Mark vs. A Very Sucky Reseller

[Dips]

A large computer company [LCC] wants to bid on a government contract. One of the items specified on the bid was the software we manufacture, by brand name. Remember that, it will come into play later.

So a man, let's call him Buddy, from LCC's purchasing department called us to get pricing. I gave him the retail price since I didn't yet know he wanted to resell the software. He mentioned a desire to get reseller pricing, so I checked our database and saw that LCC was already listed as a reseller. We had made a sale of around $500 to them about four years ago and that was it.

Since they hadn't filled out a credit application and hadn't bought much, we had them listed as "casual" resellers. Casual resellers get a smaller dealer discount and must pre-pay by credit card before we ship. Most casual resellers are happy enough with that since they still make a little money and don't have to go through as much hassle as our full-service higher-volume resellers.

Buddy, however, found the discount too small and was appalled that we wouldn't just give LCC net-30 terms (in which we ship, send an invoice and give them 30 days to pay). I explained those were the terms and Buddy came back with the fact that his company was Very Big and the purchasing department wouldn't let him buy anything from the same company twice with a credit card (the sale four years ago was a credit card sale).

I expressed my sympathy (as only I can) that LCC wouldn't be able to work with us and started to wish them well, when Buddy interrupted and demanded to talk to "someone" who could be more helpful.

That "someone" was Mark, who is our dealer liaison. I filled Mark in that LCC was demanding net-30 terms and lobbed Buddy over to him. He was on the phone for about 30 minutes and I heard him raise his voice a couple of times, although he didn't lose his cool. Naturally he filled me in later with some of Buddy's choice phrases and his own replies:

Buddy: [Not giving us net-30 terms] is just unheard of. I've never dealt with anything so ridiculous. We are a Very Big Company and that's not how we buy things.

Mark: I understand if you don't wish to prepay, but we do require it.

Buddy: I told you that we don't have the means to prepay.

Mark: So you're saying that nobody at you Very Big Company has a company credit card or access to a company checking account?

Buddy couldn't answer that one and changed tactics...

Buddy: I've already spoken to your competition and they will work with me.

Mark [remembering that the bid specified the software we manufacture by brand name]: And which competitor would that be?

Again, Buddy had no answer and went down another road...

Buddy: Is there anyplace else which sells your software?

Mark gave him the names of three of our other resellers and informed him that they may or may not be willing to offer net-30 terms. Just for laughs one of the three was Mark's wife, who is an independent hardware/software dealer happens to be one of our better resellers.

The other two were hardware manufacturers with whom Buddy's company likely already had net-30 terms for reselling hardware, but weren't likely going to pass along their dealer discount for our software. Why should they?

We have no idea what happened when Buddy called the two hardware manufacturers. We only know that he didn't buy from them (probably because their prices were higher than ours, due to not passing along their discounts).

We do know what happened when he called Mark's wife because Buddy spent a lot of time telling her that Mark was an unreasonable jerk. Mark's wife could barely contain her laughter until the end of the phone call and didn't wait to call Mark up and fill him in.

As it turned out Mark's wife DID offer LCC net-30 terms, but was not willing to give up any of her reseller discount; she saw no reason not to charge them full retail.

So what happened?

LCC bought from us...prepaid with a credit card.

I guess it WAS possible.

[Broomjockey]

Okay, that story would have been merely average (just another jerk wanting something they aren't entitled to) had Mark not sent the a-hole to his wife. That part had me giggling like a mad man. Good thing my roomie can't hear me. Seriously, why on EARTH would you bad mouth the dealer liason of the company that supplies the software you need to someone who SELLS it. Chances are that person at least has a decent working relationship with said liason, and you'd burn up a lot of good will that way >_<

Ugh. Stupid people just don't think. "I know! I'll call people who want to sell this stuff at a profit, and tell them to sell it to me for what they paid for it! It's not like they're losing money that way!"

[allniter]

I like that story where the entitlement whore is forced to pay up when they have no other way out. Score one for the smaller guy

[reformedwaitress]

Buddy: I've already spoken to your competition and they will work with me.

Mark [remembering that the bid specified the software we manufacture by brand name]: And which competitor would that be?

Again, Buddy had no answer and went down another road...

Even if it wasn't brand name specified didn't your company, you know, buy the competition? I thought y'all were pretty much the only ones around.

[Dips]

Okay, that story would have been merely average (just another jerk wanting something they aren't entitled to) had Mark not sent the a-hole to his wife. That part had me giggling like a mad man.

That was Mark's favorite part too. He was giggling pretty hard about it too.

I like that story where the entitlement whore is forced to pay up when they have no other way out. Score one for the smaller guy

He had a choice. He could have got net-30 with Mark's wife and paid retail. I guess the $60 discount meant more to LCC than net-30 terms, despite all Buddy's arguing. :-)

Even if it wasn't brand name specified didn't your company, you know, buy the competition? I thought y'all were pretty much the only ones around.

Yup. We merged with our main competitor in 1999.

Even thoug we are pretty much it. We still have some competition; they are just a lot smaller than we are (and we are pretty small ourselves, as you know).

[Barefootgirl]

My favourite part is the bit where Mark sent him off to his own wife...still chuckling over that one.

[Banrion]

I do hope that Mark gave his wife a heads up before she got the call.

[Andara Bledin]

*bwahahaha*

My company does that to the government all the time. We have a lot of parts that are no longer manufactured and sometimes nearly impossible to find, and they come in with these 10-page contracts with all these rules about the hoops we have to jump through in order to fill their order. We calmly send them a cancellation and let them know we won't do it. They can either buy through a credit card exception, or they can go to one of our competitors who will then buy it from us and charge them more for it. It's about 50/50 which option they end up going with, but we always make the sale, because we're the only supplier they can find.

Speaking of the government, stupid payment demands and hassle, there's this new system some branch has going that takes a "simple" registration for getting paid. That "simple" registration involved finding the right site (there's no link for the proper sign-up url on the main page, so you have to call or email to get it), then calling in to get information that the sign-up requires but is never provided anywhere, then calling again to get the number for the right peope to call so that you can get the information you need to verify the registration which is never provided at any point during the registration and no clues are given as to how you would get it, either. It took my manager most of a day to get everything settled so that we could get paid on a bill that was already 20 days overdue. They didn't require that you go through their online payment site when the order was taken or we would have told 'em to go take a flying leap.

^-.-^