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About a year ago I started getting the phone calls. They’d leave messages on my machine that were cryptic, asking me to call them back to schedule a free dinner.

I ignored them.

But they persisted. Eventually I picked up the phone and took the call.

I don’t remember details – probably because there weren’t that many to be had – but the gist of the thing was that I was invited to a free dinner – no obligation – where I would be given a ‘safety presentation.’

They wanted me to bring a friend – preferably another couple – although I was a single man and didn’t plan on bringing anyone. I conned, er uh, convince Roger to bring his wife. I figured they could spend the time with me since I spent so much time on this blog and podcast. Besides: Free Dinner!

Turns out we were the only ones there. They had put us in a private room at a local restaurant – nothing fancy – and had place settings for another 7 or 8 people. But when no one else showed by ten minutes after the appointed meal starting time, we sat down after some small talk and ate.

Towards the end of dinner they launched into the presentation. And since Roger and I teach presentation skills, we both paid attention to how it was done from a number of angles. And it was a fine, professional presentation. Great information, several heart-touching stories and well-constructed. They were pitching us on buying top-of-the-line fires safety gear: fire extinguishers, alarms, smoke detectors, etc. And they made convincing arguments – enough so that I was quite interested.

But here’s where they dropped the ball. At the end of the presentation they wanted to nail down an appointment to come by my house for a more one-on-one presentation on the various items. They gave me basically one or two options, and neither of them worked for one reason or another.

“Can’t you call me and make another appointment next week?”

They were insistent that they needed to have one of the dates offered. My hesitation was partly that I was booked on one of them, and partly from my interest in seeing how far they would go to actually get a sale. I wanted to make them work for it. After all, I’m a sales person and from my view it was natural that they’d keep working to make it work for ME, the potential CUSTOMER.

I didn’t like their inflexibility in their willingness in booking ONLY their one or two available dates. It didn’t make sense to me that they couldn’t set something a little farther into the future. So I held firm.

They didn’t like it. And for some reason, they weren’t willing to move beyond their script.

Personally, I didn’t get it – and still don’t. I told them I was interested, but couldn’t meet with them when THEY wanted me to. I confirmed they had my number. I asked them to call me back soon and schedule something. After all, I wanted to purchase some of their products.

But in the end, I never heard another word from them. It still confounds me that they didn’t make one extra phone call to book an appointment at MY convenience, not theirs.

The result: NO SALE.

I don’t know if they ever did a debrief of the presentation. I doubt it, because if they had they would have picked up the phone and called me.

The truth is, I got a lot out of the safety presentation and have made changes in my house based on the information they gave me. I would have been interested in purchasing a couple of higher-end fire extinguishers and smoke alarms.

But because they lacked organization and follow-up they got no sale, and they left a potential customer wanting.

photo credit: Public Domain Photos

Communication Steroids