Relentless

Most salespeople never find out why a deal goes quiet. I got lucky. Two months into working at Relentless, I took a sales call with Will, a soft-spoken manager in sports media. Within minutes it was clear he was unhappy in his current role, didn't have time to run a proper job search, and was open to paying our $7k fee to outsource it. We scheduled a follow-up. A few hours before it, he messaged to say he'd "decided to go a different direction." A few days later I googled "Relentless reviews" out of boredom and started scanning Reddit. I nearly spit out my coffee. The most recent post was from Will. This quiet, unassuming guy had written that we were "clearly a scam" and listed what he called "obvious red flags." None of it was legitimate. A mix of things he'd misread on Reddit, speculation about our minimal online presence, misconceptions he'd assembled into a verdict. I spent an hour writing a point-by-point rebuttal and emailed it to him. He amended his review the next day: "Seems like an okay company if you can afford it." He still never bought. Our failure to manage our online reputation had already done its work. Most businesses lose deals the same way and never find out why. I wrote about why it happens and what to do about it (1st comment).