Knocking Enhanced Products
The other day when I was
doing a sales call on a customer, I was trying to introduce them to an enhanced product. I had gotten relativity a quick “NO” to the suggestion of an alternate product. I asked
the person why they weren’t interested and the response was, “we have tried
knock offs before and they didn’t work as well as the OEM items.” I apologized
to the person (as I do sell some items that are direct copies of off-patented
products) but I told this poor soul that it was reengineered and it does a
better job than the OEM product. “That can’t be. We don’t use knockoffs here” was the response again. I explained that these
items are not knockoffs again and don’t even look the same, but it was to no
avail. I was then given the run around how they have a contract to buy the OEM
pieces from someone else and it went on and on. The wall was up. I felt really
sorry for people like this, as the product, really improves what it does by no
less than 25% and it isn’t even made in an eastern country. This happened to be
a procurement manager for a large international company. Can you imagine
someone throwing away 25% or more of something? Not even trying it. That’s
$0.25 of every $1.00 this company is losing out on. I wonder what would happen to
this person, if the workers and his superiors found out that their job could be
done 25% more efficiently. Oh well , still made a sale selling OEM stuff but its the effectiveness of a product that bugs me, that’s my rant
this week.
