The Last Salesman
A Story by Charlie d’Estries, SciBiz International
The scientist sat at her desk early one morning putting the finishing touches on her decision. She applied her hologram to the order and dated it, January 29, 2057. The PerSeptive Waters MegaDetector 3001 will be fine, and should interface well with the Separator she had just ordered from Hewlett-Elmer.
Of course, that assumed the simulated demo she saw was close to reality. The vendor said the holographic demo system was 93.5% accurate (slightly above the industry average) when compared to the real thing. “Which means six and a half percent is donkey dust” she thought.
“I wish I could see the real system in my lab before I buy it, but that’s just not done anymore,” she sighed. “At least the alphaware is state-of-the-art.”
Dr. Cathy Walters, Ph.D. in Molecular Neuroimaging, voiced the command that woke her personal attendant, “Victor, I need you for something.”
“Alerted, Cathy. What can I do for you please?”
“Prepare an order for the PerSeptive Waters MegaDetector 3001. Refer to my notes for details. Ask for fastest possible delivery,” she continued, “and get the best price. I think it’s too high.”
Victor, a two year old neural net, intelligent personal holographic assistant, was the latest wave in efficiency upgrades for people with high demands on their time. At two feet tall (dressed in a labcoat, although you could select from a variety of outfits), he had human-like movements, and appeared and reappeared out of thin air!
“Task completed, Cathy,” Victor announced. “You have a live call originating from the lobby. Would you like to respond?” he asked. Cathy always thought of the assistant as “he”.
Cathy rolled her eyes and said, “Oh God, I’ve got too much to do. Tell whoever it is to leave a nettage and we’ll visio or something at a better time.”
“Message relayed Cathy,” Victor replied, before disappearing.
“I wonder who that was,” she thought.
Her thoughts were wandering when a light on her lab glasses’ heads-up display, also called a halo-visor, lit up, indicating a problem with her Nuclear Infrared Analysis. Victor, who constantly monitored laboratory experiments through a laboratory informatics neuralware network immediately gave her options to correct the problem. After making her choice, Cathy then asked for a neural check on all seventy two experiments running to check status and interim results. Victor did as she asked.
Cathy’s thoughts returned to her multimeeting set for later that morning. It was 8:30 and her schedule was full, as always. It seemed there was never enough time.
The microsynthesizer (responsible for three dimensional combinatorial bioassays) was crunching along on compound number fifty seven thousand, two hundred and seventy seven. The resulting bioassays so far had all reported negative. As she monitored the system, Cathy started thinking about science fifty years earlier, when live animals were used to test compounds, often cruelly. She shivered at the images she conjured up.
Her thoughts turned to the screening binge at the turn of the century, and how different things had become. Indeed, by 2000 scientists were screening 250,000 compounds a day; today she did that in five minutes.
“How did they ever get anything done?” she thought.
Victor appeared again on her desk, interrupting her thoughts. “Cathy, I know you have no room in your schedule, but the caller from the lobby is again paging you. He has tried to contact you through the net seven times over the last thirty days. I took the liberty to discuss his needs and he is asking for a minute of your time. Would you like me to profile him?”
“Definitely. No one ever just walks into a research facility anymore. Who is this guy?”
“His name is Andre D’avi, from Advanced Detector Design. I have his personal and company profiles if you’d like to see them. Or perhaps you would you like me to block the caller permanently?”
She looked over the information, thought a moment, and answered directly. “Hello, this is Cathy Walters.”
D’avi appeared on her desk as small hologram and began speaking. It always amazed her to see these little people popping up. She wondered how silly her own hologram must look.
“Good morning Dr. Walters. Thanks for taking my call. I saw on the net you have interest in superdetectors, so I took a chance to see if you’d like to see one. I have one with me. It’ll only take me about thirty minutes to hook up to your separator, and fifteen minutes to do an analysis and answer your questions. Can your attendant show me the way?”
Cathy had heard stories about these people. They’re called salespeople, and are trying to make a comeback since DSPA-2016 (Direct Salesperson Prohibition Act of 2016) prohibiting them was repealed last year. Their job was to influence one to buy their product. Often however, they misrepresented their competition, and sometimes even their own product! The law, passed over thirty years ago, reasoned that objective information, and subjective electronic references, available over the net, were enough to make a reasonable buying decision. When holographic demonstrations became available, human representation became redundant and cost prohibitive. That, with help from DSPA-2016, forced companies to abandon the centuries old traditions of using salespeople to represent their products.
For the first time in her career, she was speaking to a peddler.
“Andre, I saw your product specs on the net, and quite frankly, I wasn’t impressed. If I need a demo, I’ll get your demo simulator when I have some time. But to be honest with you, I’ve decided to order the PW anyway. Thanks, but it won’t be worth your time or mine.”
“I understand,” he began, “but the specs don’t always tell the story, and anyway, have you ever really seen a superdetector work? This product is made specifically for proteins with gamma tertiary structures, an area I know you’re interested in. The worst that can happen by watching is you’ll feel better about your decision to buy the PW.”
Cathy made a quick decision, as was her style. “Victor, please guide Andre to where the separator is, and assist him anyway you can. Andre, I’ll be back a little later, then you have exactly fifteen minutes to show off. Make it count.” In the lobby, Andre placed an ultra-light halo-visor on his head and followed the instructions provided by Victor, who was floating directly in front of him.
Cathy thought, “Now I know why they passed that law thirty years ago. Why did they repeal it? I hate saying no to anyone. Nets are so much easier to deal with.”
D’avi set up his system and went to work interrogating Victor about the specifics of Dr. Walter’s research. He learned that the detector had to see very minute structures on each protein, then assign what assay it would be sent to. When Cathy returned, the unit was up and running on her old separator, ready to take a sample.
“Cathy, thanks for giving me a chance to show and tell. Victor has helped me prepare a sample that closely resembles what you’ll be doing. I’ll be injecting this protein mixture and will have a report for you in three minutes.”
Cathy didn’t believe him. “There’s no way you’re going to separate, detect, and map the tertiary structures that fast. Besides, your specs didn’t mention speed as a main feature. People have told me stories about salespeople. You’ll exaggerate about your products, and waste my time. Why don’t you just tell it like it is?”
“I have fifteen minutes to do just that, and if I misrepresent anything, please have Victor throw me out and place a permanent communications ban on my company. As I said, specs don’t tell the whole story. For proteins of this type, getting them into a vapor state is much quicker than alpha or beta, and superheating won’t damage them. It’s a technology that makes us different. The PW system for example, takes forty five minutes to do what we do in five. And it’s more expensive. Of course, they do have some advantages for other types of proteins, and do that very well. We have a demo simulator too, but isn’t this better than a canned program?”
“We’ll see. Let’s take a look at the report.”
She had to admit, the data was stunning. She had never seen her proteins with this much resolution. The instrument’s assay assignments meant she could perform ten times as much work in a fraction of the time.
Time, more often than money, was the most important factor in her work.
“Victor, call PerSeptive Waters and put a hold on the order. Andre, I’m impressed. You obviously have an incredible product, but how do I know it’ll hold up over time? How do I know your company will be around six months from now when this system is obsolete? Although $750,000 isn’t going to break the bank, I need some assurances for my Director. And what about delivery? I would need...”
“Excuse me Cathy, but PerSeptive Waters is on the visio with a human to discuss the order. I told them to hold but they insist on speaking with you anyway.” Victor obediently waited for her response, after politely asking the PW human to hold.
“All right, I’ll take it in my office. Excuse me for just a moment Andre, I need to talk to your competition.” Cathy walked to her office across the hall that seemed suspended in mid-air. The company she worked for built this structure completely underground to take advantage of thermal regulation and protection from the harsh atmosphere. Even the courtyards had their own artificial lighting that resembled natural sunlight of fifty years earlier.
Cathy responded to the PerSeptive Waters call. “This is Dr. Walters.”
“Ah, Dr. Walters, thanks for letting me in. We have a message from your attendant to place your order on hold, and want to know if there are any problems we can help you with?”
“No, no problems. But what do you think about this ADD system that’s appeared on the market? It looks pretty good.”
“We’ve looked at it, but their simulator indicates that the system has some serious limitations. Remember Dr. Walters, your needs profile matches our product exactly. These indicators are rarely wrong. Please also consider why ADD is not in the Gartner consortium.”
Cathy thought about that for a few seconds. The needs' analysis profile is completed by every prospective customer. The result of this information suggests products, reagents, and techniques to solve specific research problems, and directs the scientist to vendors who provide it. These vendors cooperate in a consortium of sorts, and control most of the market. The problem, she suspected, was that unless a company was well placed within this consortium, she would not be directed towards them. She wondered how many other opportunities she had missed.
“I’ll let you know soon what I decide. Right now, I’m going to take a closer look at ADD.”
The PW human persisted. “Cathy, don’t waste your time. You know that is the most valuable commodity you have. The ADD simulator just doesn’t come close to what you need. You’re going...”
Cathy was getting her back up a little and said, “I’m not going to look at their simulator, and you’re right, it doesn’t really tell the story. That’s why I’m taking a look at the real thing.” She terminated the call and returned to D’avi. Several hours later, Cathy had performed several dozen more tests to confirm her initial impressions. The results spoke for themselves.
“Andre, when can I get delivery on your system?”
“Cathy, I can get you a system installed in less than ten days. Our specialty response team will accompany it to train you and Victor.”
“You mean you’ll actually send a human here?” she asked incredulously “I’ve always been trained by a halospecialist via visio!”
“Believe me when I tell you that your reaction is normal. Most companies today aren’t accustomed to special treatment. You might call us old-fashioned or state-of-the-art, depending on your perspective. We are very different.”
Cathy excused herself and went back to her office while Andre packed away his system. She held the report generated by the ADD detector, and sent the data to her colleagues in Rio, Brazil. The data was so impressive her Director appeared on her visio. The discussion called for immediate purchase of six systems for sites around the world, pending successful installation of Cathy’s system. Since ADD’s product will potentially give them data the IBO (International Biotherapeutics Organization) has been demanding for product approval, this could expedite their delivery to market.
“Cathy, why haven’t we heard about this ADD system? We’re plugged into all the right networks. Shouldn’t we be on top of this technology?” her Director asked.
“Elisabeth, it’s kind of strange. They’re not in the consortium and they’ve placed their emphasis on human contact, not netronic. It’s highly unorthodox, but they sent a human called a salesperson. He showed me the actual product, not a simulator! I wouldn’t have learned about it if this guy wasn’t so persistent. He knew what he was talking about, and generated the report you have in front of you within thirty minutes. With my proteins!”
Elisabeth Lohr, International Director of Research for the GenMerck Company, paused for a second before declaring, “Cathy, let Mr. D’avi know that we want his company to deliver a worldwide seminar on their technology from our site in Brazil within the next month. His product should be at all our sites if everything he’s telling us is true. Order your system immediately and have some data for us to look at soon.”
Cathy went back to Andre and thanked him for his time.
“Andre, why didn’t you just send me your demo simulator. Wouldn’t that have been more economical for your company?”
“Probably, but then we would not have succeeded. Simulators and objective information like product specifications only take you so far. Sometimes seeing, touching, and testing is really believing, and since direct sales contact is now legal, that’s how we’ve decided to do business. All our competition is bigger and better funded than we are, so this is one way to get attention and prove our technology has dramatic benefits. Is there someone else you might recommend I talk to who may have a problem we could solve?”
“Andre, if this pans out, you’ll be spending a lot of time at GenMerck. There are twenty two labs at our facilities around the world looking for a superdetector. So this could work out very nicely for all of us.” Cathy turned to leave and instructed Victor to show Andre out when she thought of one more question.
“Andre, why were you so persistent? You called seven times on the net, which I ignored, and then you made the trip here to Buffalo, and then I sent you away after your first call. Every other company would have visio’d, or hologrammed, but you jumped on a shuttlecouch. Why?”
Andre, a man of about sixty, paused before answering. “Cathy, I am the end of a long line of salespeople. My Mother and Father were both successful salespeople in this industry in the 1990’s. They fought very hard to prevent the law prohibiting direct human contact to pursue a sale, and never gave up. I was taught if you think your product can help someone in their work, then it is a salesperson’s responsibility to deliver that message until the customer has a chance to evaluate, or throw you out. You almost threw me out, but gave me a chance anyway. And I thank you for that. It takes an unusual professional scientist these days to realize there’s more to this game than specs and holograms. I used to think I was the last salesman thirty years ago, but with the law’s repeal, face to face exchange of ideas is again possible. Have a good day Cathy, and thank you very much for your order. We’ll be in touch.”
The latest rage in marketing began that year. Companies hired leagues of sharp, articulate people to represent their products and sell their wares. The net is good they exclaimed, but human contact beats technology. Cathy Walters turned in her labcoat for a high level sales position with ADD, and Andre D’avi was proud to see his artform breath and prosper.
The End
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are a company entering the world of super-communications, the internet, holographic simulated demonstrations, and home office based selling, never forget the lesson many companies missed in the future. For more information on seminars (ok, or webinars) and consultations discussing state-of-the-art, and old fashioned selling and distribution..... please call SciBiz International at +1-716-771-2899, or email at [email protected].
Our visio address is forthcoming
The scientist sat at her desk early one morning putting the finishing touches on her decision. She applied her hologram to the order and dated it, January 29, 2057. The PerSeptive Waters MegaDetector 3001 will be fine, and should interface well with the Separator she had just ordered from Hewlett-Elmer.
Of course, that assumed the simulated demo she saw was close to reality. The vendor said the holographic demo system was 93.5% accurate (slightly above the industry average) when compared to the real thing. “Which means six and a half percent is donkey dust” she thought.
“I wish I could see the real system in my lab before I buy it, but that’s just not done anymore,” she sighed. “At least the alphaware is state-of-the-art.”
Dr. Cathy Walters, Ph.D. in Molecular Neuroimaging, voiced the command that woke her personal attendant, “Victor, I need you for something.”
“Alerted, Cathy. What can I do for you please?”
“Prepare an order for the PerSeptive Waters MegaDetector 3001. Refer to my notes for details. Ask for fastest possible delivery,” she continued, “and get the best price. I think it’s too high.”
Victor, a two year old neural net, intelligent personal holographic assistant, was the latest wave in efficiency upgrades for people with high demands on their time. At two feet tall (dressed in a labcoat, although you could select from a variety of outfits), he had human-like movements, and appeared and reappeared out of thin air!
“Task completed, Cathy,” Victor announced. “You have a live call originating from the lobby. Would you like to respond?” he asked. Cathy always thought of the assistant as “he”.
Cathy rolled her eyes and said, “Oh God, I’ve got too much to do. Tell whoever it is to leave a nettage and we’ll visio or something at a better time.”
“Message relayed Cathy,” Victor replied, before disappearing.
“I wonder who that was,” she thought.
Her thoughts were wandering when a light on her lab glasses’ heads-up display, also called a halo-visor, lit up, indicating a problem with her Nuclear Infrared Analysis. Victor, who constantly monitored laboratory experiments through a laboratory informatics neuralware network immediately gave her options to correct the problem. After making her choice, Cathy then asked for a neural check on all seventy two experiments running to check status and interim results. Victor did as she asked.
Cathy’s thoughts returned to her multimeeting set for later that morning. It was 8:30 and her schedule was full, as always. It seemed there was never enough time.
The microsynthesizer (responsible for three dimensional combinatorial bioassays) was crunching along on compound number fifty seven thousand, two hundred and seventy seven. The resulting bioassays so far had all reported negative. As she monitored the system, Cathy started thinking about science fifty years earlier, when live animals were used to test compounds, often cruelly. She shivered at the images she conjured up.
Her thoughts turned to the screening binge at the turn of the century, and how different things had become. Indeed, by 2000 scientists were screening 250,000 compounds a day; today she did that in five minutes.
“How did they ever get anything done?” she thought.
Victor appeared again on her desk, interrupting her thoughts. “Cathy, I know you have no room in your schedule, but the caller from the lobby is again paging you. He has tried to contact you through the net seven times over the last thirty days. I took the liberty to discuss his needs and he is asking for a minute of your time. Would you like me to profile him?”
“Definitely. No one ever just walks into a research facility anymore. Who is this guy?”
“His name is Andre D’avi, from Advanced Detector Design. I have his personal and company profiles if you’d like to see them. Or perhaps you would you like me to block the caller permanently?”
She looked over the information, thought a moment, and answered directly. “Hello, this is Cathy Walters.”
D’avi appeared on her desk as small hologram and began speaking. It always amazed her to see these little people popping up. She wondered how silly her own hologram must look.
“Good morning Dr. Walters. Thanks for taking my call. I saw on the net you have interest in superdetectors, so I took a chance to see if you’d like to see one. I have one with me. It’ll only take me about thirty minutes to hook up to your separator, and fifteen minutes to do an analysis and answer your questions. Can your attendant show me the way?”
Cathy had heard stories about these people. They’re called salespeople, and are trying to make a comeback since DSPA-2016 (Direct Salesperson Prohibition Act of 2016) prohibiting them was repealed last year. Their job was to influence one to buy their product. Often however, they misrepresented their competition, and sometimes even their own product! The law, passed over thirty years ago, reasoned that objective information, and subjective electronic references, available over the net, were enough to make a reasonable buying decision. When holographic demonstrations became available, human representation became redundant and cost prohibitive. That, with help from DSPA-2016, forced companies to abandon the centuries old traditions of using salespeople to represent their products.
For the first time in her career, she was speaking to a peddler.
“Andre, I saw your product specs on the net, and quite frankly, I wasn’t impressed. If I need a demo, I’ll get your demo simulator when I have some time. But to be honest with you, I’ve decided to order the PW anyway. Thanks, but it won’t be worth your time or mine.”
“I understand,” he began, “but the specs don’t always tell the story, and anyway, have you ever really seen a superdetector work? This product is made specifically for proteins with gamma tertiary structures, an area I know you’re interested in. The worst that can happen by watching is you’ll feel better about your decision to buy the PW.”
Cathy made a quick decision, as was her style. “Victor, please guide Andre to where the separator is, and assist him anyway you can. Andre, I’ll be back a little later, then you have exactly fifteen minutes to show off. Make it count.” In the lobby, Andre placed an ultra-light halo-visor on his head and followed the instructions provided by Victor, who was floating directly in front of him.
Cathy thought, “Now I know why they passed that law thirty years ago. Why did they repeal it? I hate saying no to anyone. Nets are so much easier to deal with.”
D’avi set up his system and went to work interrogating Victor about the specifics of Dr. Walter’s research. He learned that the detector had to see very minute structures on each protein, then assign what assay it would be sent to. When Cathy returned, the unit was up and running on her old separator, ready to take a sample.
“Cathy, thanks for giving me a chance to show and tell. Victor has helped me prepare a sample that closely resembles what you’ll be doing. I’ll be injecting this protein mixture and will have a report for you in three minutes.”
Cathy didn’t believe him. “There’s no way you’re going to separate, detect, and map the tertiary structures that fast. Besides, your specs didn’t mention speed as a main feature. People have told me stories about salespeople. You’ll exaggerate about your products, and waste my time. Why don’t you just tell it like it is?”
“I have fifteen minutes to do just that, and if I misrepresent anything, please have Victor throw me out and place a permanent communications ban on my company. As I said, specs don’t tell the whole story. For proteins of this type, getting them into a vapor state is much quicker than alpha or beta, and superheating won’t damage them. It’s a technology that makes us different. The PW system for example, takes forty five minutes to do what we do in five. And it’s more expensive. Of course, they do have some advantages for other types of proteins, and do that very well. We have a demo simulator too, but isn’t this better than a canned program?”
“We’ll see. Let’s take a look at the report.”
She had to admit, the data was stunning. She had never seen her proteins with this much resolution. The instrument’s assay assignments meant she could perform ten times as much work in a fraction of the time.
Time, more often than money, was the most important factor in her work.
“Victor, call PerSeptive Waters and put a hold on the order. Andre, I’m impressed. You obviously have an incredible product, but how do I know it’ll hold up over time? How do I know your company will be around six months from now when this system is obsolete? Although $750,000 isn’t going to break the bank, I need some assurances for my Director. And what about delivery? I would need...”
“Excuse me Cathy, but PerSeptive Waters is on the visio with a human to discuss the order. I told them to hold but they insist on speaking with you anyway.” Victor obediently waited for her response, after politely asking the PW human to hold.
“All right, I’ll take it in my office. Excuse me for just a moment Andre, I need to talk to your competition.” Cathy walked to her office across the hall that seemed suspended in mid-air. The company she worked for built this structure completely underground to take advantage of thermal regulation and protection from the harsh atmosphere. Even the courtyards had their own artificial lighting that resembled natural sunlight of fifty years earlier.
Cathy responded to the PerSeptive Waters call. “This is Dr. Walters.”
“Ah, Dr. Walters, thanks for letting me in. We have a message from your attendant to place your order on hold, and want to know if there are any problems we can help you with?”
“No, no problems. But what do you think about this ADD system that’s appeared on the market? It looks pretty good.”
“We’ve looked at it, but their simulator indicates that the system has some serious limitations. Remember Dr. Walters, your needs profile matches our product exactly. These indicators are rarely wrong. Please also consider why ADD is not in the Gartner consortium.”
Cathy thought about that for a few seconds. The needs' analysis profile is completed by every prospective customer. The result of this information suggests products, reagents, and techniques to solve specific research problems, and directs the scientist to vendors who provide it. These vendors cooperate in a consortium of sorts, and control most of the market. The problem, she suspected, was that unless a company was well placed within this consortium, she would not be directed towards them. She wondered how many other opportunities she had missed.
“I’ll let you know soon what I decide. Right now, I’m going to take a closer look at ADD.”
The PW human persisted. “Cathy, don’t waste your time. You know that is the most valuable commodity you have. The ADD simulator just doesn’t come close to what you need. You’re going...”
Cathy was getting her back up a little and said, “I’m not going to look at their simulator, and you’re right, it doesn’t really tell the story. That’s why I’m taking a look at the real thing.” She terminated the call and returned to D’avi. Several hours later, Cathy had performed several dozen more tests to confirm her initial impressions. The results spoke for themselves.
“Andre, when can I get delivery on your system?”
“Cathy, I can get you a system installed in less than ten days. Our specialty response team will accompany it to train you and Victor.”
“You mean you’ll actually send a human here?” she asked incredulously “I’ve always been trained by a halospecialist via visio!”
“Believe me when I tell you that your reaction is normal. Most companies today aren’t accustomed to special treatment. You might call us old-fashioned or state-of-the-art, depending on your perspective. We are very different.”
Cathy excused herself and went back to her office while Andre packed away his system. She held the report generated by the ADD detector, and sent the data to her colleagues in Rio, Brazil. The data was so impressive her Director appeared on her visio. The discussion called for immediate purchase of six systems for sites around the world, pending successful installation of Cathy’s system. Since ADD’s product will potentially give them data the IBO (International Biotherapeutics Organization) has been demanding for product approval, this could expedite their delivery to market.
“Cathy, why haven’t we heard about this ADD system? We’re plugged into all the right networks. Shouldn’t we be on top of this technology?” her Director asked.
“Elisabeth, it’s kind of strange. They’re not in the consortium and they’ve placed their emphasis on human contact, not netronic. It’s highly unorthodox, but they sent a human called a salesperson. He showed me the actual product, not a simulator! I wouldn’t have learned about it if this guy wasn’t so persistent. He knew what he was talking about, and generated the report you have in front of you within thirty minutes. With my proteins!”
Elisabeth Lohr, International Director of Research for the GenMerck Company, paused for a second before declaring, “Cathy, let Mr. D’avi know that we want his company to deliver a worldwide seminar on their technology from our site in Brazil within the next month. His product should be at all our sites if everything he’s telling us is true. Order your system immediately and have some data for us to look at soon.”
Cathy went back to Andre and thanked him for his time.
“Andre, why didn’t you just send me your demo simulator. Wouldn’t that have been more economical for your company?”
“Probably, but then we would not have succeeded. Simulators and objective information like product specifications only take you so far. Sometimes seeing, touching, and testing is really believing, and since direct sales contact is now legal, that’s how we’ve decided to do business. All our competition is bigger and better funded than we are, so this is one way to get attention and prove our technology has dramatic benefits. Is there someone else you might recommend I talk to who may have a problem we could solve?”
“Andre, if this pans out, you’ll be spending a lot of time at GenMerck. There are twenty two labs at our facilities around the world looking for a superdetector. So this could work out very nicely for all of us.” Cathy turned to leave and instructed Victor to show Andre out when she thought of one more question.
“Andre, why were you so persistent? You called seven times on the net, which I ignored, and then you made the trip here to Buffalo, and then I sent you away after your first call. Every other company would have visio’d, or hologrammed, but you jumped on a shuttlecouch. Why?”
Andre, a man of about sixty, paused before answering. “Cathy, I am the end of a long line of salespeople. My Mother and Father were both successful salespeople in this industry in the 1990’s. They fought very hard to prevent the law prohibiting direct human contact to pursue a sale, and never gave up. I was taught if you think your product can help someone in their work, then it is a salesperson’s responsibility to deliver that message until the customer has a chance to evaluate, or throw you out. You almost threw me out, but gave me a chance anyway. And I thank you for that. It takes an unusual professional scientist these days to realize there’s more to this game than specs and holograms. I used to think I was the last salesman thirty years ago, but with the law’s repeal, face to face exchange of ideas is again possible. Have a good day Cathy, and thank you very much for your order. We’ll be in touch.”
The latest rage in marketing began that year. Companies hired leagues of sharp, articulate people to represent their products and sell their wares. The net is good they exclaimed, but human contact beats technology. Cathy Walters turned in her labcoat for a high level sales position with ADD, and Andre D’avi was proud to see his artform breath and prosper.
The End
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are a company entering the world of super-communications, the internet, holographic simulated demonstrations, and home office based selling, never forget the lesson many companies missed in the future. For more information on seminars (ok, or webinars) and consultations discussing state-of-the-art, and old fashioned selling and distribution..... please call SciBiz International at +1-716-771-2899, or email at [email protected].
Our visio address is forthcoming