{
  "title": "Sales Behavior Taxonomy",
  "canonical_url": "https://jessicamalnik.com/resources/sales-behavior-taxonomy/",
  "video_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83jzaxVoW7A",
  "source_policy": "Transcript only",
  "experiment_duration_days": 7,
  "sample_size": null,
  "behavior_categories": [
    {
      "name": "Script reader",
      "definition": "Sounds personalized until a reply requires unscripted comprehension",
      "signal": "Direct question receives a default CTA or calendar link",
      "failure_mode": "Initial specificity unsupported by follow-up behavior",
      "better_behavior": "Answer the question before routing toward a meeting"
    },
    {
      "name": "Compliance officer",
      "definition": "Treats every request as another task to complete",
      "signal": "Professional, thorough, and willing to follow unusual instructions",
      "failure_mode": "Compliance does not establish differentiation",
      "better_behavior": "Explain why the method or offer is meaningfully different"
    },
    {
      "name": "Follow-up machine",
      "definition": "Prioritizes continuation of the sequence",
      "signal": "Repeated follow-ups continue despite unanswered questions",
      "failure_mode": "Persistence becomes detached from context",
      "better_behavior": "Resolve the open question or stop the sequence"
    },
    {
      "name": "Human adapter",
      "definition": "Temporarily leaves the script and engages with the actual conversation",
      "signal": "Answers specifics, recognizes the bit, and responds naturally",
      "failure_mode": "May still return to meeting-booking incentives",
      "better_behavior": "Preserve adaptive behavior through the full conversation"
    }
  ],
  "interactions": [
    {
      "interaction_id": "INT-001",
      "vendor": "Podcast growth company",
      "category": "Script reader",
      "initial_behavior": "Claimed podcast audit, visibility issues, data, and missed viewers",
      "request": "Asked how missed viewers were calculated",
      "response": "Sent a calendar link instead of explaining the calculation",
      "outcome": "Question repeated; conversation did not move past the first substantive step",
      "interpretation": "Methodology unanswered"
    },
    {
      "interaction_id": "INT-002",
      "vendor": "Accounting firm",
      "category": "Compliance officer",
      "initial_behavior": "Participated in the seven-day vendor framework",
      "request": "Asked to explain differentiation and write a raccoon accounting haiku",
      "response": "Answered questions, acted professionally, completed the request, wrote the haiku",
      "outcome": "Haiku remained memorable; methodology and differentiation felt vanilla",
      "interpretation": "High compliance, weak differentiation"
    },
    {
      "interaction_id": "INT-003",
      "vendor": "Unnamed salesperson",
      "category": "Follow-up machine",
      "initial_behavior": "Sent normal follow-ups",
      "request": "Given homework instead of a simple no",
      "response": "Partially answered, then continued increasingly passive-aggressive follow-ups",
      "outcome": "Original questions remained unresolved",
      "interpretation": "Persistence replaced resolution"
    },
    {
      "interaction_id": "INT-004",
      "vendor": "Podcast editor",
      "category": "Human adapter",
      "initial_behavior": "Received increasingly unusual sales requests",
      "request": "Asked for answers, specifics, and a haiku",
      "response": "Played along, answered, gave specifics, wrote the haiku, and engaged naturally",
      "outcome": "Eventually redirected toward process and booking a call",
      "interpretation": "Best adaptation, same eventual destination"
    }
  ],
  "findings": [
    {
      "finding_id": "F-001",
      "finding": "Personalization can collapse after the first reply",
      "evidence": "Podcast growth company redirected to a calendar link when asked to explain its calculation",
      "status": "Observed",
      "limitation": "Do not generalize beyond the documented interaction"
    },
    {
      "finding_id": "F-002",
      "finding": "Compliance can be memorable without creating differentiation",
      "evidence": "Accounting firm completed every request, but only the haiku remained memorable",
      "status": "Observed",
      "limitation": "Qualitative judgment from the narrator"
    },
    {
      "finding_id": "F-003",
      "finding": "Repeated follow-ups can continue without answering open questions",
      "evidence": "Unnamed salesperson escalated follow-ups while leaving homework unresolved",
      "status": "Observed",
      "limitation": "No sequence count supplied"
    },
    {
      "finding_id": "F-004",
      "finding": "Adaptive human behavior can make a generic offer stand out",
      "evidence": "Podcast editor engaged naturally and provided specifics",
      "status": "Observed",
      "limitation": "Offer still described as generic"
    },
    {
      "finding_id": "F-005",
      "finding": "Conversations repeatedly drifted toward booked meetings",
      "evidence": "Multiple examples eventually returned to getting a call booked",
      "status": "Observed synthesis",
      "limitation": "Transcript does not provide total sample size"
    },
    {
      "finding_id": "F-006",
      "finding": "The experiment revealed incentives more than individual skill",
      "evidence": "Narrator reframed the project as a systems experiment",
      "status": "Interpretation",
      "limitation": "Author's conclusion"
    },
    {
      "finding_id": "F-007",
      "finding": "The observed systems appeared optimized for activity, persistence, and meetings",
      "evidence": "Repeated behavior across examples",
      "status": "Interpretation",
      "limitation": "Not an industry-wide measurement"
    },
    {
      "finding_id": "F-008",
      "finding": "AI may make polished outbound less distinctive",
      "evidence": "Transcript notes AI can produce emails, follow-ups, tokens, and campaigns",
      "status": "Forward-looking interpretation",
      "limitation": "No external adoption data supplied"
    }
  ]
}