Do you know what he’s doing over there?
This is a fable of CRM lost in space. Well, if it was a fable, it wouldn’t be worth writing about. It actually happened.
I get on average a couple dozen calls a week from sales folks looking for a meeting. They come at me from all channels – email, twitter, LinkedIn and even the phone. The lastes voice mail I got the other day raised an eyebrow.
I started listening to the message from what seemed like a nice enough gent looking to introduce his company and services and requesting a meeting. Pretty standard fair. But in his introduction, he said the name of his company. I did a double take. I rewound the message twice to make sure I was hearing things correctly. Years behind the drum kit has left my hearing less than optimal. But no, I was right.
The sales guy was calling from a company with which my firm has been doing business for years. Not that we’re a giant company. But, our relationship with this particular company is not insignificant. The same well-meaning eager sales guy also called a couple of my colleagues with the same pitch; one of whom forwarded the voice mail to our account manager.
CRM is having a renaissance. Social capabilities are spawning new tools, new companies, new growth in the industry. I had the oppotunity to comment a couple of weeks ago on a post called CRM’s Next 5 in 5 where some key CRM thought leaders weighed in on CRM’s future trends. And, that is all great stuff. Ever forward. Don’t stand still. Innovate. Absolutely! We all want to do, be a part of, implement all the new cool stuff.
Do the basics first. Please.
Post Script – as a result of our account manager getting wind of the voice mail, I did receive a call from an executive explaining the error and apologizing for the confusion. Well done. Now lets hope they take this experience as a lesson learned.
