Help! I'm being sold to!

Doing B2B sales has been part of my job description for quite many years. It kind of seems to me that as time goes by, people are more and more afraid of being sold to.

When one gives a business a call and the person on the other side feels even slightly that this might be a sales call, they get very defensive - even aggressive. How many great opportunities are missed like this, how many good intentions are being wasted. Secretaries act as gatekeepers and often have no talent to distinguish useless calls and golden opportunities.

What I find interesting is that now when I am working for an ethical company and talk to other ethical companies - nothing has changed. For some reason I expected authentic conversations, as one world saver to another, but alas nothing of that sort is happening. Fear of being sold to seems to be greater than being attentive to opportunities to create synergy.