I totally agree with Jerry! I get these calls daily, and I am sure Jerry has heard some of my calls with vendors, I like to think I have been doing this long enough to hear BS when I do but I try to be polite. I try to be polite and listen when someone acts professional, not this "Hey buddy how are you long lost friend here telling you how your an idiot if you don’t buy my product" pitch!
Advice to vendors, don’t start with this BS like your my best friend; "Hey Eley, how are you today, is it really sunny there in ... blah blah" and then just say nothing .... Introduce yourself, "Hi Eley, my name is Joe Jones and I am with X-Corp, I was calling to see if you have few minutes for me to tell you about our company and some of our products"! And do some research, look at our website, can’t stand it when someone calls and says, "now what franchises do you have" - do some homework people!
I got one of these calls today from a vendor that I have told repeatedly that I would not do business with them since they didn’t have time for me at DD10. Had an appointment, waited 15 minutes,, in that time only once did anyone acknowledge to speak with me while I stood there after i had said i was there to see X, and there were plenty of their people standing around talking to each other, high 5-ing, acting like they were all jacked on Red Bull foaming at the mouth for an “up”. My first mistake was waiting, (but I did grab a beer while waiting). Then when he was done with the other person acted like he was my best friend, so excited to see me. He looks around his shinny flat screen demo areas and says to me, "oh man, we're a little busy right now, you mind coming back when we got some more time to spend with you on this demo". ........... huh, "WTF" was on the tip of my tongue! Being a good southerner, I said sure, I'll catch up with you later. Unfortunately he already had my cell and burned it up the rest of the week, 6 phone calls from him. People, if someone walked into our showrooms, we made them wait 15 mins, then told them to come back when we were not so busy, hello....they aint coming back, and you’re probably going to get some negative review! All those fancy flat screens, your black leather couches (which not one of the 15 people standing around offered me a seat), everyone running around high 5-ing each other and whooping and hollering like you just scored to win a championship game with 2 seconds to go doesn’t make you #1 in my book and any more attractive to me than the quiet guys next door that I walked right over to and made time for me to demo their product and were very welcoming and inviting, and I went back several times more and felt very welcomed. And they did this on a laptop cause everyone was busy but took the time as a potential client is stadning in front of them.
Having an all in one solution doesn’t mean everything, I don’t care if you think you got the latest and greatest solution and I can be one with your products. I care about how I am treated when I am looking at your all in 1 solution, how you treat me from the beginning is a reflection how you will treat me and my team in the future!
And today I get cold called from some kid there; "Hey Eley, how are you doing today man", long pause "I am fine", and in this “kid stoner this is my first cold call” voice "great man, I am calling from X and we had talked with you back some time man, I wanted to let you know we were bought by X and all the great things we can now do along with X, and X, and also X man" i said, "ok", and he goes, "do you have 20 minutes man for me to go over these things cause no one else is doing anything like we can do". Where I told him politely I am not interested. "Ah man, come on , we really would like to have some time to demo this stuff for you". Nope, sorry, I am not interested, have a blessed day!
Newsflash there "dude" and for you whole team - if you’re not using your own CRM tool to track your prospects and would know that you all call me all the time, that I have said time and time again I am not going to do business with you, and that the dude that stood me up even contunies to call saying he knows he scred up at DD10 with me but give him a second chance to be one with him, and I keep saying NO, then what good is your all in one product if you don’t even use it as your CRM?
Sorry for my rant, but some vendors just don’t get it.
