Please, close late. And just occasionally.

I thought the "close early, close often" approach to sales was well and truly dead and buried. Unfortunately it seems not. Today I was on a mobile phone provider's website using the chat facilities to talk to their sales staff (an interesting new-ish channel for sales people that I should investigate more). Straight after I typed in "Hello", the first thing the sales person typed to me was "Hi. Are you looking to buy a contract today?"

OK, granted, this is not a close, but it's pretty high pressure and self-centered from the off. In fairness, this sales person probably needs to quickly qualify prospects, but the effect on me was immediate distrust and irritation. In any case, I'm not looking to "buy a contract", I'm looking to setting up on-the-move wireless for my funky new netbook. Where's your interest in helping me achieve what I want? I'm the one with the cash!

I ignored his or her questions and went ahead to get the answers I needed.