Lessons Learned 1 – G – Atlanta,
GA
Chad and I thought we had a great opportunity at G
International, a large manufacturer of high end conference tables
and other office furniture. We pulled out all the stops,
bringing in H from Germany and spent several days testing.
The testing went very well, but when all was said and done, we hit
a brick wall when the time came to try and close the
business. We were working with one of their
Engineers. We point blank asked him if he was the final
decision maker. He said he was. However, we found out
after the testing was done that he really had very little decision
making power. We could never get anyone else to look at our
proposal. We feel purchasing had a lot of control over the
situation. This was almost 2 years ago. We hit a brick
wall and walked away. Lesson 1 to be learned from G.
Make SURE you are working with the right people. We should
have pushed harder to meet with purchasing before we ran a test
based solely on the hope that the Engineer we were working with was
the final decision maker. We wasted a lot of time, money, and
resources.
Lesson Learned 2 – G –
Atlanta, GA
A second lesson to be learned from this.
Never give up. After almost 2 years, they have had a change
in the key position of President and also Plant Manager. These are
new people that we do have some insight too due to a friend Chad,
me, and the new G President share. So far, it has not gotten
us anywhere, but we will stay after it. We feel confident we
will get a second chance and this time we will be sure to get the
proposal directly to the new President.
Lessons Learned 3 – M – Denver,
CO
This is a large Kitchen Cabinet manufacturer in
Denver, CO. Tony and I went in and saw how poor their finish
was. They were finishing with a very harsh Ceramic / Aluminum
Oxide belt on the last head. We greatly improved their finish
by going with a different grain to soften up the cross grain since
they were not sanding their cross grain, it was considered finished
out of the wide belt machine. We left a beautiful finish
compared to what they were getting, which is exactly why we did not
get the business. Even though the finish was much better
(more consistent, brighter color), the color was not as dark and
did not show blotchiness to the extent their existing finish
did. Because of this, they said they couldn’t make a
change as they would have to change the samples that hundreds of
their dealers have in their retail stores. If a customer
picks a finish and it comes in different, albeit less defects and a
lighter, although a clearer, color, it would be a major
problem. One lesson learned here is to find out how a color
change might affect the decision making process. A second
lesson learned is that it is sometimes best to go with something
comparable to show we can give the same finish but at better belt
life or less cost even if you CAN improve the finish a great
deal. We typically want to improve their product, but in this
case it didn’t work out to our advantage. After this
situation took place, they shut us out and we did not get a second
chance.
