As someone who makes technology purchasing decisions, this article infuriates me. Datasheets and a pricing structure are fundamentally more efficient than sales snowjobs. The fact that this approach is apparently effective makes me weep for the intelligence of other technical decision makers.
To this day, I refuse to do business with companies like rackspace who spam website visitors with marketing materials and chat windows instead of giving me rapid access to network, datacenter, hardware, and pricing data.
The dirty secret is: it isn't effective. It's just that the funnel is the only channel incumbent sales and marketing people allow to exists (hence the bonfire), so for lack of alternatives it just seems effective.
Basically the author is describing how to construct and maintain a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The fact that this whole funnel is completely superfluous for almost anything but bespoke services has been proven by the internet for while now. Anything from online shopping, booking vacations to self-service advertising works just fine without hordes of salespeople.
To this day, I refuse to do business with companies like rackspace who spam website visitors with marketing materials and chat windows instead of giving me rapid access to network, datacenter, hardware, and pricing data.