One of my former subordinates told me a little story. He is one of the most effective salesmen I happened to know and later became a friend for lifetime.
Some evening he had a long talk with the in-house trainer of his company. At one moment the trainer exclaimed that my friend is a hell of a great person and asked why he stayed hidden for so many years (about six). (more…)
Real Case:
The story, part one
A month ago, a friend of mine had an incident with his 3-years old VW Polo. As one of his employees was driving on one of the few and short motorways in Romania the car overheated and stopped.
My friend went to find out at the dealer what was wrong with it and soon discovered that the engine is destroyed beyond repair. The car’s mileage was 30000 km and had all checkups done properly as suggested in that authorized dealers service shop and everything under driver’s control were OK when problem occurred. The manufacturer warranty has just expired and the dealer immediately volunteered to make him a good offer for a new engine. However, my friend was less than happy to invest in a new engine for his old Polo an amount pretty close to the market value of the car. So he, furiously, requested a letter from VW stating that the Polo engines are designed to work properly for only 30000 km. (more…)
Two months ago I was talking to a friend who works in company involved in a merger. He mentioned about their management request that sales people should allocate time in the field to simply get know their counterparts from the other merging company in their territory.
I was wondering then why? Pretty often sales people within the same company either do not know each other or (if they know) do not work well together or care about their colleagues (not to mention that sometimes they truly hate each other). It may be nice that they are aware about who their colleagues are but is quite unlikely to provide any benefit in the short or medium run. It is so funny how during business as usual management do not really care who knows whom but in a merger situation they want everyone to know everyone to show progress through the process. It’s a kind of “keep’em busy until we figure out what to do next!” (more…)
Real Case:
UPC – I’m paying monthly for more than 3 years RON 80+ for digital TV and internet (actually I am paying TV services for close to 8 years). I receive together with the bill an offer for new customers (really stupid to send such thing for actual customers as you will see later). Guess what was stated in that offer? For the same service that I receive someone who has never paid a nickel to UPC pays RON 10+ less and, in addition, gets 3 months free (for 2 years contract) and gets new modems that are technically better than mine for free. I called and asked just for price reduction only and they said no, unless I buy additional/upgraded services from them which I actually do not need. Talking to the operator they agreed that the only way to get a cheaper fare is to cancel the actual contract and then get a new one with the new terms. So their marketers decided that someone walking on the street is far more important than a client who has paid regularly for almost 8 years. Guess what am I going to do? Cancel the contract! (more…)
A friend who works in sales just sent me a PowerPoint Presentation of a reputable training company in the field of sales titled just like above. It was a rather plain sales brochure trying to create awareness of their services.
The problems as resulted from a study involving 100+ sales managers on the market were no surprise for any professional in the field:
The authors also suggested that such problems could be “repaired” through training which I seriously doubt because I am perfectly sure that a great majority of the sales representatives have been exposed to such trainings before (except maybe last year in some companies) and problem still persists. (more…)
