You aren’t coming to my funeral. You’re invited, but you won’t come.
I don’t want to go either.
What a sad state of affairs.
I realized that you aren’t coming to my funeral, that no one is coming to my funeral, while in a car going to lunch after a client meeting. The buyer/client was in the front seat. (The client always gets the best seat.) So on that day he was riding “shot gun”. The salesman was driving and me - The Marketing Manager - and the Sales Manger were in the back seat.
We passed a graveyard and that is when it all came crashing in on me. The stark and very vivid realization that you, and nobody else, is coming to my funeral.
The meeting had gone just fine.
Just in case you’ve never been to one of these meetings let me “set the stage” for you and tell you “whose who in the zoo”.
First, for this many people to be involved in a meeting it tells you that it is an important meeting; or that the client is in Florida and it is winter “up north” and everyone wants to go to meetings where it is warm.
The Professional Purchasing Agent (or buyer) is there representing his company. His job is to convince the sales people from other companies that their products are worthless. He and his company will be willing to help the seller by taking these inferior products as a act of charity. Its a favor to the seller.
And whatever price the seller’s company has set on his or her product is too much, simply out of the question and nearly a joke.
On the other hand…
The Professional Seller’s job is to convince the buyer that his product is the result of divine intervention. God Himself / Herself / Itself created this product and put it into the hands of His disciples (the sellers) to help companies make whateveritis that they make. The seller is doing the buyer a great service!
The seller tells the buyer that the price of his product is so cheap that the seller is likely to be in trouble with management if they find out the good deal that is being offered.
The Sales Manager is there because everyone knows that sellers are miserable excuses for human beings. His job is to help these poor souls. He is an evangelist sent out to show them how it’s done. He is the guiding light.
The Marketing Manager (me in the current case) is there to pay for lunch. That’s it. That’s all.
But it is a hazardous job. Every month the Marketing Manger must submit an “Expense Report” to accounting. In theory an accountant deep in the bowels of the company's basement looks at it. In practice they don’t. They just assume it is very, very big and forward it to the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for his prior approval before it can be processed.
Then, once a month on about the 4th or 5th or 6th, the Marketing Manager is summoned up to the 15th floor to seek forgiveness for this terrible transgression. How could anyone in their right mind submit an expense report like this! It is just too much, just way out of line, unimaginable. How could anyone spend this much money?
The poor marketing manager must visit the Vp's office. As one enters the Vice President of Sales and Marketing's office it is unavoidable to notice the taxidermy work hanging on the walls. All four walls have the heads of prior Marketing Managers hanging there. Some looking up and away in some kind of far off and noble stare. Others are looking right at you with an expression on their face that says, “You poor bastard”.
The VP says to you “Well Smithers, what do you have to say for yourself?”
And you think to yourself… my name is not Smithers. Who the hell is Smithers? Do I correct him? NO it’s best to let him kill Smithers and mount him on the wall. The goal is just to get out of the room alive and with your job.
That’s how it goes.
Back to the client meeting…
The actual meeting is where the salesman says very little. His job is to tell a joke or two. But not an "off color" joke because maybe the buyer is a Mormon or worse yet a Southern Baptist and might be offended by the punch line. And it can’t be an old joke because that would seem patronizing. And it can’t be a joke you just made up in the car… too risky. So as you can see the salesman has a hard job.
They always offer you coffee. And the Marketing Manger (me) has to weight out in a split second or two if to take coffee or not. If you say “yes” you might give the impression that you are very relaxed and not really serious about the meeting. If you say “no” then you may be impolite and risk not being appreciative of the hospitality offered. And if you say yes just to appear to be relaxed and “in control” then you need to actually drink it. And what if then you have to go to “the little boys’ room” at an inopportune time. So as you can see the Marketing Manager has a hard job.
We have kinda’ already played out the Buyers job.
The Sales Manager is there to “make the pitch’. It might go something like this:
“We are here today to offer you the unique opportunity to be one of the first customers to get to use our new ‘Super XP’ product. It has 2% less shrinkage and is able to give you more robustness in your “end product”, boosting productivity in your plant, making workers happy, improving the sex lives of all the secretaries in the building and promote world peace for generations to come.”
And the Buyer says, “What does it cost”.
It doesn’t matter what the Sales Manger says next, but he has to say something so he says something like… “Although it produces 10 times the amount of floropolymer nuclear plasma we are only charing 5% more than our standard product.
And the Buyer says (although he was not really listening), “Well that’s just too much. We can’t pay that”.
So they go back and forth. The buyer says that our competition was in yesterday and had a similar offer for their new product.
And the Sales Manager lowers the price to 4%. But the seller has an objection. And the well trained Sales Manger knows how to counter this objection and offers to lower the price again.
And the buyer is saying no way and he’s insulted, and his company is insulted and war in the Middle East may take place as a result!
So the Sales Manager asks “what will it take”.
And they Buyer looks up and down. Studies the ceiling tiles. Rubs his chin as if he’s thinking.
In the end the buyer agrees to take the products if the sales manager will mow his grass for the summer. And the Sales manager will allow the buyer to use his golf clubs for the season. And the new, super improved product will be prices the same as the old product.
They shake hands and we go to lunch.
That’s when it happens. That's when I realize you won't be coming to my funeral
To be continued tomorrow.
©David L Arment
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