Comments on: Who do you love?

By: John Browning

John Browning — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:45:12 +0000

Brilliant piece Derrick! As one who entered the world of outdoor retail in the early 80′s, and progressed to ownership in the 90′s, I experienced what you speak of frequently. I often thought about LBJ’s saying “don’ piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining,” when brand reps would give me their pitch. One example, that sticks in my crawl to this day–long after I exited outdoor retailing–came the day the president of The North Face walked through the door of my store, unannounced, to talk to me about their products showing up in the local Sam’s Club–claiming that they (The North Face) didn’t know where the product came from and it wouldn’t happen again, etc. etc. etc. That was the beginning of the end of a trusting relationship. I’ve got to hand it to the sales rep at the time though, he walked a fine line between his employer and his dealers (the stores), and he bailed as soon as he could — going to an even better brand, even to this day in my opinion. Oh well, my $0.02 . . .

By: DaveO

DaveO — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:34:19 +0000

As a guy who’s been a sales rep for damn near 25 years at the same joint, I can tell you that anyone who uses the ‘bad mouth the other guy’ technique to sell their product is an idiot. If a rep can’t use the good attributes of their product to establish value then I figure they don’t have a very good product. Its good to discuss the drawbacks and improvement opportunities of a product, but nothing (other than my hand carved Greenland paddle, of course) is perfect.

By: silbs

silbs — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:02:38 +0000

Excellent rant and right on the point. Change a few words a republish it as a commentary on politicians.

By: MarcP

MarcP — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:57:09 +0000

Derrick,

Ideas that pop up:

The only thing that accepts everything you offer it is… a garbage can.

I also like a rep that can be openly honest about their company’s warts. Many of those (small kayak) companies don’t like honest reps, though. Hurts their image and especially the owner’s egos.

One thing I try never forgetting about reps is that they are people with kids to feed and cloth, bills to pay. They often HAVE to be more flexible than they’d prefer in order to accomplish that.

I think I recognized myself up there near to where you talked about athletes… hahaha!

I like having my loyalty kept through quality, and also, from a company who demonstrates (e.g. technical or detail improvements) that they listen to their customers. I’ll often pay more for quality and performance when I can afford it.
MarcP