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As a tech there are not alot of opertunities to make sales commissions. But some of us will still make every effort to help generate new customers. I had an oppertunity to meet a cuctomers IT guy who happened to support a variety of different businesses. I spoke with this guy a few times and thought what a way to generate new business, a guy who is already in the door and has a level of trust with his clients who could suggest our machines as a solution for their office needs. Of course I couldn,t make these deals so I put this person in touch with my local sales guy. I hear nothing as to how things were working out so I start to check up on the situation and my rep says he had only placed two machines in a single office, great i made a new customer and a couple of bucks. I then later find out this customer had multple offices and bought multple machines for those offices, also that this was only one of a half of dozen new customers brought in through MY contact, about a dozen machines. Not faxes or printers either color boxes and mid range mfp's. All that being said I go to a company wide meeting and hear about goals and ways to generate business and my owner descibes an inovative way to possibly pull in new business and then procedes to descibe how this sales rep was visiting a customer just to see how things are going and seen the IT guy and came up with this great idea to see if this guy could help him place equipment. The owners thought this was a great idea. To rap up not only did I get screwed for the commisions the guy couldn't even give credit for the idea to the person who had it.
When I asked him about it he acted as if he did not remember. I could also bet you this guy will ask for leads the next time I see him.
Some people are gracious and some people are greedy, I feel so lucky.
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Coming from the sales side: I always try to take care of the guys that help feed my family.

There have been some occassions where I have forgotten where the lead originated, however I try to make up for this with "special consideration".

I am aware of the situation and believe salesperson in question should "pony up" and take care of those who take care of him. When selling for Ricoh, we sales people get to accumulate points for products and or gift certificates. Share the wealth if not with the dollars, then with Aficio points, or lunches, or take them on a golf outing.

Hopefully this situation will be corrected by the person in question. Scott, I agree with you and hope that you may think twice about helping him in the future.


Art
Stories like this burn my britches too. I think of all the times our tech support has stepped to the plate when I, wearing my sales hat, painted myself into a tech corner. The contribution value of competent and reliable tech support can not be over-emphasized and never taken for granted. Too many sales reps rely on tech support to close a deal for them, and simply walk away. Not only is it unethical, it is just plain dumb to alienate technical support.

Thank you for sharing this story, perhaps all sales people need to be reminded, if we are going to work and succeed in this techno-centric biz environment, then never, ever, denegrate or devalue the contributions of our techie brothers and sisters!

Steve



GO Tech!
Here is an idea to take care of the service techs who take care of you. They see the customer more than you and it does help everyone involved.

Share your Aficio league pionts or whatever givex you points for gift certificates to a Sears, Home Depot Best Buy etc. I take care of my techs at twice a year and have a holiday present of $50 for each tech ( I work for a small company) and a Xmas in July with the same $ and also take care of them when I get a large deal. I also throw the service manager a bit extra for all his hard work.

Also If I happen to run into them in the field I buy them lunch and/or a bottle of water/soda.


Take care of your guys and they will take care of you!

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