the disappearing sales trick

A paperless office we are not.

Invoices, quotations, and other documents must all be copied in triplicate and stored in one of the many file cabinets that line the office walls. To keep with our paperful system, digitally shared calendars that can be accessed by the whole office are frowned upon. Rather, we are required to keep desk calendars. These huge butcher paper-esque sheets sit on our desk and all daily activities must be handwritten into the individual squares. I’ve often been reprimanded because while on the phone I have the tendency to doodle all over my desk calendar.

“How am I supposed to see what your week looks like when you have these ridiculous scribbles all over your desk calendar?!” my boss Vince has fumed at me on more than one occasion.

So when Lenny, our Sales Manager, scheduled a sales call last week, he diligently wrote the date on his desk calendar and stuck a Post-It Note on the cork board that sits above his desk as a reminder; Wednesday, November 19 at 10:00 am.

This was an extremely important sales call for Lenny…namely because he hasn’t sold anything for the past two months. Clearly my boss doesn’t promote based on merit.

“They’re looking to buy three or four Roland machines- which run about $50,000 each,” he said, puffing out his chest. “Vince is coming with me…and with both of us being All-Star salesmen, this is going to be a slam-dunk sale. Just like taking candy from a baby!” Lenny’s not only delusionally arrogant, but speaks in clichés as well.

He and Vince spent the first two hours on Monday morning strategizing for the meeting later in the week. Office strategy meetings typically consist of back slapping, role playing, and more back slapping.

The receptionist interrupted their meeting at 10:05. “Lenny,” she said, “I’ve got the people you’re supposed to be meeting with on Wednesday on the phone. They said that the meeting is for today and are upset that you’re not there yet.”

“That’s crazy,” Lenny told her. “The meeting is for Wednesday the 19th…I wrote it down on my calendar and everything.”

“Well that may be the problem,” she answered. “Today is the 19th. Wednesday is the 21st.”

The realization slowly sunk in and Lenny’s face went pale. He and Vince went into panic mode, dashing around the office and grabbing samples and product literature at random as they flew out the door.

40 minutes later they were back. The office manager was at the Xerox machine coping invoices for the month and I overheard her ask Vince how the meeting went.

“We ended up walking in 30 minutes late,” he grumbled. “We only had five minutes to give our pitch.”

“Did you and Lenny try to reschedule?”

“Yes, but they told us that this was the only free day that they had until January. But I’m sure that Lenny will work the old ‘Lenny Magic’ and close the deal.”

And as I sat at my desk, I wondered if he meant the same old ‘Lenny Magic’ that has resulted in zero sales for the past two months or if Lenny has learned some new magic that he has yet to demonstrate.