Hammer’s recent post brought back the memory of a experience I had about 18 months ago. I was with a sales rep at a meeting hastily put together because a vendor’s VP of Sales was coming to town. Although we had several very good, qualified meetings on the schedule, our local rep wanted to make sure the VP was kept quite busy with appointments.
So we walked into this last minute meeting not really knowing much about why we were there (man, do I hate that!!!). I asked the attendees to tell us what their role was within the organization, why they were attending the meeting and what they hoped to gain by meeting with us. (By the way, I had to interrupt the VP that wanted to start his presentation without asking any questions….)
One of the attendees responded by saying “I’m the vendor guy.” I was a bit confused so I asked him to explain. He went on to tell us that his role was to talk with vendors about their offerings. Period. Still confused, I asked him to explain his process and methodology.
This company had decided to have several resources within PURCHASING dedicated to talking with vendors. This plan was put in place to avoid having vendors talk directly to individuals within the company who were too busy to spend time with individual vendors. I was shocked. I simply asked, “How does that work?”
His reply was even more shocking. The gentleman went on to explain that his department knew what the company needed in virtually every area of the business. If they heard something that would pertain to a need, they would investigate further, then perhaps allow direct dialog with the actual users of products and services.
Needless to say, I was stunned. He went on to “assure” me that the individuals in his group specialized in certain areas. He said he was the right internal person for our product and would review it with potential users within the organization.
Wow. Those are some extreme measures to keep truly professional sales people from doing their job. Wrong way prospecting meets wrong way purchasing.