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#61
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"nobody" wrote in message om... I'm not supporting lying in any way. But, there is no reason to advertise your mode of transportation. Personally it seems pretentious and ostentatious other than in a passing remark or in response to a direct question to reveal that you are traveling in such style. When somebody asks what time is it, you don't say "Look at my Rolex!" Since 9/11 no one thinks business travel is a perk anymore. Even getting to fly F is seen as merely a lighter form of punishment. All clients cared about were the ticket prices. CWK is right, when cornered we can be honest and justify the flight with the same reasons that we justify the purchase, umm... if we justify the purchase. The fact is that if you're making enough money to seriously consider justifying flying your teams around by private jet, you're probably making a killing on the software. How price-sensitive are your customers now and are you seen as being low-cost or producing an extremely high ROI? To be fair there can be benefits to this too, though. Companies like to feel that they are doing business with winners, more so the higher up the ladder you go. Flying in on your own jet certainly projects that image. Every client will be different. -cwk. |
#62
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The fact is that if you're making enough money to seriously consider justifying flying your teams around by private jet, you're probably making a killing on the software. How price-sensitive are your customers now and are you seen as being low-cost or producing an extremely high ROI? To be fair there can be benefits to this too, though. Companies like to feel that they are doing business with winners, more so the higher up the ladder you go. Flying in on your own jet certainly projects that image. Every client will be different. -cwk. I call BULL! I believe you have carried your point too far. The flexibility to use a private plane when it makes sense could not be such an extreme case. Even coach fares that need connections could run up the bill, and if you can do a tighter schedule by sending a team to a region to hop around for a week, I can see it saving days in the field, hotel, car, meals, etc. Even at over 2k an hour, it could actually work out to being within 2 times or even closer. That may make it worth it for them. Also, it could make it more economical to send a larger team which may have other benefits. Let's say we take two teams of 3 to the left coast to do a total of 4 installs (two each). Instead of 6 round trip coach fares for 3,000, we take the Jet. Coach we have to take Sunday to Friday Night. We also get little productivity out of the teams other than the installs and travel, because they are whipped by the experience of commercial travel and long car drives. Jet or Turbo Prop we may have Sunday to Thursday night and we can have our whole crew in the office on Friday. For every single installer that doesn't get burned out and cause turnover, we save about $40,000 each year (my best guess, but its likely more). Yes, meals and hotels are actually a little more because we have the flight crew, but that likely gets well balanced with free parking. Even if the jet is 3 times the cost of travel, you get 6 employee work days back and likely reduce turnover. So, what if supplementing the existing commercial travel with a Jet costs an extra $400,000 per year. Could it not be worth it to the CEO? BTW, the Jet ride close has long been a successful sales tool in Software. |
#63
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Your salesman moaned because he had a feeling he would end up getting a complaint from the customer on the cost of the travel ticket which would mean more work for him The problem is that the salesman would promise things he couldn't necessarily deliver. For instance, he'd promise that the ticket would cost no more than $300. This would work if we booked the ticket that very minute, but experience showed that booking tickets more than two weeks in advance (unless we bought Y fares which defeats the purpose) was dangerous due to scheduling. And if we had to throw tickets away, he (head salesguy was also the GM) would blame me (head of consulting) for that too. Heads or tails, I lost. From these circumstances you draw the conclusion that the salesmen were idiots? Regularly promising things you can't deliver at a given price (they did it on every part of the deal, not just the travel) fits my definition pretty well. -cwk. Sounds to me like the real idiot was the GM. He likely took the job because he wasn't a good salesman. Then, he likely did a lousy job communicating these issues to his salesforce (likely because he was too busy with his nose up a bunch of arses). So from my perspective, the problem was not so much idiot sales people as it was idiot management. If they had done a better job of working the commissions so that these problems became a money problem to the salesmen, AND given them some control over the process, then it likely would have gone away. Managers can talk to sales people all they want, but all they hear is what the commission plan says. Ignore this at your peril. |
#64
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"Dude" wrote in message ... Your salesman moaned because he had a feeling he would end up getting a complaint from the customer on the cost of the travel ticket which would mean more work for him The problem is that the salesman would promise things he couldn't necessarily deliver. For instance, he'd promise that the ticket would cost no more than $300. This would work if we booked the ticket that very minute, So from my perspective, the problem was not so much idiot sales people as it was idiot management. If they had done a better job of working the commissions so that these problems became a money problem to the salesmen, AND given them some control over the process, then it likely would have gone away. As is so often the case, the GM was former #1 salesguy, and he turned out to be possibly the single most consistently incompetent businessperson I've ever worked with. Worse still, by being the GM, he had no one to watch and keep an eye on the voodoo quotient in his deals. Good at sales does not imply good at management and certainly not vice versa. -cwk. |
#65
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As is so often the case, the GM was former #1 salesguy, and he turned out to be possibly the single most consistently incompetent businessperson I've ever worked with. Worse still, by being the GM, he had no one to watch and keep an eye on the voodoo quotient in his deals. Good at sales does not imply good at management and certainly not vice versa. -cwk. So, now you have 2 incompettent managers, him and the guy he worked for. |
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