When being contacted (interrupted) by marketers, ads come in three flavours:

• One dimensional messages, like TV spots and radio ads. The message is streamed in time, and is interrupted by an advertisement. This can be frustrating for the receiver as it can not be ignored or skipped.
• Two dimensional messages, like newspaper’s ads and Google’s AdSense. The ad is displayed by the information, so it partially draws user’s attention.
• Three dimensional messages, integrated with the environment in some way. These are the least intrusive.

Marketers will always want to get the biggest possible share of your attention, so they’ll prefer one-dimensional messages. One-dimensional means interruption. It means stopping what you’re doing to pay attention to what they’re trying say.

But it comes with a drawback: When you’re forced to pay attention, you’ll be less willing to listen. Being interrupted makes us angry and uneasy. We hate full-screen banners that make us lose time, but nobody cares about a little text in the sidebar.

So what about salespeople?

Salespeople will try to get a hold of you on the phone. They’ll call and interrupt whatever you’re doing in that moment. They’ll call back, or ask you to go on a Chat. They’re pushing their message.

Because they already know that an email is easy to ignore when you’re not interested, but a phone call is hard to dodge.

I bet there’s a better way of doing sales than interrupting your would-be customers. Your goal should be to get them to call you. Get customers to pull for your guidance. Rackspace’s customer chat gets this right. Check out their “fanatical support” and sales chats.

Unobstrusive ads are the way go, and sales should look for a pull from the customer, rather than a push from the company.

How do you manage the sales process in your organization?

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• Feelings and marketing
• The handbag tribe