No Matter What, Don’t Laugh!
In the past 20 or so years I have probably been on thousands of sales calls. During that time:
- I have made almost every mistake in the book
- I have had two dogs fall asleep on my feet
- I have met some very interesting people
And of course I have had some of the funniest experiences ever.
One of my favorites is when I was on a sales call and meeting a prospect for the first time. We were meeting at 10:00 at a Pancake House to discuss our capabilities. 
Since I had already eaten I, got an English muffin while my prospect had a full breakfast. During the meeting he was drinking tea and ordered pancakes, eggs and bacon. It was almost as though he hadn’t eaten in days. During our discussion he was eating his pancakes and started to pour syrup on them when all of a sudden I noticed he grabbed the hot tea instead and proceeded to pour hot tea all over his pancakes.
At this point, I think I remembered hearing from the pancakes “someone toss me a life jacket.” I obviously didn’t help them out and decided it might be best to think of something else so he didn’t notice me laughing.
I thought he would say something. Nope. He continued with our discussion and actually ate all of the pancakes. Yes, he ate all of them!
The best part of the story is on the way out he actually turned to me and said “you may want to complain—the food today wasn’t that good”.
At least six years have gone by, but I still chuckle when I think of that story!
Everyone has classic stories. I look forward to having you share yours.
November 20th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
Here is my favorite from years ago when I was selling data entry and cross tabs for Pine Company. An AMA veteran had contacted me and gave me a lead on a company that he knew needed our services. I called and spoke with his contact. I described the services we offered and he was quite impressed. He wanted to hear more and asked that I meet with him in person. We scheduled an afternoon meeting at their Orange County offices (about a 75 minute drive each way for me). When I entered the lobby of the company’s headquarters there was one of those peg board signs that read “ACME Company wlecomes Ed Sugar of Pine Company”. So I am feeling pretty good about this meeting. I walk into my contact’s office and he says “Remind what we are talking about”. I then repeated the same description of our services that we had discussed on the phone. He sat there for a second or two and then tells “Why would I want to use your services? We have those same exact resources in-house”. I was stunned. I had qualified the guy over the phone and now he does a complete 360 on me. Amazing. Thankfully, this has never happenned again.
November 22nd, 2006 at 11:37 am
I would have to say that my favorite involves a meeting scheduled at a Starbucks. I had never met this prospect in person, though we spoke on the phone a few times prior to this. I showed up in a suit which is normally the dead give away that I’m there for a meeting. I sat down and waited when I saw this woman walk in that very well could have been the person I was scheduled to meet. I watched her walk up to a guy at the front who was wearing a sport coat and tie, shake his hand and the next thing I know they sit down and start talking. I assume that my person was still coming. About 5 minutes later I see her stand up, look around and walk over to me. She said, “Is your name Paul?” After a few minutes of chatting, I asked if that was a friend she was talking to. She said, “No. His name was Paul and I thought it was my meeting. After 5 minutes I realized he was there to meet someone else, but he didn’t have the heart to tell me he didn’t know who I was.” It was all I could do to keep a straight face. When his friend showed up, they spent a lot of time looking in our direction chuckling. I had to sit there fighting back the same inclination. I was actually surprised at how well she handled the embarrassment.
November 24th, 2006 at 6:52 pm
Here’s one from just a month ago…with an obvious moral. One of my sales reps had scheduled me to present one of our industry studies to a number of clients in San Francisco on a Tuesday, but urged me to come out earlier for a Monday afternoon meeting, that required my cutting short some weekend plans. Of course, I obliged.
I arrived in San Francisco after a six hour flight, freshened up, and met up with the rep to proceed to the meeting. When we arrived, the receptionist gave the rep a puzzled look and then sheepishly informed us that the client we were to visit had left the firm the previous week. I fought back both anger and incredulous laughter. The obvious moral is that it’s not only good business practice but only the proper courtesy to confirm meetings, particulalry when you invite management from across the country, to attend. The good news was that we were able to still talk our way into a meeting with his successor. It may have saved the rep his job!
November 27th, 2006 at 9:01 am
I had someone speak to me in french, read me poetry, and play the piano for me all during one appointment. It was definitely different.
November 27th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
Why do I never have meetings like Janet’s?!
My embarassing moment was one in the US when I first moved to NY.
When referencing a date us Brits use 11/12/06 to mean 11th December, however in the US it’s read as November 12th! It was one such misunderstanding that caused a prospective client to turn up on a day I was due to travel… this means I was in an old comfy-torn pair of jeans with a T-Shirt covered in cartoon charachters! Imagine my horror!
Of course I made the necessary apologies, smiled harder then ever and presented our services in my best English accent (always helps). Anyway, I’m glad to say that they were not at all bothered about it and are a client now. More importantly I have learnt my lesson and always use Outlook to confirm and schedule meetings whether they are internal or external facing! Don’t laugh…
December 5th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
When I started out in this industry I was an executive and door to door interviewer. I knocked on a door, a woman answered the door she asked what I want, I told her that I was conducting a survey on self breast examination. She invited me into her home, I just made my self comfortable in a chair and when I looked up the woman was naked from the waist up. I don’t know who was more embarassed. Working in the field was a joy for me and I experienced so many interesting people, I have enough stories to write a book, however, this was the funniest.