The Electronic Document & Me

More MICOM

“We want it”

One of the more memorable failures of my time with MICOM is probably worth mentioning. I’ve always thought that out of every negative there comes a positive – usually in the form of education. But sometimes it comes in the form of amazement and entertainment. This story falls into that latter category.

My territory with MICOM included a Chicago suburb that’s famous (or infamous as the case may be) for its connections to a certain group known for nefarious activities.

I don’t recall how I got involved with them. I may have cold called the town’s village hall or they may have called MICOM and asked to have a representative visit them. In any case I went through the usual sales process with them. I initially met with the people involved in the decision, learned about their requirements, arranged a demonstration at the MICOM office and worked up a proposal – the whole drill.

The day came when I had a closing meeting with the village officer who had been designated as the final decision maker. We met in his office.

After the usual pleasantries and banter I asked if they had come to a decision. I’d learned that they had narrowed the field down to two vendors and felt we were in a strong position.

He said that before he could let me know their decision he had a question for me. I asked him to go ahead.

“Scott, how much do you make on this deal?” He said.

“Well, I’m not sure. I haven’t really calculated it. “Why do you ask?” I said.

“Because we want it”. Was his answer.

“Excuse me?” I probably looked a bit stunned.

“We want your commission”.

“Why would I want to sell you something if I’m not going to make anything from it?” I began to get what was going on.

“We know how you sales people are paid. We know that as you hit higher sales numbers your percentage goes up. So you’ll benefit by making your numbers and moving to a higher commission level”.

“I see. But here’s the problem. I’m already at 154% of quota and I’m at the highest commission rate. So selling you a system that I don’t get paid for doesn’t do me any good”.

“In that case, it’s been good seeing you again” he said. The meeting was over.

I learned later what vendor “won” the deal. I could tell you who it was but you wouldn’t believe me. And I can’t be certain their rep was offered the same deal I was. And she might read this and come looking for me. I wouldn’t want that to happen.

“We’ll have it fixed for you”

And there was another organization – this one a financial services group – that was also rumored to have ties to the same nefarious organization.

The folks I dealt with there were all very nice and polite. But in my visits to their offices I noticed an interesting thing. It seemed that all of their employees belonged to one of two distinct groups. The women were all extremely attractive. This in itself isn’t all that unusual – plenty of organizations employ attractive women. But this place had more than the usual.

The other group – the men – were distinctive because of their size. I’m about 5’10” and weigh around 185 so maybe just a bit above average. I was positively dwarfed by these guys. The smallest male employee – with a few exceptions – was well over 6 feet tall and weighed at least 240 pounds. Many of them had unusually broad noses – the sort you’d have if you’d had it broken several times.

I took them through the sales process and sold them a MICOM system. After the system was installed and the woman who was designated (she was the administrative assistant to the president of the company) to be the main operator had gone through training our trainer expressed some concern to me.

She was worried that the operator might struggle with the system. It seemed to our trainer that the woman hadn’t really caught on to how the system worked. Keep in mind that this was at a time when most people had very little experience with computers. Secretaries and administrative assistants were still expected to know shorthand and typed on IBM Selectrics, Remingtons or Olivettis.

 We talked it over and decided that we would “kill them (probably not the best descriptor all things considered) with kindness” for the next several months. I made it a point to stop by about once a week to check in and make sure the operator was getting comfortable with the system.

During what was probably my fifth or sixth visit I was standing at the operator’s desk explaining a certain function to her. While we were talking a company officer –  one of the guys who wasn’t a giant – came by. He listened for a while. 

I stopped to say hello and he said, “Scott, it seems we’re seeing a lot of you around here lately”.

I said, “Well I’m just doing my best to make sure you’re happy with the system”. And then like an idiot I added, “I suppose if I come around too much you’ll get sick of my face”. As I said it I knew I shouldn’t have.

He said, “Hey, no problem. If we ever get sick of your face we’ll have it fixed for you”.

My stomach fell to my feet. I’m sure my face told the story. He started laughing. He laughed all the way down the hall and through his office door. I heard him laughing as he sat down at his desk.

He was still laughing when I left.

“I’ll bet that’s the best 50 cents you ever spent”

One day – and if memory serves it was my 32nd birthday – I cold-called a large building in downtown Evanston, Illinois. At the time, it was called the ‘First National Bank of Evanston Building’. I’m sure it goes by a different name now.

I remember this because I wound up selling systems to two different organizations in that building. One was the American Board of Medical Specialties. The other was a civil engineering company – Jack Leach and Associates – a few floors beneath them.

There was nothing unusual about the ABMS – they were nice people and the executive director (unfortunately I don’t recall his name) was a true gentleman.

But the civil engineering company is a different story. I walked into their office and talked my way into meeting with the woman who ran the place. She wasn’t a civil engineer. But she was a very capable manager. She was also married to the man who founded the company and who was the senior executive. Maybe even more important she was a very straight forward, no nonsense person. We hit it off almost immediately.

As I always did in initial meetings I did my best to learn enough about their business to be able to explain how word processing might help them. She was very interested but said that she would have to involve her husband and some of the other senior engineers. We agreed that I would follow up with a call the next week.

I called a week later and was told she wasn’t in. A few days later I called again and again she wasn’t in. This went on for a few more weeks and I finally asked the receptionist if she was OK.

“She’s had a serious health issue and is in the hospital” I was told. I felt truly bad about this – as I said, we’d hit it off pretty well. So I asked what hospital and what room she was in. The receptionist told me.

On the way home that night I stopped and bought a get-well card. I added something along the lines of, “I hope you’re feeling better” and signed it. I didn’t sign “Scott Bannor, MICOM”. I just signed my name.

After that I called every few weeks to see if she was better and back at work. Finally she was and I asked to talk with her.

She answered immediately and said, “It’s so nice to hear from you.” I said, “I’m just so glad to hear you’re feeling better and back at work”. She told me a bit about what the problem had been and then said, “I have to say that when I got your card I didn’t know who you were. It took me quite a while to figure it out”. Then she said, “And I have some bad news. While I was away the men bought a different system”. I asked two things. “What did they buy?” And “Have you taken delivery yet?”

They’d bought a system that my old friends from Exxon were selling. It wasn’t a Vydec. Exxon had pretty much abandoned Vydec due to its obsolescence. The system they were selling was built by another company and OEMed by Exxon. And in their limited wisdom Exxon hadn’t just put their name on the system, they’d changed it to make it seem unique. In the process, they’d made a bad system worse.

To my relief, they hadn’t taken delivery. I said, “If you haven’t taken delivery you can still cancel the order. But don’t do that until you and the men have seen the system I sell. It just so happens that we have a customer in your building so I could come over and show you the system without you or your colleagues having to travel.”

She was perfectly happy to set this up. I called the people at ABMS and got permission to bring the civil engineering folks to their office for a demonstration.

To be brief, I knew the shortfalls of the Exxon system and knew the features of the MICOM that were strengths for the civil engineering group. They were truly blown away by what I showed them. The MICOM had graphic capabilities that for its time were amazing. I showed them how graphics could be used to illustrate documentation for their projects.

After the demo the engineers stepped away from us, gathered around and talked. After a few minutes, they approached me and Mrs. Leach. “We want this system and not the other” was their decision. I explained to them how to go about cancelling the Exxon system.

Then we went back to their office. While I sat there she picked up the phone and called the Exxon rep. She said, “I’m here with Scott Bannor from MICOM and we’ve decided to cancel your system.” I was probably almost as dumbfounded as the Exxon rep.

Mrs. Leach told me how happy she was that the men had made their decision. “So we want to buy your system. But I’d really like to know I’m getting a deal so what can you do for me?” I had prepared two order agreements. One had standard pricing. The other included a 4% discount – MICOM offered this if payment in full was made at the time of the order. I told her that if she was prepared to make full payment with her order MICOM would provide a 4% discount. She thought that was a great idea and had their financial person cut a check and she signed the order.

We shook hands and as I left she said, “You know, out of all the people I do business with you are the only one who sent me a get-well card. I’ll bet that’s the best fifty cents you ever spent!”

And then she winked.

To be continued…