call.
Finally he reaches it. “In each sales call, the buyer liked my offer so much that he asked for a proposal for their entire wrapper needs. Did you hear that—their entire wrapper needs.”
“What does that mean, Pete, in dollars?”
“We are still in the process of preparing the quotes; it will take us at least until late tomorrow. But in each case we are talking big deals, over half a million a year.”
“What are your realistic chances of winning?” I try to cool him down.
“Very good. Extremely good.”
I make some sounds to indicate my skepticism.
“Alex, don’t you see? Now the buyer has a tangible reference. He can compare my quote to what he is actually paying per year. There is no better way to demonstrate to him the concept of price-per-usable-unit. I’m bound to win.”
He has a point, but . . .
“Alex, I have meetings scheduled with both of these customers later this week. There will be enough time to go over our quotes in detail.”
That’s a good idea. Not to send it by mail but to discuss it face to face with the buyers. It can avoid a lot of misunderstanding, especially in this case, where the offer is so unconventional. “So we’ll know by the end of the week?”
“We’ll have a better idea, but I don’t expect to get the purchase order then; they need some time to digest it. They will also ask for a counter-offer from their existing vendors; at least that’s what I would do. Nevertheless, I think that we’ll have them before the end of the month. Our offer is simply too good, and I’m going to continue to sit on top of them.”
I tell him how pleased I am with the work he’s doing, and hurry to the bar. In the elevator I realize I have a new problem. Right from the start I liked Pete’s solution. My only problem was if the buyers would fall for it. Now that he’s tried it on two tough cookies, and in both cases they understood it to the extent that they are contemplating giving him their entire business, my reservation is over. Yes, we still have to wait and see if the buyers will go through with the deal, but now it’s a matter of refining the presentation, not whether or not the solution will work.
So what is my problem? It’s credibility. Today, when I explained the performance of Pete’s plant, I emphasized that the wrapper department will need heavy investments in order to make it profitable. How am I going to explain that this bottomless pit is, all of a sudden, a gold mine? I have to plan some tap dancing.
It’s not a bar, it’s a typical English pub, jammed with people stopping on their way home from work.
“Here comes my savior.” Trumann waves at me, “What will you have?”
“A pint of lager, please.” I try to adjust to the environment.
“I’ll have a refill,” Doughty calls after Trumann, now winding his way to the bar.
“What savior? What is he talking about?”
Doughty just gives me a napkin. It’s scribbled all over. I barely recognize the cloud I drew on the airplane. So, that’s what Trumann wants. That I’ll explain the dilemma of protect the shareholders—protect the employees to Doughty. I start to do it. Trumann arrives with three large mugs and places them silently in front of us. When I finish, Trumann is beaming over the cloud. “Well, what do you think now?”
“It’s a nice impractical game.” Doughty is unimpressed.
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Trumann pats him quite hard on the back. “I, too, have such cynical moods, when everything seems no more than a game. Brutal, many times unfair, and whatever we do, the game will continue to be played, with or without us. Cheer up, lad, drink your beer.”
Doughty smiles, wraps the napkin around his glass, and raises it high, “To the game.” We join the toast.
“And I still claim,” he winks at me, “that all the diagrams, concise as this one or as elaborate as the financial reports, do not help us to play any better. At the end it all boils down to
Finally he reaches it. “In each sales call, the buyer liked my offer so much that he asked for a proposal for their entire wrapper needs. Did you hear that—their entire wrapper needs.”
“What does that mean, Pete, in dollars?”
“We are still in the process of preparing the quotes; it will take us at least until late tomorrow. But in each case we are talking big deals, over half a million a year.”
“What are your realistic chances of winning?” I try to cool him down.
“Very good. Extremely good.”
I make some sounds to indicate my skepticism.
“Alex, don’t you see? Now the buyer has a tangible reference. He can compare my quote to what he is actually paying per year. There is no better way to demonstrate to him the concept of price-per-usable-unit. I’m bound to win.”
He has a point, but . . .
“Alex, I have meetings scheduled with both of these customers later this week. There will be enough time to go over our quotes in detail.”
That’s a good idea. Not to send it by mail but to discuss it face to face with the buyers. It can avoid a lot of misunderstanding, especially in this case, where the offer is so unconventional. “So we’ll know by the end of the week?”
“We’ll have a better idea, but I don’t expect to get the purchase order then; they need some time to digest it. They will also ask for a counter-offer from their existing vendors; at least that’s what I would do. Nevertheless, I think that we’ll have them before the end of the month. Our offer is simply too good, and I’m going to continue to sit on top of them.”
I tell him how pleased I am with the work he’s doing, and hurry to the bar. In the elevator I realize I have a new problem. Right from the start I liked Pete’s solution. My only problem was if the buyers would fall for it. Now that he’s tried it on two tough cookies, and in both cases they understood it to the extent that they are contemplating giving him their entire business, my reservation is over. Yes, we still have to wait and see if the buyers will go through with the deal, but now it’s a matter of refining the presentation, not whether or not the solution will work.
So what is my problem? It’s credibility. Today, when I explained the performance of Pete’s plant, I emphasized that the wrapper department will need heavy investments in order to make it profitable. How am I going to explain that this bottomless pit is, all of a sudden, a gold mine? I have to plan some tap dancing.
It’s not a bar, it’s a typical English pub, jammed with people stopping on their way home from work.
“Here comes my savior.” Trumann waves at me, “What will you have?”
“A pint of lager, please.” I try to adjust to the environment.
“I’ll have a refill,” Doughty calls after Trumann, now winding his way to the bar.
“What savior? What is he talking about?”
Doughty just gives me a napkin. It’s scribbled all over. I barely recognize the cloud I drew on the airplane. So, that’s what Trumann wants. That I’ll explain the dilemma of protect the shareholders—protect the employees to Doughty. I start to do it. Trumann arrives with three large mugs and places them silently in front of us. When I finish, Trumann is beaming over the cloud. “Well, what do you think now?”
“It’s a nice impractical game.” Doughty is unimpressed.
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Trumann pats him quite hard on the back. “I, too, have such cynical moods, when everything seems no more than a game. Brutal, many times unfair, and whatever we do, the game will continue to be played, with or without us. Cheer up, lad, drink your beer.”
Doughty smiles, wraps the napkin around his glass, and raises it high, “To the game.” We join the toast.
“And I still claim,” he winks at me, “that all the diagrams, concise as this one or as elaborate as the financial reports, do not help us to play any better. At the end it all boils down to
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