Empowered Telesalespeople

I got a sales call this week from someone representing the Fred Meyer superstore chain. He was calling to sell our preschool in-store advertising. The ads would appear both in the aisles and on the carts themselves. He played up the fact that Fred Meyer has a lot of Hispanic shoppers, though I had to explain to him that though ours is a Spanish preschool, that doesn't necessarily mean we're targeting Hispanic parents and children (it's complicated--more on that some other time).

He didn't miss a beat, noting that we might want to target the same folks who are increasingly buying Fred Meyers organic food products. That made sense to me, given our target demographic. And given the store's relative proximity to our school, it sounded like something worth considering.

He then asked when would be a good time for the local rep to visit with me. At that point I explained that my preschool marketing budget for the year was basically shot and I didn't know if I could afford to do such a program.

At this point, most telemarketing reps would have said, "You can talk about that when you meet with Lou." After all, they probably get a bonus for each meeting they schedule. And the "scheduler" isn't usually authorized to talk about pricing.

I said, "I don't want to waste anyone's time. Could you tell me how much this is going to cost me?" And he said, "Sure," and then proceeded to quote me a price.

It turned out it was too rich for my blood and I told him that. And he then asked if he could call back next year and I didn't hesitate to say yes. I was impressed with the extent to which this salesperson/scheduler was empowered to deal directly with the prospect. They didn't waste my time and I didn't waste theirs. And even though they didn't close the deal, I remain impressed with their professionalism and will certainly be receptive to their message next time.

Do you think we're stupid?

Maybe it was the fatigue from Sen. Larry Craig's condescending and wildly implausible shuffling that caused me to take particular offense to similar equivocation arriving in my mailbox today.

Countrywide, which as anyone who's seen or read the news in the last several weeks knows, is one of the largest lenders in the country and is at the epicenter of the sub-prime loan debacle. They also hold the mortage on our preschool.

I receive a letter from their branch manager approximately once a month, which is a bit odd given that I'm not shopping for a home once a month, or even once a year.

But today's letter caught my attention: "Dear Brian, Right now it is hard to avoid news about the mortgage industry. Almost everywhere you turn there are stories about the difficulties some mortgage companies are facing in the current economic environment."

"Some mortgage companies?" Gee, would Countrywide happen to be one of them? Cuz I'm seeing your name in the news on a regular basis.

Why not directly address the fact that your company is going through some turmoil? You can assure me that everything is going to be OK and I'll likely believe it, but at least admit what everyone already knows. The problem now is that if they can't be honest with me in times of trouble, why should I believe they're going to be honest with me the next time I need a loan?