Groupon Has Called Every Business In The United States

I don't think the numbers add up since MANY businesses are not the types of establishments that Groupon would do a deal with like let's say a personal accountant or a B2B focused operation. Also, my understanding is that Groupon has a ridiculous backlog of merchants waiting to get in hence the ease of entry of competitors since there's a high demand to test daily deals and Groupon has a waiting list. I think for a lot of sales reps, a lot more time is spent negotiating the right offer, terms, and closing the deal than on cold calling.

The headline should read, "If Groupon has 3,000 sales reps, and each rep calls 40 businesses a day, every day, then by the end of 2011, Groupon could have called every business in the United States." Not quite as catchy, but much more accurate.

Do these sales people never actually negotiate or require a longer call than about 30 seconds?

That would be a fairly unusual market.

Also, I'm assuming Groupon's US sales force probably handles all of the international markets too, otherwise enough sales people to call every business in the US would be massive overkill anyway.