I work in sales. Today I lost a prospect I had been working on to a different sales office of our same parent company. Now, this is not a bitter post. I have moved on, and in fact find it fairly humorous.
I had on my calendar to follow up with this particular business in the latter half of March, that it would be an ideal time to move forward. When I called up, my contact said "wait, we already went with your company a few months ago...I thought we were set up with you?"
Me: No, not with me...do you remember your rep's name?
Contact: No, it was a Hispanic guy with a short Caucasian guy that was training with him. (These don't fit the description of the other one sales guy in my office) Yeah, they just showed up one day, I thought you sent them.
Me: No, no, not me. I go out on my own appointments.
Contact: I even told them I had been talking with Jeff. And they all acted like they knew you. They said 'Yeah, Jeff's a good guy.'
The last part is what made me laugh later. Of course those other sales people would pretend to know me. Aw man, acting like they no me and shit! But, very soon our office will be completed re-branded, with a new product launch, and we won't run into other satellite offices stumbling upon our sales calls and saying "yeah, Jeff's a good guy" like they're an intimate member of my team, and taking paperwork back to a different office. Of many things I've learned in sales, emotionally detaching from a potential client is a good one to practice. Otherwise, my guts would be long gnawed and laughter would be on a different mental continent. I would probably have turned to harming small animals if I had attached to each prospect with tightly pinned hopes, internalizing each that slipped to the done heap like an awful, catchy swan song.
But maybe that other office did have a Jeff working there and he is a good guy.
scribblings, jottings, scenes & stories of Jeff Phillips, writer/performer/producer.
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