Prove it!

One of our really cool and colourful ventures is Randgo. We refer to it simply as "the rewarding platform".

We are under a lot of pressure at Randgo HQ as the economic climate is tough and we are selling a nice to have product. These past few weeks though have been very exciting, as we gained some solid momentum with some leading corporates. There is some good light in the tunnel.

My personal journey with Randgo has been a steep learning curve. We have been dealing with a lot of HR executives and this has been challenging. For the past 6 months I have been on the road meeting many different HR folk and I have found it quite a frustrating experience. I dealt with IT people for so many years and this new detour has not been easy.

Here is a story of one of my mis-adventures (with a slightly embellished twist). So, one of our earliest customers at IS invites me over to come show him our new Randgo offering. We have a great meeting, swapping stories and talking about when we met, over 12 years ago. He tells me that the right person to speak to about our new service is his colleague, their HR director. He tells me that he will talk to his colleague and tell him to expect a call from me. He then gives me his colleague's phone number.

I call up the HR man with great excitement, and I speak to his assistant, and I leave a message. She tells me he is on another call and will phone me right back. Babkas!

The next day I try again. And so the mis-adventure has begun. After about 30 messages later I can see this is another paragraph in my memoirs.

A few weeks pass and I thought, what the hell, let me try our man again. And I call, and just like that, he answers his own phone. I tell him how excited I am to finally chat with him and that I have tried so many times to call and chat with him. I tell him that his company is an old customer of mine and that his colleague was going to brief him, and let him know I would be calling. He says he can't remember because it was quite a while ago now. And I say "Yes, you are right, I called you the first time about 2 months ago and I tried and tried to make contact with you." I tell him that I must have left over 30 messages with his assistant and I was just glad to connect now.

He gives me a colourful response. He says "You can't prove you left any messages for me." Ja well no fine. Nice man.

We did chat a little and he said I could email him some information about what we were offering. Which I did, right after I threw salt over my shoulder.

And, then it hit me. A few days later I sent him another email saying that I got his phone message and that we would love to come roll out our new Randgo service at his company and that we can't wait to get started. I went on to say that it was great to hear from him and that I was excited to come and meet him finally.

He emailed back to say he never left me such a message so I replied with "But you can't prove it."

Posted by Ronnie Apteker