreach. Sixty percent of all emails sent in 2026 are spam. Over fifty percent of all phone calls received are spam. The average B2B buyer now receives over a hundred and twenty sales emails every week. One of the things a mentor said to me was that sales needs to constantly evolve, because as tactics get used, the customers get educated and build resistance to techniques.
Yes, sure sales and marketing is ever evolving and trying new things, sure some of it slips into unethical or downright illegal. While this is a post about dodgy stuff in sales, it’s not about us. Here it is in plain language, all the dodgy stuff you the customers do.
The Commission Only Ambush I get this one nearly every day. A company has this brilliant plan to work with us, we do all the sales and marketing and they give us ten percent of the sale. As I said to one director last week, ‘even if you offered me ninety-nine percent of your company I still wouldn’t do this.’
The Mystery Shopper Your competitor or their mates pretending to be your customer to get your proposal or contract.
The Web Enquiry Fills out your contact form. Asks intelligent questions. Books a meeting. Shows up and spends five minutes establishing rapport before revealing they are not a prospect at all. They are selling something. The enquiry form version of bait and switch.
The Wine Drinker Attends every networking event, has no money, authority or intention to buy anything, often acts boorish.
The Coffee Catch-Up The coffee turns into ninety minutes of free detailed consulting and question time, because you know, they want to do it themselves.
The Reference Extractor Gets through to late stage. Very serious. Asks for three client references or scrapes your website client testimonials. Uses those references as a cold prospect list for their own business.
The Budget Amnesia Loved the proposal. Very excited. Ready to proceed. Then remembers they do not actually have budget. Could you do it for half price, because you know, I’m a good bloke.
The Committee Member Always one more stakeholder meeting.
Can’t Say No Won’t give you a clear no. Strongly asks you for a follow-up fifty-plus times.
Seymour Wants to see more, see more. Has no buying authority.
The Main Character I had the owner of an accounting firm contact me for a meeting as he needed help with sales. After an hour he said to me, ‘OK so it is agreed, all of your team mention our firm on every call.’
I replied, ‘so you want other companies to pay our staff and office, then on their clock you want us to mention your company on every single call and in all our marketing material.’
‘Yes precisely.’
‘Why would we do that?’
‘Because we will give outstanding accounting services to them which will make you look good’, he replied seriously.
I left scratching my head.
The Benchmark They needed your proposal to show their preferred supplier what competitive pricing looks like or to satisfy a procurement requirement for three quotes.
The Scope Creep Agrees to the proposal. Signs the contract. Then keeps wanting more and more without expanding what they are paying.
The No Idea Competitor True story. Another sales agency contacts me, after five minutes I realise this guy has never been in sales. He has been selling sales strategy and management for years, has absolutely no idea about sales, but can talk the talk. He has written so many strategies that they have come back to roost. He needs someone to actually deliver the sales work and make the cold calls.
I said to him sarcastically, ‘you want me to fire all my clients, fire all my staff, close my business and come and be an entry level cold caller for you, so I get minimum wage and you get to do nothing and make all the money, off my back?’
Without batting an eyelid he said ‘yes.’
The Invoice Ghost Engaged. Onboarded. Received the result. Stopped returning calls and payment drags out while they hope you forget. I’ve had eighty thousand dollars sitting in an ex-client’s account for six months and had to go legal.
The False Start Tells you repeatedly that they are going ahead. Then goes with someone else or hires internally.
The Moving Goalpost You hit the goal but the goal suddenly moves again. Because you know. Fair.
The Endless Trial Agrees to a pilot or proof of concept that was supposed to demonstrate value and lead to a full engagement. The pilot succeeds. They want another larger pilot at the same discount rate, to help make up their mind.
The Internal Resource Uses your proposal and your process as a framework to build capability in-house, or worse to become your competitor.
The Savvy Negotiator Thinks they are an expert negotiator and that repeatedly asking for a better price will help.
The Calendar Culprit Aggressively schedules a time, then reschedules, then reschedules, then…
The Tenderer True story. I had a major company ask me to provide a hundred and fifty page tender document on how we planned to do the thing in fine detail, which becomes their free roadmap, then refused to have a post-tender meeting.
The Government Tender Nice big contract, but asks you to do a hundred page tender, in conjunction with two hundred other potential vendors.
The Old Boy Your competitor won before you got the quote request because they went to a prestigious private school together.
This Is an Emergency Needs a meeting today. Needs a proposal by close of business. Needs answers immediately. Then disappears.
The Bully Do it when I want, how I want, at the price I want.
The Referral Vampire Particularly influencers. Wants free stuff and promises exposure.
The Future Millionaire Says things like it is a twelve trillion dollar industry, you should get at least eighteen percent of that. Or if you had one percent of Facebook you would be a multimillionaire.
