This Bluebird shall be hung and quartered

In sales lingo, bluebirds are those opportunities that fly in the window with the salesperson not having to lift a finger. And in some cases, salespeople fumble them and kill their opportunity. The episode below, though, has my mouth agape. I have masked a few client and regional details.

So our market analysis shows a particular vendor could deliver a particular product at a client opportunity. So I convince the client to include them in the sourcing process. I call the sales person I have dealt with in past and have him introduce me to his colleagues in the client geography. It is a big, household name client, and the opportunity sounds like a good fit for them. They sign NDA, we provide them details.

Try to arrange next steps. The salesperson goes AWOL. Multiple emails, voice mails go unanswered. Could be on vacation, may have decided to pass on opportunity. But no response means my client will drop them soon.

So I reach out to the salesperson who I know and who made the first introduction to salvage the situation.

His response:

"I’m neither your messenger boy nor your coordinating body for requests processed by that region.. I’ve already informed you that the client request does not fall into my sphere of responsibility and I expect you to respect this fact.

A response is neither required nor desired."

Then he proceeds to send the client (not his as he has made clear - that of another region) a similar "leave me alone" note.

Now that is what I call "cruel and unusual" punishment to a bluebird.

Readers: If you were this salesperson's boss, how would you counsel him? If you were me, would you bother to invite this vendor to other deals?

Comments

[Jason Wood]

Vinnie,

I wouldn't bite off your nose to spite your face. So, if the vendor in question is strategic enough that you would be doing yourself and other clients a disservice by blacklisting them, I would find a work around in the form of initiating future engagements through another go between.

On the other hand, I would make the point of excluding the particular contact from future dealings, barring a very convincing apology and explanation as to why they reacted this way.

[vinnie mirchandani]

Jason, good point. And they will likely be incumbent in some deals and would qualify that way anyways.

[Joshua Greenbaum]

Vinnie,

One of the great mysteries of life is how the critically important job of direct sales is often left to some of the lamest, least-intelligent people in the software universe. I am always amazed at how much has to be dumbed-down by marketing in order for sales to be able to absorb it. And I'm continually amazed at how brazen some of the stupid salesperson tricks can be. Your examples are far from exceptional.

My answer to your two questions: As the salesperson's boss, I'd fire him/her. If I were you (would that I could fill that role:) I would invite the vendor back. I don't know a vendor exec who would condone that behavior, and I hope by inviting them back you would also let the execs know what happened that last time. Maybe someone would learn something.

josh

[Jeff Nolan]

I wouldn't penalize the vendor for the bad behavior of one rep. However, as Jason notes, there's certainly no need to ever do business with that rep in the future and if circumstances bring you together again I'd decline and ask for another point person.

I'm always willing to treat one-off bad encounters as just that however this guy is doing his employer no favors if it were me that this guy was reporting to I would counsel him by calling security and showing him the door. This is so beyond the pale that it leaves me speechless. If he is going to treat a prospective customer, even if it is one not in his region, like this then I can only imagine how he treats his coworkers.

[Zoli Erdos]

Vinnie, I'm not sure his boss wants to counsel him... what's if trouble starts with his boss, or somewhere higher?

If "your" salesperson was helpful first, he may be cooling off, but would not turn around to be this rude all of a sudden. Plus, the other salesguy is AWOL. Doesn't it sound like somebody stepped on some feet and a few people were badly reprimanded in the company?

[vinnie mirchandani]

Zoli, every sourcing exercise I run has a list of invited vendors and 1-2 alternates, I fully expect some vendors, after qualifying the opportunity will decline to participate. A simple no, 3 weeks ago would have allowed us to invite the first alternate in the sourcing list....but here I am trying to keep them alive in the process thinking they are interested but needing more time and I got this...

[Zoli Erdos]

Oh, I understand, and this is indeed a ridiculous situation, all I'm saying is the way you described, your original contact may have taken an internal beating (?) for doing something outside his strict duties...
Which in itself tells volumes about the company:-(

[Bill Dotson]

Vinnie:

Send him the permalink to this post and make sure his boss gets it, too. His boss will handle it if s/he has any decency.

Bill

[Dennis Howlett]

I'd send the rep's a boss a copy of Bob Sutton's No Assholes book. And fire the asshole.

[Krishna]

One salesperson is AWOL and another behaves like this....

From the look of it, their common Boss most likely is the Asshole...so send the book to the Super Boss and have that common Boss fired.

That way you're saving yourself a known devil....yeah, but not before driving some deep discounts/higher cuts citing this (retention in your vendor list) as a favor done despite all you had to undergo...:)

[Nitin Goyal]

First a disclaimer: I am not and have not been in a sales role, but have had worked closely with sales reps.

I wonder why did that sales person act like that in the first place. I would assume he "knows the ropes" as he works for a strategic vendor and thus maybe encounters a few of these similar situations every day. To be honest, I am surprised reading the comments to this post where everyone recommends firing the sales guy if (s)he were his boss. In a way, he has done what he could for you - assigned you to a reginal contact, advised him of you and your client's importance etc etc. I would guess the rot seems to go higher. The sales reps are having a turf protection war and seem to be competing against each other. I wonder if your guy is the only person that acts like he did in his organization. Somehow makes me wonder if this big, household name vendor is having serious problems which one needs to watch out for. I wonder if this is a one off case.