2000 – 2007 “Smile & Dial”
I feel privileged to have joined the sales community at (what I believe) is the trifecta of sales styles. I started working during the tech bust of 2000 (leaving briefly for graduate school) and came back in 2004. This period of time in software sales was the height of “smiling & dialing”. I remember cold calling off printed lists of names/numbers with a telephone connected to a telephone line! There was no research, there were no “sales intelligence” – it was all General Benefit Statements & Feature, Advantage and Benefits.
