Yesterday I had the most interesting business to business sales experience in my career. I will try to give the short story.
A local company with about 40 employees contacted us about becoming their new IT provider. It would have been a great contract for us and definitely within our capabilities. Well, the initial conversations had gone well and we had a meeting set for yesterday afternoon. Around 8 am the owner of the company called into the office and ended up at our answering service. We use an answering service in the event that no one else can answer a phone. It works really well for us. Our clients always get to talk to a live person rather than just getting a voicemail. I would estimate about 5% of our calls during normal business hours end up at our answering service, so not very many.
This owner did not want to just leave a message and kept asking for my cell phone number, but he couldn't remember my name. One major failure on our part is that the call center didn't have a complete employee list. She explained who she was and he kept asking for my number. He eventually ended up with a manager at the answering service who explained they were just an answering service but he did not listen. He ended the conversation in anger and said he he now wanted to cancel our appointment because of this terrible experience trying to call us. We have NEVER had trouble with our answering service before.
I speak with the owner and he is very angry. He explains that we was on hold for 10 minutes and that no one at my company knows who I am. Fortunately, all calls at the answering service are recorded. The call was under 5 minutes. He clearly wasn't listening to what he was being told by the very nice people on the other end of the phone call, and gets upset.
Either way, I have a long conversation with him and he agrees to still meet with us. I admit we are going to have an up hill battle but he seems to be coming around.
The first 35 minutes of the conversation went really well. They had 4 people from their team in the room and I had my business partner with me. We went through a lot of details and we were grilled in more detail than any other potential client ever has done to me. No problem. I appreciate that they really want to find a partner to work with. Things seem to be progressing very well.
And then it happened. The owner brought up the phone call. I tried to get past it very quickly. But he wouldn't let that happen. He continued to talk about it and forced us to discuss what happened. He was not willing to admit he didn't listen and thought it was absurd that we would even use an answering service. We tried to explain the decision and why it is beneficial. Apparently he would rather have to leave a voicemail. He just wouldn't see it any other way. We ended up having a very difficult 10 minute conversation trying to reason with a man that is more stubborn than your average person. I had a tablet open, notes out on the table, and a notepad. I packed all of this up and was ready to walk out. I had no interest in doing business with this owner.
Finally, his daughter (and acting CEO) stepped in and ended the meeting very politely. I hate that she beat me to the punch but at least we didn't waste any more time.
Many times are a salesperson you try to focus on winning every opportunity that comes your way. I learned in my 3rd summer of selling door to door that I got to decide who I talked to. Rather than having to put up with rude people and take their abuse, I could just walk away. I forgot that lesson temporarily yesterday but had a great reminder. Even though we want to grow and develop our business, we still get to choose who we want to work with. This owner would have been a thorn in our side constantly so I believe things happen work out the way they are supposed to.
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