Funny Life Story

Lucian’s and ABC Sales Pitch to Sleepy Executive

I was hired to go with one of the Top 4 management consulting firms in the world to sell an information system outsourcing contract to a Fortune 500 Energy Company with 25 billion dollars of assets.  I will refer to this company as ABC. ABC was selling to a big utility and knew little about utilities at the time.  At that time they had never had a fortune 500 utility as a customer.  They had a problem and they knew it.  ABC did not have an utility finance experts on staff.  Therefore, they hired me as the world’s leading expert on these topics. They wanted me to go with them to cover their base on these topics during the sales pitch.  

They were going to make a sales pitch to sell a $1 billion dollar ABC information technology service contract to the top dog decision maker at this big utility.   If questions were to arise about utility finance, I was to provide the proper answer and, theoretically, they would walk away with the contract.
Three of us met at the base of the giant utility building.  Besides me, there was the greatest salesman in the world, George, and a CPA controller, Danny.  Both were from ABC.  We proceeded up the elevator to the massive office of the CEO, Ed.  After greetings were exchanged, we all sat down to discuss the proposal.  The two ABC people and myself were sitting on a low couch with a long, low coffee table between us and the CEO. 
George, the top salesman proceeded with his pitch about the billions dollar proposal.  I am not kidding you.  It was the greatest sales presentation I have ever heard!  George was incredible.  He was knowledgable, articulate and engaging.  I have never seen sales presentation before or since.  He poured his heart out.  As he made this unbelievable presentation, I was watching very closely the CEO, Ed.  Ed’s eyes began to glaze over with disinterest.  His eyelids became heavy.  His head began to wobble and his eyes began to roll back under his eyelids. Finally, in the midst of the greatest sales presentation I had every heard or seen, Ed falls sound asleep.  His head is rolled back resting on the highback chair and his eyes are completely shut!!!  He was not only asleep, he was in a sound sleep with his eyelids squeezed shut.

The three of us were sitting there is shock. George, the sales guy, is talking but while he is talking he is looking at the two of us and shaking his shoulders and waving his hands in utter disbelief.  From his gestures I can tell he is asking what he should do while talking to this seemingly dead, and motionless, CEO. 
I felt sorry of the sales guy.  Here he was in the presentation of his life and the target CEO falls asleep.  I decided to take action.  I slammed my hand on the coffee table with extreme force making a noise that sounded like a rifle shot.  The executive jerked to attention as his eyes popped open.  George continued his sales pitch.  Five minutes later the CEO repeated the same routine.  His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell sound asleep.  George looked at me again as if to say “What do I do now?”  I slammed my hand on the coffee table for a second time.  The CEO woke up again. 
George hesitated on his sales pitch.  During this hesitation Danny, the ABC CPA decided he would try his hand at making the sales pitch.  Now we have the world’s greatest salesman being replaced by a slow talking, boring, detail oriented CPA.  What a swap!  It was a definite downgrade.  Danny talked about 2 minutes and the CEO fell fast asleep for the third time.  Except, this time as he fell asleep, he began to slowly slither and slide out of the slick leather chair he was sitting on.  We were now in complete shock.  Not only was he asleep.  He was so asleep, he did no know he was sliding out of the chair.  The CEO continued to slide down an out of the chair.  I decided that the only thing that had worked in the whole meeting was my slapping the coffee table to wake the CEO up.  So just before he fell out of the chair, I slapped the table with even more force than before.  He popped his eyes open and for the first time realized he might have been asleep. 

I decided to make a bold move.  I decided to take over the meeting.  I wondered what this guy was interested in.  It obviously was not the billion dollar service contract.  So, I asked, “Where are you from?”  He said “Pittsburgh”.  I said “Well, I played football with the great Pittsburgh quarterback, Terry Bradshaw, when he was quarterback at Louisiana Tech.”  We struck up a 30 minute conservation full of fun, storytelling and great joy.  Never again was the billion dollar service contract mentioned.

We left the meeting in utter disbelief at what we had just experienced.  The ABC guys were embarrassed.  And they apologized profusely for wasting my time.  I found out a year later that they got part of their service contract approved.  What an experience!

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