Making Buying Impossible

admin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:05:15 +0000

It is part of my job to find different vendors for a wide array of interactive Marketing activities, and I’ve started to notice that Sales People don’t seem to want to sell anything to me.

I try to be objective and think that it may be that since most companies let some people go at the beginning of last year; the sales department may be overworked. Maybe they don’t want to listen to the arrogant guy with an accent on the other side of the phone, or perhaps the company I work for doesn’t seem like a big fish; but whatever the reason is, it has started to bother me.

If there is one thing everyone in marketing, sales or the school of common sense learns is that you want to “Make buying easy”, as simple as that. If I’m calling you and leave you a voice mail asking you for a quote, means that someone did part of your job already (you got to love marketing), all you have to do, is either make the damn quote or give me a call back; TODAY. As simple as that, I don’t care if you had to leave early to pick your sick kid at school, you can at least acknowledge me from your blackberry before going to bed that day, or ask a co-worker to return my call, send me smoke signals, anything.

I feel bad for the employers of said sales people. Because I really want to either know more about your product, or I just want to plain buy the damn thing, but the company gets hurt by the incompetence of such people.

What to do about it? I sure don’t want to go and buy an inferior service/product based on the incompetence of the sales department, but I also don’t want to rely on a company that I don’t seem to be able to get in contact with.

I can hear the voices in my head (my brother mostly) telling me, call his boss and get him fired, and a side of fries (discount) while at it; and that sure sounds like the perfect solution, but in my experience, that guys/gals boss already know what kind of employee he has, and hasn’t been “able” to get rid of it, so chances are, the perfect solution won’t work in an imperfect world.

What to do, when I throw money at you and you are too incompetent to pick it up?

-Frank.

June 17, 2009 -- Sales – From the Marketing side of the fence (0)

Sales – From the Marketing side of the fence

Francisco — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:56:06 +0000

I’m a marketing guy, so I take seriously that proverbial fight between sales and marketing. With all due respect to the sales minions that I enjoy working with, I want to show you all what a typical sales process looks like from the client side.

Every once in a while (if not every week) you will receive a call from some random salesman that promises you a free lunch in exchange for your patience. I usually try to run, hide, camouflage, freeze myself alive –anything but answer my phone, just in order to stay away from salesmen. But those are crafty creatures, they go around you, wait in the dark and when you least expect it, they attack from behind and convince your boss (who is also trying to get rid of them) that YOU should listen to the presentation and of course a lunch.

This is how it usually goes: Its always one of the two; if it’s a man, it will be a short, balding, fat guy with a tie depriving his brain from oxygen, or on the other side (if it’s a woman), it will be a skinny lady, with a haircut that I’ve only seen before when 2 cats get in a.. – well, cat-fight. Between the excessive make-up, the Botox and the porcupine hairdo, it’s impossible to approximate their age, but they will let you know about how old their kids are and how much they like to play basketball, or paint, or some other skill that you can’t care less about.

They always show up with some younger co-worker, which looks smarter, wiser, and quieter. You know that’s the one you need to talk with (if any), but the salesman won’t let that happen. They have been trained that barking gets your attention, and he knows his presentation flawlessly. You won’t have time to talk, act, cough, clear your throat, or anything else other than breathing and let you’re A.D.D. take the best of you.

“How the hell she gets her hair to stay like that? Wow that’s got to take a lot of hair-spray. Is it me or it smells like baby powder in here? Wait, does she shave her face? I wonder if he can see his own weiner with that gut.” All these questions and more go through your mind while he or she ramble through a presentation, that will either lack of graphical help (pretty pie-chats) or have way too much of it.

“Great; I will take a deeper look at your proposal, consult with my colleagues and let you know…” You try to escape from the conference room and if possibly from lunch. Ha! Naïve, rookie mistake buddy; you will let him know, but not on your time. You will go to lunch and when you get back to your office, like an act of magic, you will find a new proposal in your email; “how, the hell he managed to send you a new proposal while having lunch with you? They are that crafty.

“Well at least I get to eat a good steak, or lobster if I want to.” Yes, but how much is your soul worth to you? You will be thinking that you will talk more business, hell, maybe he’ll repeat all you missed while wondering why would he wear a diagonal-stripes tie with a pinstripe shirt, but no; you will have an hour and a half of random small-talk. I hope you love small-talk, because I hate it. I don’t care for what you did last summer, or how cute your mom is. No, I don’t care to tell you the name of my cat, or her sleeping habits. “Oh, really, you like hazelnut coffee…” I DON”T CARE!!!!!

Lunch is always good and you finally get to escape from the salesperson grasp, finally free; WRONG! From that moment on, it will be a continuous harassment on his or her part, with phone calls and emails every single day. You would love to go to your boss and summarize everything she talked about, but you can’t remember; SHE HAD PORCUPINE HAIR!

February 16, 2010 -- Making Buying Impossible (1)
November 3, 2009 -- The Fun Theory (2)
August 24, 2009 -- Printex knows more than one way to skin the cat (3)
July 13, 2009 -- It takes a dream, hard work and balls (2)

Young and Employed » sales

Making Buying Impossible

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