[pvg]

Right but it's not really apocryphal because apocryphal doesn't connote or denote stereotypical, proverbial, cliche, conventional wisdom, caricature, etc. Salespeople playing golf with customers to close enterprise sales is not some uncertain thing that has reached us through dubious sources.

[smsm42]

It isn't? I certainly doubt whether it's true (not being in enterprise sales myself and not being important enough to end up on the other side of those sales) enough to make a cliche (I don't doubt somewhere somebody invited a client to golf to make a sale - but how common is it?) and haven't seen any reliable sources on the prevalence of it.

[pvg]

It's a big fat cliche. For instance, here's how Tony Rodoni (Executive Vice President for the Commercial Business Unit at Salesforce.com) starts a blog post of some sort:

"When I started in sales, my boss told me, "Your job is to get to know your customer and build a relationship. Nothing is more important than building a relationship.” The second most important thing was to make sure that the customer always won when we played golf."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/salesforce/2017/01/03/the-death...