My Worst Marketing Moments
Anyone that has been in sales and marketing or played a support role in the process has probably gone through a few awkward moments and a couple of really, really bad experiences in the process. Most of these experiences age well and you can actually laugh about them with the passage of time. Others, we keep locked up in the dark recesses of our minds, only rearing their ugly heads when we wake-up at 3:00 in the morning with night terrors.
Enough time has passed that any personal shame and violation of non-disclosure agreements should not be too egregious. I’ll share a few, hopefully as a way of purging my own demons saving myself a few nightmares in the future.
Thank God for Golf
I was running a standard products business unit in an automated material handling business. It was a new unit created out of a desire to help get the company out of the financial black hole that was the custom automated system market. It was launched with an innovative product that could be used for buffer storage of product on a factory floor with a spur off a piece of conveyor and placing cases of product in-between layers of a circular coil of flat steel. As product was fed into the device, the coil would rise vertically as successive rings of steel were separated by the cases.
The operative word here is flat. The device required the coils to lay flat on each other for it to function and not damage the product. This worked quite well when the coil was manufactured by welding steel pieces together each of which was about one-third of a ring.
As luck would have it, our first customer was from Japan and wanted to use the product in a refrigerated environment for handling food. Food was no problem; it was initially designed to meet the needs of a large soft drink company. Refrigeration was a problem, condensation and the need to wash down the equipment would create a big problem for an un-finished coil of steel. Rust is not an appropriate coating for food handling.
We told the customer we would use an alternate material or coating to solve that problem and they made arrangements to fly to the U.S. to see their new equipment. R&D and manufacturing were confident that we would have the working prototype in time for the visit. I was delighted to have the first order signed before the formal launch and we planned a celebratory visit for a Japanese customer.
Our supplier did not deliver the new coils until the morning of the visit. I was concerned, but understood assembling the machine would take no longer than 30 minutes once the coils arrived. On that morning I received a call from the manufacturing manager. He asked if I could drive out to the plant so he could show me something. It was a little mysterious and not something I wanted to do with our guest arriving in less than four hours, but there was something in the tone of his voice that said I should get myself out there.
I arrived at the plant and we shook hands and he said “it’s out in the yard”, so we walked out back and approached a pallet with a tarp over it. He unceremoniously yanked the tarp off the pallet and there it was. What was supposed to be a flat pile of coils looked like a stack of 45s that had been left out in the sun. For those of you born after the advent of CDs, 45s were small vinyl records that did not respond well to heat. Instead of a flat surface, when exposed to heat looked like an endless series of little waves on the record.
If memory serves me correctly, our stainless steel coils had survived the welding process, but responded in a catastrophic way to the heat required to apply a abrasive coating so wet cases of product wouldn’t fly out of the device.
The manufacturing manager stood and waited for my reaction, which I recall was something along the lines of “Oh s@#t!” We were accustomed to setbacks like this in that business and had learned how to cope. We smiled at each other and chuckled as we walked back to the plant. Along the way I called the product manager and announced “change of plans, we’re taking them golfing today, I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”
After golf, we went out for the largest steaks we could find and had some drinks. Many drinks in fact. At some point in the evening, I mentioned that there had been an unfortunately delay in the receipt of our final solution for the coils, but that they would be able to see a working machine with steel coils the next day. I don’t know if the alcohol had made our guests agreeable or that senior member of the party decided to let me save face when he agreed that would be just fine. Given the expense of having such a large group fly from Tokyo to not see what they came to see, I suspect the latter.
In the end, the project was a success. They purchased several units and the materials solution for the coils worked out just fine. This one I can look back on and laugh.
Was It Something I Said?
At that same business, I had started the customer service business unit. Large scale system weren’t particularly profitable, but providing service and upgrades was. We tried to orchestrate a smooth hand-off between the systems people and our group in order to develop a good relationship and dependence on our staff from the on-set. There would be a period of debugging during the warranty period, but hand-off process was generally a smooth transition. The fellow heading the systems group was new and this was the first time I had gone to a hand-off with him.
We arrived at the site and were shown to a conference room and waited for the plant manager to arrive. Actually we waited and waited and waited. The systems guy told me this was par for the course, but we would eventually see him.
When he arrived, the systems guy introduced the two of us and we sat down at the table. At which time the plant manager proceeded to yell at me for what seemed to be an eternity. I had never met this guy or been involved in his project. I could only assume that he was not happy with it. Having been in the position over a year, I was not unfamiliar with unhappy people, but this was something all together different. I sat there trying desperately to figure out what in the world was going on while maintaining a look of intense interest. As it turned out, the project was not really complete and the turnover was at the very least premature. Walking off the project early was evidently the systems guy’s way of delivering a high margin on the project and letting service finish it up.
When the customer finally stopped yelling and I do mean yelling, not just upset. I assured him that we would complete the project and the resources would remain in place to get the job done. We then thanked him for his time and left.
On the way to the car, the systems guy said, “I guess I should have given you a heads-up that he wasn’t going to be happy.” This time my response was “no s@#t!” I do not look back on that one and laugh.
Oil Spills are Bad for Business
In another case of an unfinished project, my manager of projects had gone to see a customer where we were having some significant problems. I flew across country to see if I could make peace. I got there and met privately with the plant manager. Without yelling he explained the situation and said he I didn’t get it fixed all hell and damnation was going to come my way. We agreed I would come out to report on our progress every two weeks.
This was a project for an oil company, a very large oil company. This was a distribution center for lubricants and the pallets were very high and unstable. When the automated equipment moved, the product did not always move accordingly. When there is an oil spill, it’s hard to cleanup. We didn’t have to clean birds, in fact sometimes nobody cleaned up anything.
When lubricants fall on a steel rail carrying a 100 foot tall crane traveling at 800 feet per minute, it will tend to have a difficult time stopping. When a floor is covered in oil, automated vehicles will have a hard time stopping and going. Everything needed to slow down so product would not spill.
On one of my last trips there, we were making good progress and the client had asked us out for dinner. I was standing on the factory floor looking at the progress with the plant manager when one of our technicians was struggling to make an automated vehicle startup. We had several techs there along with a couple of software engineers, our project manager, my manager of projects and the customer’s maintenance people and they were all staring at the vehicle trying to figure out what to do.
The vehicle was smack dab in the middle of everything. As I watched the people stare at the machine I saw the entire plant slowly come to a halt as everything was in automation gridlock at this point. I saw starting off once again at ground zero with the plant manager. This time my response was “please God, make the damn thing move.”
With no doubt the least understanding of anyone in the factory of what made the system tick, the plant manager confidently strode towards the vehicle. All of the technical guys backed away, probably thinking he was going to start kicking it. Instead he reached down and pulled out the red e-stop button. The vehicle started beeping and went on its merry way. Another dozen vehicles told to sit still by the control system also came to life and got busy.
The plant manager walked back towards me with a big grin and by then I was grinning too. The technicians were standing around looking at their shoes until one decided to give the plant manager a round of applause.
The man that had no interest in being entertained by us for the last two-months, took us out that night and a good time was had by all. I can look back and laugh at that one.
Conclusion
I realize now that my top stories are all from the same business and maybe you had to be there to be amused. Integrated systems make for bigger problems and better stories than selling discrete products or components. There are some good ones like trying to explain to someone that trying to use sophisticated electronic devices in the middle of the jungle somewhere in Africa to run a centrifuge for sugar cane powered by a diesel generator was problematic. Or that optical sensors don’t function when covered with mud.
If you have a good story about sales and marketing snafus, please share them.
Richard Gabel
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