I want to strangle someone...
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For the last few months, I'm working both as a development director and as a sales director. It's the first time in ~15 years working that I do something that's not programming or programming related, and it's being generally fun, although not half as fun as programming. But I digress. Yesterday, I went to this bank to sell our product. I'm used to IT people get scared of our product (I'm selling a credit assessment software to a bank that only does credit, people get concerned about their jobs), but this guy made me want to strangle him during the presentation. I started showing our software in a meeting with 10 people from various departments, for over an hour. Everyone loving the software, and how it would help them. Then, a guy from the software development department enters the meeting (just one hour late for the meeting), and become clearly upset. Every single feature I demonstrate needs to pass through this 10 minute ritual: - "This doesn't work" - "Yes, it works, I can show you." (I click here and there and demonstrate it working). "See? It's working!" - "No, it doesn't" - "Sorry, I don't understand. Are you calling me a liar? You're seeing this working right now!" - "Yes, but working is one thing. Stability is another one". - "We have this running in a lot of huge companies for over 5 years now. None of them with stability problems. I can get you in touch with them, if you don't believe me." - "Yes, but none as big as ours" - "No, you're wrong: some are 20 times bigger than yours" - "Yes, but those are not banks" (as if this meant something) - "No, you're wrong: we have banks using our software that are 4 times bigger than yours" - "HA! Weren't they 20 times bigger than our bank?" - "I meant the other companies" - "I don't care the other companies. Neither the banks. We have tried this here and I know that this doesn't work. Your software will stop working at least 5 times a day" - "You can run our software for 15 days as a demo. If it fails only once, you can forget about us and I pay you a beer" (trying to be a nice guy) - "I don't need to test it to know it doesn't work." - "Ok, so I think we should finish our presentation here" - "Oh, no, please, continue, I'm just pointing that this specific feature doesn't work" Then, this ritual repeated for every single feature (including the beer part) I demonstrated over 2 hours. After the meeting ended, and this guy went away, a girl (the user) came to us and said: "Your software is great! It will be very helpful here, as we have been asking
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For the last few months, I'm working both as a development director and as a sales director. It's the first time in ~15 years working that I do something that's not programming or programming related, and it's being generally fun, although not half as fun as programming. But I digress. Yesterday, I went to this bank to sell our product. I'm used to IT people get scared of our product (I'm selling a credit assessment software to a bank that only does credit, people get concerned about their jobs), but this guy made me want to strangle him during the presentation. I started showing our software in a meeting with 10 people from various departments, for over an hour. Everyone loving the software, and how it would help them. Then, a guy from the software development department enters the meeting (just one hour late for the meeting), and become clearly upset. Every single feature I demonstrate needs to pass through this 10 minute ritual: - "This doesn't work" - "Yes, it works, I can show you." (I click here and there and demonstrate it working). "See? It's working!" - "No, it doesn't" - "Sorry, I don't understand. Are you calling me a liar? You're seeing this working right now!" - "Yes, but working is one thing. Stability is another one". - "We have this running in a lot of huge companies for over 5 years now. None of them with stability problems. I can get you in touch with them, if you don't believe me." - "Yes, but none as big as ours" - "No, you're wrong: some are 20 times bigger than yours" - "Yes, but those are not banks" (as if this meant something) - "No, you're wrong: we have banks using our software that are 4 times bigger than yours" - "HA! Weren't they 20 times bigger than our bank?" - "I meant the other companies" - "I don't care the other companies. Neither the banks. We have tried this here and I know that this doesn't work. Your software will stop working at least 5 times a day" - "You can run our software for 15 days as a demo. If it fails only once, you can forget about us and I pay you a beer" (trying to be a nice guy) - "I don't need to test it to know it doesn't work." - "Ok, so I think we should finish our presentation here" - "Oh, no, please, continue, I'm just pointing that this specific feature doesn't work" Then, this ritual repeated for every single feature (including the beer part) I demonstrated over 2 hours. After the meeting ended, and this guy went away, a girl (the user) came to us and said: "Your software is great! It will be very helpful here, as we have been asking
:laugh: You look like the prince arriving to save the princess(that girl user). :-O Anyway, i think they can disband their IT department. No one would trust the people there anymore. :| Weiye Chen Life is hard, yet we are made of flesh...
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For the last few months, I'm working both as a development director and as a sales director. It's the first time in ~15 years working that I do something that's not programming or programming related, and it's being generally fun, although not half as fun as programming. But I digress. Yesterday, I went to this bank to sell our product. I'm used to IT people get scared of our product (I'm selling a credit assessment software to a bank that only does credit, people get concerned about their jobs), but this guy made me want to strangle him during the presentation. I started showing our software in a meeting with 10 people from various departments, for over an hour. Everyone loving the software, and how it would help them. Then, a guy from the software development department enters the meeting (just one hour late for the meeting), and become clearly upset. Every single feature I demonstrate needs to pass through this 10 minute ritual: - "This doesn't work" - "Yes, it works, I can show you." (I click here and there and demonstrate it working). "See? It's working!" - "No, it doesn't" - "Sorry, I don't understand. Are you calling me a liar? You're seeing this working right now!" - "Yes, but working is one thing. Stability is another one". - "We have this running in a lot of huge companies for over 5 years now. None of them with stability problems. I can get you in touch with them, if you don't believe me." - "Yes, but none as big as ours" - "No, you're wrong: some are 20 times bigger than yours" - "Yes, but those are not banks" (as if this meant something) - "No, you're wrong: we have banks using our software that are 4 times bigger than yours" - "HA! Weren't they 20 times bigger than our bank?" - "I meant the other companies" - "I don't care the other companies. Neither the banks. We have tried this here and I know that this doesn't work. Your software will stop working at least 5 times a day" - "You can run our software for 15 days as a demo. If it fails only once, you can forget about us and I pay you a beer" (trying to be a nice guy) - "I don't need to test it to know it doesn't work." - "Ok, so I think we should finish our presentation here" - "Oh, no, please, continue, I'm just pointing that this specific feature doesn't work" Then, this ritual repeated for every single feature (including the beer part) I demonstrated over 2 hours. After the meeting ended, and this guy went away, a girl (the user) came to us and said: "Your software is great! It will be very helpful here, as we have been asking
Daniel Turini wrote: "I don't need to test it to know it doesn't work." WTF? :wtf: You can congratulate yourself for not having strangled him. If you had ;) , you'd have lost the order and got yourself a bad reputation. You haven't said in your post if you got the order or not, but at the very least, you made a very good impression. No wonder people applying for sales/marketing jobs have to go through stress interviews. :) Cheers, Vikram.
http://www.geocities.com/vpunathambekar "It's like hitting water with your fist. There's all sorts of motion and noise at impact, and no impression left whatsoever shortly thereafter." — gantww.
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For the last few months, I'm working both as a development director and as a sales director. It's the first time in ~15 years working that I do something that's not programming or programming related, and it's being generally fun, although not half as fun as programming. But I digress. Yesterday, I went to this bank to sell our product. I'm used to IT people get scared of our product (I'm selling a credit assessment software to a bank that only does credit, people get concerned about their jobs), but this guy made me want to strangle him during the presentation. I started showing our software in a meeting with 10 people from various departments, for over an hour. Everyone loving the software, and how it would help them. Then, a guy from the software development department enters the meeting (just one hour late for the meeting), and become clearly upset. Every single feature I demonstrate needs to pass through this 10 minute ritual: - "This doesn't work" - "Yes, it works, I can show you." (I click here and there and demonstrate it working). "See? It's working!" - "No, it doesn't" - "Sorry, I don't understand. Are you calling me a liar? You're seeing this working right now!" - "Yes, but working is one thing. Stability is another one". - "We have this running in a lot of huge companies for over 5 years now. None of them with stability problems. I can get you in touch with them, if you don't believe me." - "Yes, but none as big as ours" - "No, you're wrong: some are 20 times bigger than yours" - "Yes, but those are not banks" (as if this meant something) - "No, you're wrong: we have banks using our software that are 4 times bigger than yours" - "HA! Weren't they 20 times bigger than our bank?" - "I meant the other companies" - "I don't care the other companies. Neither the banks. We have tried this here and I know that this doesn't work. Your software will stop working at least 5 times a day" - "You can run our software for 15 days as a demo. If it fails only once, you can forget about us and I pay you a beer" (trying to be a nice guy) - "I don't need to test it to know it doesn't work." - "Ok, so I think we should finish our presentation here" - "Oh, no, please, continue, I'm just pointing that this specific feature doesn't work" Then, this ritual repeated for every single feature (including the beer part) I demonstrated over 2 hours. After the meeting ended, and this guy went away, a girl (the user) came to us and said: "Your software is great! It will be very helpful here, as we have been asking
I hope one day to have your level of restraint. I would have lasted the first time, but the second time he tried it on then I would have blown it: "Well in just the five minutes you been here you seem to know the capabilities of our software more than I do in the five years I've been working with it, so perhaps you would be so kind as to come up here and give the demonstration for me? I'd be really interested to know what my own software can and cannot do." That's why I'm not a salesman...
Ðavid Wulff Audioscrobbler :: flickr Die Freiheit spielt auf allen Geigen (QT)
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For the last few months, I'm working both as a development director and as a sales director. It's the first time in ~15 years working that I do something that's not programming or programming related, and it's being generally fun, although not half as fun as programming. But I digress. Yesterday, I went to this bank to sell our product. I'm used to IT people get scared of our product (I'm selling a credit assessment software to a bank that only does credit, people get concerned about their jobs), but this guy made me want to strangle him during the presentation. I started showing our software in a meeting with 10 people from various departments, for over an hour. Everyone loving the software, and how it would help them. Then, a guy from the software development department enters the meeting (just one hour late for the meeting), and become clearly upset. Every single feature I demonstrate needs to pass through this 10 minute ritual: - "This doesn't work" - "Yes, it works, I can show you." (I click here and there and demonstrate it working). "See? It's working!" - "No, it doesn't" - "Sorry, I don't understand. Are you calling me a liar? You're seeing this working right now!" - "Yes, but working is one thing. Stability is another one". - "We have this running in a lot of huge companies for over 5 years now. None of them with stability problems. I can get you in touch with them, if you don't believe me." - "Yes, but none as big as ours" - "No, you're wrong: some are 20 times bigger than yours" - "Yes, but those are not banks" (as if this meant something) - "No, you're wrong: we have banks using our software that are 4 times bigger than yours" - "HA! Weren't they 20 times bigger than our bank?" - "I meant the other companies" - "I don't care the other companies. Neither the banks. We have tried this here and I know that this doesn't work. Your software will stop working at least 5 times a day" - "You can run our software for 15 days as a demo. If it fails only once, you can forget about us and I pay you a beer" (trying to be a nice guy) - "I don't need to test it to know it doesn't work." - "Ok, so I think we should finish our presentation here" - "Oh, no, please, continue, I'm just pointing that this specific feature doesn't work" Then, this ritual repeated for every single feature (including the beer part) I demonstrated over 2 hours. After the meeting ended, and this guy went away, a girl (the user) came to us and said: "Your software is great! It will be very helpful here, as we have been asking
Daniel Turini wrote: After the meeting ended, and this guy went away, a girl (the user) came to us and said: "Your software is great! It will be very helpful here, as we have been asking this for 2 years for our IT department and they kept saying 'it can't be done'. Now we saw it working" Now, I understand why the guy got so upset The one perverse thrill I get as a consultant, is when this happens. I love to make poor/lazy IT departments look like chumps. I love to watch them squirm as they tell me why something can't be done and then I show them it actually working. :-D Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
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:laugh: You look like the prince arriving to save the princess(that girl user). :-O Anyway, i think they can disband their IT department. No one would trust the people there anymore. :| Weiye Chen Life is hard, yet we are made of flesh...
Weiye Chen wrote: Anyway, i think they can disband their IT department. No one would trust the people there anymore. What would you do if you were invited to the presentation of a product that claims to make your job superfluous? :~
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Daniel Turini wrote: After the meeting ended, and this guy went away, a girl (the user) came to us and said: "Your software is great! It will be very helpful here, as we have been asking this for 2 years for our IT department and they kept saying 'it can't be done'. Now we saw it working" Now, I understand why the guy got so upset The one perverse thrill I get as a consultant, is when this happens. I love to make poor/lazy IT departments look like chumps. I love to watch them squirm as they tell me why something can't be done and then I show them it actually working. :-D Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
One of my main heading on my CV is that there is no such thing as caunt, it is only how! China is full of people like this! -I may disagree with what you say. But i would die defending your right to say it-
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One of my main heading on my CV is that there is no such thing as caunt, it is only how! China is full of people like this! -I may disagree with what you say. But i would die defending your right to say it-
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Daniel Turini wrote: After the meeting ended, and this guy went away, a girl (the user) came to us and said: "Your software is great! It will be very helpful here, as we have been asking this for 2 years for our IT department and they kept saying 'it can't be done'. Now we saw it working" Now, I understand why the guy got so upset The one perverse thrill I get as a consultant, is when this happens. I love to make poor/lazy IT departments look like chumps. I love to watch them squirm as they tell me why something can't be done and then I show them it actually working. :-D Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
Michael P Butler wrote: :-D I really miss a 'devilish laugh emoticon', like Yahoo's[^]. Cheers, Vikram.
http://www.geocities.com/vpunathambekar "It's like hitting water with your fist. There's all sorts of motion and noise at impact, and no impression left whatsoever shortly thereafter." — gantww.
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If thats in english remember to use "can not" instead of "can't" (or the typo caunt - prey you dont double-typo that word) One thing I hat to see on CV's is abbreviations, and concatenations.... the latter are for oral english not written.
I agree about abbrevistions on a CV, you want to look your best there, but for other general writing, and most of that being e-mail these days, can't is OK, its also used heavily in novels, for both spoken and descriptive parts. Truth is the subjection of reality to an individuals perception. || Nunc est bibendum!
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Daniel Turini wrote: "I don't need to test it to know it doesn't work." WTF? :wtf: You can congratulate yourself for not having strangled him. If you had ;) , you'd have lost the order and got yourself a bad reputation. You haven't said in your post if you got the order or not, but at the very least, you made a very good impression. No wonder people applying for sales/marketing jobs have to go through stress interviews. :) Cheers, Vikram.
http://www.geocities.com/vpunathambekar "It's like hitting water with your fist. There's all sorts of motion and noise at impact, and no impression left whatsoever shortly thereafter." — gantww.
Vikram A Punathambekar wrote: You haven't said in your post if you got the order or not, but at the very least, you made a very good impression. A typical sales of our software takes one month: often, people want to try before they buy, and they'll try :) I see dead pixels Yes, even I am blogging now!
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If thats in english remember to use "can not" instead of "can't" (or the typo caunt - prey you dont double-typo that word) One thing I hat to see on CV's is abbreviations, and concatenations.... the latter are for oral english not written.
Well as far as gamatics you are correct, and the word caunt is my own made up word, but just to put your mind at rest, I don't actually say that on the CV, I say that I am a person who beleives that nothing is impossible, and tanacious in seeking out the solution and completing the projects. I have to rely on the spell checker though due to my Dyslexia, though minor, does cause me some embarresment. Thanks for your insite though! :)
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I hope one day to have your level of restraint. I would have lasted the first time, but the second time he tried it on then I would have blown it: "Well in just the five minutes you been here you seem to know the capabilities of our software more than I do in the five years I've been working with it, so perhaps you would be so kind as to come up here and give the demonstration for me? I'd be really interested to know what my own software can and cannot do." That's why I'm not a salesman...
Ðavid Wulff Audioscrobbler :: flickr Die Freiheit spielt auf allen Geigen (QT)
David Wulff wrote: I hope one day to have your level of restraint. It comes only with a lot of training, a few years ago, I'd have jump on the table and grabbed him. David Wulff wrote: "Well in just the five minutes you been here you seem to know the capabilities of our software more than I do in the five years I've been working with it, so perhaps you would be so kind as to come up here and give the demonstration for me? I'd be really interested to know what my own software can and cannot do." LOL. May I save that for future use? :) I see dead pixels Yes, even I am blogging now!
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I agree about abbrevistions on a CV, you want to look your best there, but for other general writing, and most of that being e-mail these days, can't is OK, its also used heavily in novels, for both spoken and descriptive parts. Truth is the subjection of reality to an individuals perception. || Nunc est bibendum!
Yeah, Im lax on Messenger and Email too - but for official writing on things like documentation, CV's & articles I personally prefer not to see things like can't..... aside form the fact that we english speakers can never quite agree on our apostrophe useage :D
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For the last few months, I'm working both as a development director and as a sales director. It's the first time in ~15 years working that I do something that's not programming or programming related, and it's being generally fun, although not half as fun as programming. But I digress. Yesterday, I went to this bank to sell our product. I'm used to IT people get scared of our product (I'm selling a credit assessment software to a bank that only does credit, people get concerned about their jobs), but this guy made me want to strangle him during the presentation. I started showing our software in a meeting with 10 people from various departments, for over an hour. Everyone loving the software, and how it would help them. Then, a guy from the software development department enters the meeting (just one hour late for the meeting), and become clearly upset. Every single feature I demonstrate needs to pass through this 10 minute ritual: - "This doesn't work" - "Yes, it works, I can show you." (I click here and there and demonstrate it working). "See? It's working!" - "No, it doesn't" - "Sorry, I don't understand. Are you calling me a liar? You're seeing this working right now!" - "Yes, but working is one thing. Stability is another one". - "We have this running in a lot of huge companies for over 5 years now. None of them with stability problems. I can get you in touch with them, if you don't believe me." - "Yes, but none as big as ours" - "No, you're wrong: some are 20 times bigger than yours" - "Yes, but those are not banks" (as if this meant something) - "No, you're wrong: we have banks using our software that are 4 times bigger than yours" - "HA! Weren't they 20 times bigger than our bank?" - "I meant the other companies" - "I don't care the other companies. Neither the banks. We have tried this here and I know that this doesn't work. Your software will stop working at least 5 times a day" - "You can run our software for 15 days as a demo. If it fails only once, you can forget about us and I pay you a beer" (trying to be a nice guy) - "I don't need to test it to know it doesn't work." - "Ok, so I think we should finish our presentation here" - "Oh, no, please, continue, I'm just pointing that this specific feature doesn't work" Then, this ritual repeated for every single feature (including the beer part) I demonstrated over 2 hours. After the meeting ended, and this guy went away, a girl (the user) came to us and said: "Your software is great! It will be very helpful here, as we have been asking
Wow, what restraint you have. I would have walked out telling everyone that their IT team was screwing them through incompetence. Regardz Colin J Davies The most LinkedIn CPian (that I know of anyhow) :-)
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If thats in english remember to use "can not" instead of "can't" (or the typo caunt - prey you dont double-typo that word) One thing I hat to see on CV's is abbreviations, and concatenations.... the latter are for oral english not written.
J4amieC wrote: preay you don**'**t ;P "...putting all your eggs in one basket along with your bowling ball and gym clothes only gets you scrambled eggs and an extra laundry day... " - Jeffry J. Brickley
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Weiye Chen wrote: Anyway, i think they can disband their IT department. No one would trust the people there anymore. What would you do if you were invited to the presentation of a product that claims to make your job superfluous? :~
Ask them if they're hiring.
Ðavid Wulff Audioscrobbler :: flickr Die Freiheit spielt auf allen Geigen (QT)
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For the last few months, I'm working both as a development director and as a sales director. It's the first time in ~15 years working that I do something that's not programming or programming related, and it's being generally fun, although not half as fun as programming. But I digress. Yesterday, I went to this bank to sell our product. I'm used to IT people get scared of our product (I'm selling a credit assessment software to a bank that only does credit, people get concerned about their jobs), but this guy made me want to strangle him during the presentation. I started showing our software in a meeting with 10 people from various departments, for over an hour. Everyone loving the software, and how it would help them. Then, a guy from the software development department enters the meeting (just one hour late for the meeting), and become clearly upset. Every single feature I demonstrate needs to pass through this 10 minute ritual: - "This doesn't work" - "Yes, it works, I can show you." (I click here and there and demonstrate it working). "See? It's working!" - "No, it doesn't" - "Sorry, I don't understand. Are you calling me a liar? You're seeing this working right now!" - "Yes, but working is one thing. Stability is another one". - "We have this running in a lot of huge companies for over 5 years now. None of them with stability problems. I can get you in touch with them, if you don't believe me." - "Yes, but none as big as ours" - "No, you're wrong: some are 20 times bigger than yours" - "Yes, but those are not banks" (as if this meant something) - "No, you're wrong: we have banks using our software that are 4 times bigger than yours" - "HA! Weren't they 20 times bigger than our bank?" - "I meant the other companies" - "I don't care the other companies. Neither the banks. We have tried this here and I know that this doesn't work. Your software will stop working at least 5 times a day" - "You can run our software for 15 days as a demo. If it fails only once, you can forget about us and I pay you a beer" (trying to be a nice guy) - "I don't need to test it to know it doesn't work." - "Ok, so I think we should finish our presentation here" - "Oh, no, please, continue, I'm just pointing that this specific feature doesn't work" Then, this ritual repeated for every single feature (including the beer part) I demonstrated over 2 hours. After the meeting ended, and this guy went away, a girl (the user) came to us and said: "Your software is great! It will be very helpful here, as we have been asking
For a sales man, not killing himself due to unknown company politics, is a challenge. My first place of employment after college had one guy who just did not get it right. One day after a meeting I and a fiend (also a new hire) were venting on how stupid his directions were. After a few minutes our secretary politely (and very quietly) said, ok you two, every one knows you are right, but remember he is my cousin. We shut up not to offend her. Later one of the leads stopped by and said, You probably should be aware that K's maiden name is xxxx (oh! daughter to our VP!) need I explain the relationship to the idiot? I do not mind getting old. It beats all the other options that I can think of.
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Wow, what restraint you have. I would have walked out telling everyone that their IT team was screwing them through incompetence. Regardz Colin J Davies The most LinkedIn CPian (that I know of anyhow) :-)
ColinDavies wrote: I would have walked out telling everyone that their IT team was screwing them through incompetence. In this case, I'd playing his game. It was my first presentation there, and no one knew me yet. This would ruin my image, and he would win. By defeating each claim he made, and proving things work, I gained the other people, the users, who are those who pays the bill :) I see dead pixels Yes, even I am blogging now!
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Yeah, Im lax on Messenger and Email too - but for official writing on things like documentation, CV's & articles I personally prefer not to see things like can't..... aside form the fact that we english speakers can never quite agree on our apostrophe useage :D
J4amieC wrote: aside form the fact that we english speakers can never quite agree on our apostrophe useage I didn't know there were any arguments on apostrophe usage. The apostrophe is in place of missing letters.
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