This post is brought to you courtesy of a story
Jeremy just got done telling me.
Key Logistics (Jeremy's wife Nicole's family business) was recently shopping around for a new copier. In doing so they solicited bids from everyone Jeremy could find. He gave them all a list for features that he wanted and the various vendors came back with offers and bids.
They finally decided on a nice Ricoh copier (I will get the model number from Jeremy later), but it is a nice copier. It does scanning, printing, faxing, the works. Which is good for Key Logistics as much of their business model centers are the fax machine. The coolest feature that I think is that you can receive the faxes and have it email them to you, rather than waste paper printing them. The additional benefit of having a networked copier with fax capability is the fact you can digitally send a fax to it and have it send it out automatically.
The sales guy for a rival dealer that sells Minolta copiers was not happy that they signed the lease with the new vendor. I guess not happy isn't quite right, apparently they guy cried. Jeremy called me to tell me that the guy said he was coming back at 3 pm (eastern) to try and win the business back (the Minolta vendor apparently leased them their previous copier.)
I mean, OK, yeah it is the end of the month. So I would expect some pricing shenanigans or even possibly a sob story about how he needs the sale. I remember back one time at my previous employer, in a shipment I got from Cisco once we had all of this extra equipment (about $2M). I asked our sales guy "WTF". I was informed that the extra ($2M) equipment was going to be shipped right back, a few days after the quarter ends. Whatever, I wasn't the one in charge of the ordering.
Apparently, the
Cisco rep had convinced our sales guy to agree to this, because not only was it the end of the month, it was the end of the quarter. This extra $2M would help him make his numbers, keep his job, and make that much needed extra commission money, or some such BS. All I know, is that I had to safeguard $2M worth of extra gear until it could be picked back up and taken to a secure facility.
But never anywhere in that whole transaction did anyone shed a tear. There was cursing and ranting yes, but no crying.
I mean I can applaud the guy for tenacity, a good sales guy has to have tenacity. A great sales guy knows when enough is enough, because your just embarrassing yourself (and ultimately the company that you represent.)
I mean, they already signed the lease with the other company, and they don't need two copiers. So why, why even come back at 3pm. Set an appointment for 4 years from now (when the lease runs up) and check in with them once a quarter to find out if they are being treated well or if they have need for additional equipment.
But whatever you do, for pete's sake keep your composure and don't cry. Even if it is the end of the month, that happens to be at the end of the quarter, that just happens to be the end of fiscal year, don't fscking cry.
Ok, I need to run out and grab a sandwich.
Laterz.
