A Tale of Two Attitudes
Yesterday, I read an article on how a good customer had acquired a few operations of a company in a similar field, who would also have potential use for the solutions we had provided this good customer. I sent the article on to three of our people involved with the customer, and here are their responses:
#1 (chief engineer, also responsible for a sales territory): Responded right away: "They like to buy used equipment, but I'm sure they'll get in touch with us if they need anything."#2 (product manager / designer): Responded an hour later: "Hey, sounds like an opportunity, I'll get in touch with our contact to see if there may be opportunities at these new facilities." A bit later, the contact had already gotten back to our product manager, stating that he would in fact take the idea of using our solutions into these facilities and see if there were some opportunities for us. #3 (regional sales manager in the acquired facilities territory): immediately got in touch with our dealer for that territory and, in discovering this dealer had no relationships at these facilities, began talking to potential other routes in to the customer. Now, which two of the three would you want on your team? #1 is considered a subject matter expert, but sometimes being the "expert" means you take the basic questions for granted. Thank heavens we have #2 and #3 on the team as well.