Salespeople

[Nwbie]

Agree with Gadfly on this
As for your experience hblair I will take some guesses on his behaviour

1. He probably just recently either went to a "Salesmenship" lecture, motivational engagement and the no. 1 thing taught is to get to the owner or decision maker of the company.
Where most salespeople make the mistake is that the real decision maker is usually the receptionist or secretary ie. if you don't get past her or him in a positive encounter you are screwed anyway.
2. His salesmanager has been on his rear to start producing and he is frustrated.

We all sell a product in business, service business such as yours sell something of worth, you don't (at least what I assume ) have an "outside" salesforce - you sell a service and your reputation and output is your "sell".

I have been in sales since jesus wore sandals (at least what it feels like )
I do know that I have saved companies many dollars with my service, and many companies have not taken advantage of my services also. I personally on "cold" calls, drop a card ask for a name to contact, send a letter with references, contact by phone, and hope that I can help and make some money, if not I find another. The guy was rude, inexperienced or just a jerk, not all salespeople are...


NwBie

[hblair]

Originally posted by Gadfly
Oh, I'm a salesman, a good one too.  I am also the part owner of a retail business, and talk to an average of a dozen salesmen a day.  I see it from both sides, and I know that there are better ways to handle it(from both sides).  If I were your boss, this is what I would tell you on how to deal with salesmen, since you obviously do not know how to work them.

In this instance, you could have simply said, "leave your card and info, I'll make sure he gets it".  End of deal, he is gone, you can chitcan his info when he leaves, total elapsed time about 30 seconds and everyone is happy.  

See, what you're basically saying is "Lie to the guy, act interested, get his card and maybe he'll leave". That's weakhanded BS. He'll be back next week wasting my time. I don't want that. I'm straight up with the guy and tell him...
"We're not interested, thanks for coming by."
 That should be the end of story there. Guy says "Thanks anyway, have a nice day" and is gone. This is OUR business. My "boss" has enough faith in me to put me in charge. I determined we as a business ARE NOT INTERESTED. I cordially let this man know. I DO NOT OWE THIS GUY ANY TIME.

Originally posted by Gadfly
That is how you manage.  What you did is childish and non-productive to everyone involved.

That might be how YOU manage, but it sounds weak and deceptive to me. Get some balls and tell the man face to face you are not interested in what he has to sell. He won't waste his own time coming back and he'll be more productive for it.
No charge for your lesson in bussiness by the way.

[Martlet]

I think it's funny that most of you guys, with no real authority to speak for the owner, make the decision FOR the owner that you don't need what the guy had when you don't even know what it is.

[Gadfly]

Guess that is why I hire managers, and you are one, eh?

[Martlet]

Originally posted by Gadfly
Guess that is why I hire managers, and you are one, eh?

No, I'm a business owner.

We had a sales guy offering advertising space in a non competitive publication.  Meaning 1 per industry.  I would have jumped on it.  Unfortunately, an employee told him to get lost, and my competition jumped at it instead.

[Gadfly]

Not you Martlet, Hblair.

[Martlet]

Originally posted by Gadfly
Not you Martlet, Hblair.

Oh, I agree with you btw.  Take the information, then give it to me.

[flyingaround]

it is also quite possible that the salesman was jaded from having to deal with people all day that are rude jerks.  Not passing judgment on your ability to manage whatever you manage, but people skills are obviously not on your resume.  For all you know the guy had something you wanted, and you just cost your owner some $.  Granted...he wasn't a very GOOD salesman, but that's no reason to be uncouth.  (BTW nwbie, good approach. you sound like you know what you are doing)
Even when my clients/customers are yelling at me like raving idiots I maintain my cool because it is BUSINESS.  You work for a BUSINESS.  Guess what sales guy will never use your BUSINESS and probably tell at least three other people what a huge jerk the Manager is and not go there.  So let's see... those three each tell three other people, and so on, and so on, and viola!!! Your donut waving just cost your company THOUSANDS of dollars, and they have you to thank!
Way To Go!
Bet your owner would be proud!

-Lute
III/JG26th 9ST WidowMakers

[Gadfly]

It costs the same amount of money(none!) to make someone happy as it does to make them mad.  

I said you CAN watermelon can it, not that you should, and why would  I ever rule out a product or service without knowing what it is?  My method saves the salesman time, allows him to do his job, and let's me peruse his product at my leisure, with the option to call him back if interested, or, call his boss back if I have a problem with the salesman's actions.

Your method does what?

[hblair]

Respond to what I said gadfly. The philosophy of "be cordial then throw his material away when he leaves" is basically a lie. Why would you do that to one of your colleagues? Why not be straight up with him?

This is an honest question.

[Gadfly]

we posted same time, see above

[Gadfly]

Let me give you a little more mangerial advice while I am on it, Hblair.  This is for telephone solicitors(may they burn in Hell!).  I get dozens per day, and do not allow my employees or managers to screen them, even though it is annoying and time consuming.  I do this because it is often very difficult to tell whether the caller is a salesman or a customer.  They often open the call the same way, and if not handled gently it can get ugly fast.

I simply tell them to mail or send a salesman by(after determining that it is indeed a sales call). 30 second call duration and they can take the next step without any more effort on my part.

[LePaul]

Gadfly, in case you missed the obvious, no means no...even to salesmen  

Heck I remember when the local Jevoah's Witness's were selling something, I dont recall what....I was in my driveway, just back from target shooting.  I'm arms deep in the trunk, grabbing my gear and I hear "excuse me sir, excuse me...do you have a minute to talk about the life of Jesus Christ?".  I turn around, with AR-15 in hand plus and hand full of empty clips and say "Umm, no"...but even before I uttered the words, all I saw was a buch of propoganda flying in the air and two Holy Rollers running for their life.  I *really* expected a patrol car after that but one never came...lol

[Gadfly]

To a good salesman, no means no, to a beginner or certain types it means maybe.  

I like the mind picture Lepaul, good for a grin.

[Stringer]

Well, I run a Supply Chain Organization, and I'm pretty good at that also.

Since I'm in that position, I DO have the authority to speak for the ownership...that's why they hired me.

I wouldn't have given the guy the bum's rush, but I would not have toleranted the non-disclosure of his intent as well.  It would have been handled professionally, but handled appropriately as well, with it being explained to him that this is not how we start business relationships here, while being shown the door.

Nwbie's approach is want generally works best with me.

Interesting story about vendor/customer relationships (kind of a hijack, sry).

We had purchased a company and were in the process of closing the plant and moving to one of our own operations (yours truly got that wonderful pleasure), and in doing so, I also had to re-organize the existing vendor relationships.

Since our plant was vertical in many of the operations that the buy-out plant was not, I had to clean up alot of sub-contract agreements, etc.

Well I had one vendor were the contract had expired and notified them that I would be pulling the tooling to our vertically integrated plant.  They refused to give up the tooling, even though we had clear documentation that not only did we pay for it, but we owned the intellectual design rights as well.  I knew the motivation behind it....it would have a devestating affect on his revenue level.

So, they hold the tools hostage, basically.  OK...I check out who are local legal representation is, get the gears warmed up to get a judge to write up the papers and the sheriff to serve them.

Then, with this plan lined up, call the company and invite the Owner up to work this out.

2 days later he shows up...I go to the lobby to meet with him (I've never met him face to face) and there are literally 4 guys there with him.  He brought his VP of Sales, VP of Ops, His Attorney, and his Sales Rep for our account.

I ask who the decision maker is in the crowd, the Owner says he is, and I say, good, then just you come with me.  He protests, and I tell him, either we work it out without the others there, or they can all get back on the plane and go home.  

We met and worked it out.  All he had to do from the get-go was deal straight with me, and I would have worked it out so that we didn't leave him a huge revenue hole to cover immediately (which is what we eventually did, although I accelerated it a little because of the earlier tactics).

Point is, I deal with each level of business accordingly.  Some of those sub-contract injection molding shops, I've had to deal with very "straight-forward" manner.

My father-in-law owned an auto-body shop, and I also witnessed how he "had" to handle salesman at that level sometimes.

I think the response can certainly match the level initiated.