I have a similar trick for dealing with ‘charity muggers’, those rent-a-fundraisers who are paid commission to bully you in the street until you donate to their charity.

As they approach you, radiating friendliness and openness, look them in the eye, smile broadly, greet them back and walk towards them as if you’re going to stop and engage. On no account let your body language betray defensiveness or hostility.

As you draw level with them, they will say something like ‘Can I talk to you for a moment?’. This is the request to engage, where – judging by your body language – they expect you to stop.

At that point you keep smiling, say a cheerful ‘No thanks’ and walk on by. They don’t have time to backtrack their script from ‘engage target’ back to ‘open the discussion’ before you’re long gone – and you still feel as though you have recognised their existence as politely as you can.

For me, it was a huge success, but I had a consumer facing company and a full time PR person. Customers loved it, reporters loved it, and potential business partners loved it…as did all the tedious sales people. It sounds like you are getting the partners and the sales people.

You can expect to get two more types of calls if you ever take funding (which you shouldn’t do) – financial advisers and commercial real estate agents. You can put them in the same bucket as recruiters.

For anyone who is basically a vendor, I add something along these lines to make sure they don’t keep calling back:

“Please remove me from your call list. We don’t accept telephone solicitations. If you want our business you’ll likely need to get someone I know and trust who already uses your service to make an email intro. I really appreciate you removing us from your call list so no one calls back. Thanks and good luck! (click)”