None of His Business

Yesterday, I was ticked off when a local media rep asked me for a complete list of my clients.

I got this email last night from a sales manager I really, really respect:

Here is my follow-up question…

If a rep somehow stumbles, bumbles, rumbles into the front door of
one of your clients and they say “…tim miles handles all my media…”
wouldn’t, shouldn’t, couldn’t that rep then contact you (not on Sunday
at home 🙂 to start discussions about that one client?

My reply this morning:

“Well, of course. Absolutely. They should contact me.

What I take issue with is … “Say, while I’ve got you on the phone, can you go ahead and give me a list of all your clients?”

No. No. No. Can I go ahead and poop on your shoes? You’re not welcome into that part of my inner circle. I’m also not setting myself up for six weeks of one call after another from you with questions about my dozen local clients.

I saw another poorly trained rep in action yesterday …

I dropped the boy off at preschool at Stephens and went down to eat and work at Bambino’s … kid in a tie, maybe 21 or 22 years old, comes in.

‘Yeah, is the owner here? I don’t have an appointment or anything but I work for ______ and I just wanted to talk to him about his business.’

Really? Really? You don’t know his name? You didn’t even try to make an appointment? Honestly, young man, what did you really think was going to happen?

Owner, sitting right there, says: ‘Listen, just leave your card, and we’ll call you if we need anything.’

Is that call ever coming? Ever?

Sigh. I have some constructive thoughts on this … on how to do it better … it’ll take longer – it’ll make a lot of managers and trainers pretty twitchy. I wrote about six pages of notes last night … but only maybe two of the pages are really good. I’ll keep thinking and refining. I’ll probably post it on Thursday or Friday.”