FATAL SALES FAIL

Loss or Opportunity?

[Karan]:  I've had an interesting couple of days in which I have experienced two completely different attitudes towards exactly the same problem, and I'm now ruminating about the likely outcome of each.

We have been a customer of a local supplier, who I shall refer only to as Tired Incorporated, since we began trading in 1992; a very long time ago.  You might consider us a very loyal customer of Tired Inc after all these years, and we used to place quite a bit of business their way, as they were friendly, dynamic and helpful.  They might not always have been the cheapest supplier of their stuff, but they were pleasant to trade with and we always try to stay as local as we can.

On Tuesday I had a sales enquiry for a widget, and referred to Tired Incorporated's price list, which was still dated July 2007 despite repeated requests for the revised editions.  I thought I'd have another go and spoke directly with the new Sales Manager whose response was: "...every time we try to publish a new brochure, a manufacturer or two will change their stock and/or prices, rendering the brochure out-of-date and inaccurate, so we just [infrequently] email you the changes".  Hmmm, okay, fair enough point about the pricing etc, but what are the likes of IKD to do when trying to find the price and availablility of a widget?  The answer was: "...give us a call".   Hmmm, okay, but what if I need a price outside of your hours of business?  Well, we can all guess the answer to that, can't we?

On Wednesday Ian and I went to a trade exhibition, where we were introduced to a new supplier of  widgets, who now represent direct competition to Tired Incorporated. During our discussions, their Divisional Sales Director offered us a very large and heavy duty ring binder, full of professionally printed loose leaf pages, complete with all relevent stock, price and discount codes and product specifications etc.  It was explained to us that "...every time we try to publish a new brochure, a manufacturer or two will change their stock and/or prices, rendering the brochure out-of-date and inaccurate, so we created this in addition to offering you live online stock levels and a 24 hour online ordering facility".  Hmmm, now we're talking!  Obviously as stock, price and discount codes change in the future, Extraordinary Inc. will update the binder pages accordingly, but will also email us the changes as a fail safe catch all, ensuring that we are fully equipped with all of the latest developments to help us sell their products!

The online stock level checker and 24 hour ordering facility is just brilliant, and obviously affords us bang up-to-date information and greater ordering flexibility than ever before, from this section of the industry.  So who with me can now predict the future for poor old Tired Incorporated?  They've allowed themselves to be defeated by an easily surmountable problem; all it would take is a little ingenuity and willingness because, let's face it, a heavy duty ring binder with loose leaf pages is not rocket science, is it?  There may be costs incurred to activate this solution, but how much sales revenue are they loosing because they haven't - this is a false economy!

Tired Incorporated, and others I could mention who operate like them, would do well to remember that their customers, like IKD, are having to work extra hard in this climate to succeed, and are unlikely to work even harder than that, and unnecessarily so, when a better, faster, cheaper and more accurate alternative is available from their competitor(s).  My advice to Tired Incorporated is the same as it continues to be for ourselves, and something we are constantly mindful of: adapt or die, because if you're not growing your business, your business is shrinking - as a wise man (aka Nigel Botterill) once told me.