Effective trolling of B2B prospectors/spammers?
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I get a number of cold calls and cold emails (ie spam), using the "trick the prospect with a choice of Call Next Tuesday or Sometime Else" method. Here's a really-low quality example:
I this quite offensive! It's highly ineffective, amateurish, and there are much better ways to do cold prospecting. It's like watching people toil in Javascript, or other primitive programming languages, to try to create value. There are better ways if you could only learn them!
I feel a responsibility to make the world a better place, and I think I help these prospectors by educating them through failure. They need to know to qualify prospects first, explain value, all that -- and failing will help them learn how to get there. But also, I'm an asshole.
That said, what sort of trolling pipeline should I consider building? Basically I want systematize my dearest Amy and take it to the next level, of scheduling and missing these meetings.
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@apapadimoulis said in Effective trolling of B2B prospectors/spammers?:
I feel a responsibility to make the world a better place, and I think I help these prospectors by educating them through failure. They need to know to qualify prospects first, explain value, all that -- and failing will help them learn how to get there. But also, I'm an asshole.
Spam is an idiot filter. They're sending out a few thousand mails; they only want to engage in discussion with the stupidest 10.
Someone who has two brain cells to rub together who deletes the email is doing exactly what they want.
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If you want ideas, 419 Eater is probably one of the largest communities for scammer trolling stories.
They do have a tips and tricks page but I'm not sure if there's anything there about running a pipeline the way a competent sales department would do...
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Honestly I wouldn't bother unless you really find it fun - the amount of your own time you waste in the scheme will end up nearly as much as if you actually engaged with the prospector.
And these guys aren't (I don't think) 419 scammers, they're genuinely trying to run a business, albeit annoyingly, so I would feel bad about deliberately trolling them.
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@bobjanova said in Effective trolling of B2B prospectors/spammers?:
feel bad about deliberately trolling
YMBNH
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@bobjanova said in Effective trolling of B2B prospectors/spammers?:
they're genuinely trying to run a business, albeit annoyingly
I don't know. Random gmail address + super vague email? That's pretty much on the phishing level of emails IMO. Cold calling/emailing is shitty to begin with, but if you need to engage in that, at least make an effort to seem serious.
(So, as @PleegWat said upthread, this seems to be just a very base attempt at spamming, angling for the dumbest of the dumb out there.)
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@cvi said in Effective trolling of B2B prospectors/spammers?:
Random gmail address + super vague email? That's pretty much on the phishing level of emails IMO.
I really wouldn't follow any link or open any attachment they supply.
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@bobjanova said in Effective trolling of B2B prospectors/spammers?:
the amount of your own time you waste in the scheme will end up nearly as much as if you actually engaged with the prospector
This is about scalability here; sure, there might be an up-front in developing the B2B prospecting/spamming pipeline, but this could just run itself some day if built properly.
@cvi said in Effective trolling of B2B prospectors/spammers?:
I don't know. Random gmail address + super vague email?
This is true. The example I shared, definitely pretty scammy, and probably wouldn't make it far in the troll pipeline; but lot of these emails I get are real people though, and many will email+call, then email+call, then email+call.
I think we can all agree that the sensible thing to do here would be to simply ignore and delete. But as you should know, I'm a visionary, and I have ambitions. Maybe high ambitions, but some day, maybe, I could just build a more advanced Lennybot:
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@apapadimoulis When you don't have a business, it's called "Advisory Cloud." They keep dangling $500/hour consulting opportunities in front of me, if only I agree to pay a $300 onboarding fee and $200/month thereafter. Please target them too.
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@bobjanova said in Effective trolling of B2B prospectors/spammers?:
Honestly I wouldn't bother unless you really find it fun - the amount of your own time you waste in the scheme will end up nearly as much as if you actually engaged with the prospector.
What about bots with simple replies variations like:
"Hey, that sounds interesting, can you call me tuesday, 3h to explain me better?"
To all your spam folder and let them look at their schedules
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@sockpuppet7 said in Effective trolling of B2B prospectors/spammers?:
"Hey, that sounds interesting, can you call me tuesday, 3h to explain me better?"
I like where this is going. Set-up the meeting room, and have them talk to eachother?
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@apapadimoulis
It's 2020! Zoom meetings!
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@Luhmann holy crap could you imagine a Zoom-version of Lenny? This could be some seriously revolutionary AI-based trolling...
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@apapadimoulis Slightly lower-effort: Zoom meeting, but with you as a MITM (so, technically, two Zoom meetings, just that you take the video+audio from one and transfer it to the other, and vice-versa). Make sure that you can choose to drop frames and make the audio stutter and crap out on demand. See how much of that they are willing to put up with (just to figure out that they are talking to another salesdude and not actually a customer).
Besides, if you control audio+video, you can inject other content on demand, so that should allow for scalable fun over time.
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@cvi
You might as well just create a fake conf call system. Just send out those invites and see how long they can take the abuse.
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@Luhmann Make a fake conference call system and claim that it works on all devices… except those running Windows, Android or iOS. Claim that support for those is “coming soon!” and don't brook switching to anything else.
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@dkf
Complain about incompatible IE version on Android or requiring safari version 2 on ios. And Shockwave. Or RealPlayer. Or both. And request to update Java and link to a PhotoShop CS download ...
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@apapadimoulis take out a face book ad, advertising $$ for doing interviews. Give suckers a list of email addresses, and then at the end have them talk to Lenny.
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We're making some great trollgress here! I'm starting to envision a pipeline that could be entirely automated as needed. So let's talk about that. How can this be done?
Unlike Lenny, which strives to keep people on the phone for as long as possible, I'm envisioning a system that keeps B2B spammers pursing the lead for as long as possible through multiple mediums, and leading them through an increasingly bizarre world of our creation.
I mean look at this guy, R---, who sent me an email. He's just begging, "please take me on a true buying journey"!
I'm envisioning developing a persona of myself: a very busy CEO who can't type well on his mobile phone, but has a mercurial interest in whatever you're selling that has incompetent assistants who try (and fail) to act as a gatekeeper, among many other things.
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First response: this sounds interestingg, what's cost look?. The most likely will not respond with the cost, but instead what to know what my needs are.
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Second response: thank0-- awesome; okay i'll be offsite thru next wwk, can u get started w Brian, my assst?.
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First response from Brian (no CC to Alex): Thank you very much for your inquiry; after carefully reviewing things, I've decided that I'm not interested in pursing this at this time.
You can see where this is going. Eventually, I shift from Brian to Alyssa, who schedules a meeting, that I miss due to timezones but promptly apologize for. Next meeting is a video meeting, and Alex shows up really early: there's a webcam with a desk, sitting down, getting coffee, taking to himself, not realizing his camera is on, and then when the meeting officially starts, complains that he can't see or hear anyone else, does a bunch of reset things -- but eventually has to end because Brian interrupts with an urgent issue.
Perhaps the next meeting, Alyssa mistakenly schedules two people at once (as @cvi suggested). And so on. And maybe in the end, they'll finally end with a "sat-phone call with the CEO who's on Safari" who basically complains and tells them they need to qualify leads better.
It will be a relatively cheap life lesson for them, and a lot of lulz for us. Basically everyone wins.
@Luhmann said in Effective trolling of B2B prospectors/spammers?:
You might as well just create a fake conf call system. Just send out those invites and see how long they can take the abuse.
Hmm, yeah, some kind of fake scheduling system would be interesting. And I suppose I'll need a fake domain, like inedomail.com or something, to handle email automation?
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@apapadimoulis said in Effective trolling of B2B prospectors/spammers?:
could be entirely automated as needed
'Tis a lot of effort.
I wonder how far chatbots have come...
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@apapadimoulis What about using it as a service for non native english speakers to practice? If I had 1h a week to spare practicing english that would be a great service for me. We get an extra satisfaction of making spammers lose time, and they spend extra effort trying to understand our broken english.
