Sales Reps = Lying Bastards

Most of the time they do anyway. One of our larger companies that we deal with just gave us a new sales rep. The old one was experienced, but she was a raging bitch, and a liar. It's very seldom that you'll meet someone in this industry that isn't a liar. We do have one sales rep that I can count on, and he's pretty sharp. Anyway, our new guy came in yesterday for a visit. Sales reps visit us throughout the year because they want to make sure we're still buying books from them, and more importantly still selling them books. The general rule here is if their mouth is moving, they're lying. This guy is with probably our number one supplier. They were with the old owners, so they wanted to make sure they stayed that way with us. Don't think that we're this huge store. We're not. Our campus isn't even very big so it's not like this company is going to go under without us. They just always try to retain any sale they can get. That and we're their only link to this campus. At the beginning of this past semester we wanted to do a large mailer to let students know that we're here, we sell both new and used books, and that we're nicer than their campus store. We did one our first semester to let everyone know we'd changed the store, and that we're new. It worked pretty well, this semester we had high hopes and were going to be really aggressive with it. Two days before the semester started my new sales rep called and said "Hey man, uh...I just now opened this list that you gave me. Yeah...uh...you doin alright? Uh....uh...man...uh...I thought this was a list of e-mail addresses you gave me, and I thought we were doing an e-mail campaign for you. Uh...I guess I'm curious to know what you want me to do?" Rewind for a sec. He's had this list since early October with instructions on what names to mail it to, what we want printed on the cards, and what cards we want. I was confused as to how on Jan 3rd of this year he'd just opened this attachment to see that it wasn't e-mail addresses. The mailer should have hit on Jan 6th. It didn't. I told him not to do anything since he couldn't figure it out. He said "Yeah man, that's cool. If you can get me e-mail addresses I can get that e-mail campaign done today." The campus was closed, getting any information from them was hard when they were open...closed might be just as easy but still improbable. So I told him he'd dropped the ball and he didn't need to do anything. Then he says "Well man...uh...I tell you what...I'm gonna come in like on Monday and take you out to lunch on the company card." I can be bought, it's true. However my price is much higher than lunch on the busiest day of the semester. I told him I couldn't do lunch then and not to worry about it. So he said he'd call back. He is terrible about returning phone calls. This took place on Jan 3rd, and I finally got him to call me back on Friday. He came in for my free lunch yesterday and was supposed to bring a new catalog so we could do a free mailer since they dropped the ball on the last one. He shows up yesterday, pumped up like Hulk Hogan about taking me out to lunch on his company card...without one important thing. The new catalog. He wasn't sure why he needed to bring it for an e-mail campaign. I took this opportunity to lay it out very simple for him..."We're not doing an e-mail campaign through you. I don't have e-mail addresses and can't get them. If I wanted to do an e-mail campaign, I could do it here...myself. You were supposed to bring this new catalog so we could do a new mailer. If you didn't bring the catalog, you shouldn't have come." He'd forgotten on Friday he said he'd bring this new catalog and he'd forgotten all about the mailer he dropped the ball on. Then he starts to question how much money we made this semester, and did we buy and sell with any other companies. These things are not his business. If anyone that's reading ever starts a college bookstore, here is one very important thing to know. One supplier cannot and will not supply you with everything you need. It's impossible. I think that applies to any business, not just this one but I'm no expert. While they may have been the number one supplier in this store since it opened, I think next semester they might be number two or number three. That was my Monday, I hope everyone else's was just as eventful.