> As an example a person in a tech leader role at a major company in the UK who I thought may be interested in hearing about a product was quite rude about me never contacting them again ...

You didn't spam them did you?

Your description of their behaviour sounds a lot like the standard response to spammers. eg FOAD

No I did not, and that's the issue, a lot of these people are not actually interested in making things any better, they'd rather not be disturbed instead. And then something like what happened today happens. And then people are misdirecting blame to others. The leadership is in most cases to blame.

Interesting. What approach did you use to tell them about the product they hadn't heard of before?

In that particular case I contacted them by email, introduced myself and explained why I had contacted them specifically, what I knew about what they were doing and the problem I was solving and asked if they wanted to discuss it. They responded and said they were not interested. I replied and said that's fine, if they change their mind to get back in touch. They wrote back again with the 'foad' response as you suggested, really quite a shock considering I had expressed already that it was all good and I had considered it the end of the conversation and didn't actually expect a reply. Unless I actually share the emails with you I'm sure it just sounds like he said she said but I do think I'm describing this quite accurately, most people did not reply like this, especially people who I had researched and were generally interested in software and tech, they were either interested in discussing the opportunity or calmly explained why they were already good. I am just providing my experience of some bad leadership at the top when it comes to software/tech.

Well, it certainly sounds like you spammed them. :(

There is a distinction between spam email and a personalized targeted sales email. Mine was most definitely not spam.

I receive about 10-20 unsolicited sales emails a day that are "personalized", which I promptly delete.

If I am looking for a product, I will look for it. As far as I'm concerned, your emails are spam.

> I am looking for a product, I will look for it.

Note that this attitude is what pushes some sales teams away from reaching out to line management, and towards C-level-targeted sales. If you hate "golf-cart sales" outcomes where a C-level forces a solution down your throat, then learning how to communicate with sales people will richly pay off. It is part of managing upwards, by short-circuiting sales warm approaches to the management you report to, and turning them into your allies to help you pitch your priorities that happen to align with their sales goals.

I am up front with the sales people who approach me, and tell them when I anticipate the problem space they solve will rotate onto my front burners, my anticipated budget to switch (usually in the form of "if I switch to what you propose, I only have $X to do it with, all in, software and services"), the benefits from my current solution I want to ensure stay in place, and the pain points I want to solve. That usually ends the conversation right there and then, I'm tagged "no-contact" in their CRM, and the spam disappears.

In an ideal world, spammers wouldn't exist. Or at least C-level people who respond non-negatively, thus encouraging them to keep on doing it. :(

If people wonder why spam is a problem, it's pretty much because enough idiots respond to keep it worthwhile.

In my personal anecdata experience of observing C-level sales efforts from the inside follow this general pattern. I encourage you to look at these situations from an angle other than "all/most sales people contacting C-levels are spammers, and C-levels who respond neutrally/positively are idiots for not recognizing spammers".

Generally speaking, C-level relationships are cultivated over a long time with the kind of sales and marketing budgets you've read of; dinners, sporting events, wine tastings, etc., with some proven sales account manager. However, it takes a lot for some sales opportunity to rise to the level of bringing it to the attention of this relationship. If you want to stop what you call spamming, then your job is to manage upwards by ensuring pain points do not rise to that level. This keeps the sales account management activity focused on the numbers when the support contracts come up for renewal.

However, if you have not been successfully managing upwards, then lines of communications have broken down between C-levels, or between CIO to your level. The first you can't do much about. The second is partly within your control. If you ensure your manager has nothing from the business to complain about that can be addressed within the solutions you are responsible for, then you've done what you can about it; you can't fix what you aren't told, after all. Where most technology-oriented staff misstep is they think they need to hear it from their management; the staff who successfully short-circuit pain points coming up to the C-level's attention realize that they can also ask, and more importantly, demonstrate they can communicate and coordinate between departments and people to help address those business-oriented pain points before they percolate upwards.

Where these sales account managers pounce is when the pain points become so grave that the C-levels hear about it and feel they have to "do something" about it, and "it" is a competitor's solution. And if you really like that competitor's solution, and hate the idea of switching away, be on the lookout for a call from one of the sales reps assigned to help that sales account manager. If you've even heard about the pain point, then you will be able to help drive the discussion, and most of the time if your favored vendor is on the ball, close the window of opportunity for the sale to be floated up.

You're conflating real sales emails and spam again and really seem to hate sales people. How are the people who respond idiots for actually being happy to hear about a product or service that solves their problem and signing up.

I'm a C-level executive. I am more familiar with my infrastructure and pain points than any cold-call salesperson will ever be, so if I need a third party solution to a problem, I use the internet to find it.

I'm not going to waste my working time communicating with a salesperson back and forth for a product I'm not interested in. One, it only validates that I read their email, and two, the end result is the same - I don't buy the product.

Great observation.

Ahhh. That's a misconception on your part. There is literally no difference between any kind of sales email, and spam. All sales email to people that haven't opted-in previously, is spam. 100% of it. Thankfully, some countries have even introduced laws against it.

That's the reason for the FOAD response.

This may be your opinion but this is not a fact.

Well, you were wondering why the FOAD reaction, and we've clearly described why based on the info you provided.

Your willingness to listen or otherwise is on you. ;)

I was not wondering why at all, if it appears that way I did not intend it but I can't see anywhere I said that above.

Good point. You've convinced yourself the people you're spamming are in the wrong, and they should trust someone who's already shown to have a distinct lack of ethics.

Literally, by spamming them.

It's absolutely no wonder they're telling you to FOAD, as that's the correct response.

Please, change to a different profession. Preferably one that contributes to society in a positive way instead of your present one. :)

The problem is, that for CTOs, there are so many people who 'know' how to make things better for them. You can't listen to them all.